China Agriculture View

The continuously rising price of potash fertilizer is constraining the country’s agricultural development, the Economic Information Daily reported Monday.

According to the international potash fertilizer price negotiation disclosed on June 30, the CIF (cost insurance and freight) price of potash fertilizer for import into China was set at $470 per ton for the second half of this year. The price has risen $70 per ton compared to that of the first half of this year, a price increase of 17.5 percent, the newspaper reported.

According to Li Qiang, a spokesperson for Sinochem Group, the international price rise of potash fertilizer is partly caused by the international price rise of raw materials and resources. “However, the most important and fundamental reason is the intensified monopoly of the international suppliers in this field”, the newspaper cited Li as saying.

Feng Mingwei, the deputy general manager of Sinofert Holdings Limited, the largest fertilizer importer in China, said “Our dependence on imported potash fertilizer is at a rate of above 50 percent averagely. It is a threat to our national food security.”

In a bid to cope with the price rises and potash fertilizer shortages, China needed to establish a strategic fertilizer reserve system for the off-season as well as strengthen the “negotiation mechanism of potash fertilizer import”, Feng told the reporter.

BEIJING – China plans to set up strict regulations on pesticide use in response to nationwide concern about the safety of agricultural products.

The crackdown comes as misuse of such chemicals has increased in recent years.

A draft of the revised regulation was posted on the website of the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council on Wednesday for public comment by the end of August.

According to a statement on the website, the revised draft improves the current regulation, which was issued in 1997, in areas of a production register, quality control, marketing, and the use and administrative management of pesticides.

For example, the draft requires pesticide manufacturers to set up systems to record the raw materials and quality of products to ensure that every process in the production conforms to quality standards.

The draft also requires local authorities to conduct reviews of the registered pesticide products and to ban or limit their use in cases where there are risks to product safety, people’s health or the environment.

The move is seen as another major effort by the central government to address safety issues related to agricultural products after the State Council, the Cabinet, announced earlier this month it would ban 10 types of highly toxic pesticides from registration and sale.

China is the world’s largest pesticide producer and consumer, with pesticide production hitting 2.26 million tons in 2009, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

At present, annual usage of pesticides in the country remained at 1.3 million tons, 2.5 times the global average, official figures showed.

The number of registered pesticide products in China has reached 27,000, a sharp increase from 9,747 in 1999. More than 2,000 companies are producing the chemicals, Ministry of Agriculture figures showed.

However, in recent years, incidents involving pesticide misuse have attracted growing concern among the public about food safety.

In February 2010, many provinces banned the sale of cowpeas that had been grown in South China’s Hainan province because high levels of the toxic pesticide isocarbophos were detected.

In April 2010, nine residents in Qingdao, East China’s Shandong province, were poisoned after eating toxic garlic that had been polluted with organic phosphorus.

“The central government needs to crack down on substandard products that are flooding the market,” an industry insider told China Daily on Thursday, without giving his name.

Li Shilin, director of the agricultural technical station in Anhui province’s Fengtai county, said technical services and guidelines on the proper use of pesticides are needed urgently among local farmers.

“Most farmers do not have enough knowledge of pesticides and currently their purchases and use of the chemicals are based on their limited experience,” he said.

“Excessive doses of pesticides used in agriculture can happen easily and may harm public health. But so far, many farmers have not realized this,” he said.

HARBIN, China, Jun 27, 2011 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) — China Modern Agriculture Inc. /quotes/zigman/4669974 CMCI -1.79% , a high-tech livestock company specializing in the breeding of cows and calves, the production and sale of milk, the sale of organic fertilizer, as well as the promotion of agricultural information, announced that it has become the official supplier of SuihuaDongxing Dairy Products worth an estimated USD$1.65MM in gross revenues. In accordance with the Agreement, Dongxing Dairy shall purchase from the Company a total of 4,700 tons of fresh milk at the price of USD$0.355/kg through December 31st 2011.The purchase quantity is subject to 10% adjustment and the price is subject to 5% adjustment for market condition and product quality.The agreement is expected to further expand the dairy market share of China Modern Agriculture in Heilongjiang and steadily promote the Company’s sales of fresh milk.

Through the first nine months of fiscal 2011, the Company increased gross revenues 64% over the same period in 2010, reaching USD$17,201,388 for the first nine months of 2011.

About China Modern Agricultural Information

China Modern Agricultural Information, Inc. is a high-tech livestock company specializing in the breeding of cows and calves, the production and sale of milk, the sale of organic fertilizer, as well as the promotion of agricultural information. For more information please visit http://www.hljzhongxian.com/zx/eng_zx .

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Information

Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements, within the meaning of Section 27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding the success of our investments, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in earnings, our ability to sustain our previous levels of profitability including on account of our ability to manage growth, intense competition, wage increases in China, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, withdrawal of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability and regional conflicts and legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside China. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings including our 8K/A dated March 31, 2011, and other recent filings. These filings are available at http://www.sec.gov/ . We may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time by or on our behalf.

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BEIJING — Prices for Chinese farm produce gained slightly last week, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said on Tuesday.

During the week June 13 – 19, meat prices rose from the previous week with pork up 4.8 percent, beef up 0.6 percent, chicken up 0.5 percent and mutton up 0.4 percent.

Prices of eight aquatic products rose 1.2 percent mostly due to higher costs for transportation in summer.

Prices of flour and rice both climbed 0.2 percent from the previous week. Egg prices gained 0.8 percent week-on-week, but the growth rate was down 0.7 percentage points.

The prices of 18 staple vegetables dropped 1.9 percent for the fourth week running due to plentiful supply.

Producer goods including minerals, construction materials and rubber gained with minerals up 0.6 percent, construction materials up 0.3 percent and rubber up 0.1 percent. Prices of chemical products, non-ferrous metals and steel fell.

Food prices have a key weighting in the calculation of the consumer price index (CPI), a major gauge of inflation, which hit a 34-month high of 5.5 percent year-on-year in May.

BEIJING — China’s Ministry of Agriculture said on Tuesday that the country has nearly completed its summer harvest, with 87.8 percent of its winter wheat gathered by harvesting machines, up two percentage points from one year earlier.

More than 96 percent of the wheat grown in the country’s major agricultural provinces of Henan, Shandong, Anhui, Jiangsu and Hebei was gathered by harvesting machines, a rise of half to one percentage point year-on-year, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

Around 500,000 combine harvesters were put into use across the country during the summer harvest, a rise of 30,000 units year-on-year, the statement said.

Diesel prices remained stable at 7.3 yuan ($1.12) per liter in China’s major agricultural regions during the summer harvest, the statement added.

The ministry said last week that the country will see an increase in wheat output for the eight consecutive year this year.

A farmer stands in a rice field which cannot grow rice due to severe drought in Dapu village, Yuanzhou district of Yichun city, East China’s Jiangxi province, May 19, 2011. Due to unusual lack of waterfalls, Jiangxi was hit by a severe drought that began plaguing in the spring and continued into the summer, which was rare in recent years in the province. The drought left more than 235,000 people short of drinking water and affected vast areas of rice fields. [Photo/Xinhua]

Farmers harvest potatoes in Dabu township, Guilin city, South China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, on Thursday. As the local acquisition price of potatoes dropped by 60 percent to 0.8 yuan (12 cents) per kilogram compared to last year, many farmers are increasingly worried about their income. [Photo/China Daily]

A rash of “exploding” watermelons has hit farmers in eastern China after they sprayed their crops too liberally with growth-accelerating chemicals.
Liu Mingsuo, a farmer from the eastern province of Jiangsu, told China’s state broadcaster that he couldn’t sleep because he kept picturing his precious melons exploding in his field like “landmines”.

“On May 7, I came out and counted 80 (bursting watermelons) but by the afternoon it was 100,” said Mr Liu who told China Central TV that three acres of his melons had exploded. “Two days later I didn’t bother to count anymore.”

Agricultural experts said that the melons had been sprayed with “forchlorfenuron” – a legal additive that is also used in the United States – but that excessive quantities had been used in wet conditions to
try and boost profits by getting the fruit to market early.

In theory China follows many internationally recognised standards for food safety but in practice these are frequently ignored. About 20 farmers and 45 acres of watermelon around the city of Danyang were affected, CCTV added.

China’s government is increasingly nervous about food safety issues after a string of scandals that include melamine-tainted milk, toxic beansprouts, steroid-laced pork and meat that ‘glows in the dark.