Crypto News: Supply Lines: China's suffering farms

Lockdowns, mass testing and travel restrictions have disrupted activity in almost every part of the Chinese economy, but the rural and agricultural sector is likely one of the hardest hit.

Local media and online videos show farmers dumping or destroying healthy vegetable crops in provinces such as Shandong and Henan because of the difficulties in getting them to market. Trucks and merchants cannot enter villages to collect produce due to movement controls and quarantine orders.

In northwest China, hundreds of livestock were reported dead or missing after blizzards struck Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, caused in part by Covid rules that prevented the timely movement of animals and disrupted the supply of feed. Herds of sheep and cattle were frozen in snow as they foraged for food, or because herders couldn't get them to their winter quarters in time.

The livestock losses and destruction of fresh produce come at a time when many in China are under lockdowns and bracing for food shortages and other supply disruptions. The added pressures threaten to drive up food costs which are already elevated, and undercut Beijing's push to safeguard supply and eliminate waste.

It's also another sign of how the rural economy is especially hard hit by China's Covid policies. A shortage of farm labor delayed sowing and harvests, while constraints on transport further reduced sales. While e-commerce has become a new vegetable value chain in China, there are still challenges for smallholders to participate in and benefit from online selling.

More than 500 million people live in China's rural areas. Improving the agriculture sector and livelihoods of farmers has been at the heart of national policy as a way to safeguard food security.

"Citizens want food, farmers want income, and farming seasons wait for no one," Farmers' Daily, a state-backed publication, said in a report. Covid obstacles should be removed "so that fresh vegetables from the fields can be served hot on the tables of thousands of households."

— Hallie Gu in Hong Kong

Corn spat | Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said this week he is willing to go to a trade dispute with the US if the two countries can't reach an agreement on genetically modified corn. Mexico will allow imports of GMO yellow corn for animal feed over the next two years, while the government studies whether the practice can harm human health, he said, adding: "When deciding between health and trade, we opt for health." (Read full story here)

Still falling | A United Nations gauge of food prices fell for an eighth month in November, in the latest sign that inflationary pressures may be easing.
Bigger ships | Ukraine is considering a push for larger ships to use its crop-export corridor, in an effort to bolster volumes as inspection lags slow trade.
Dead turkeys | A record bird flu outbreak in the UK has resulted in culling of almost half of the nation's free-range turkeys for Christmas, according to the poultry industry group.
Wheat risk| Growers in eastern Australia are already battling floods, water-logged fields and crop disease as they prepare for harvest. Now, they're facing washed-out roads and shuttered rail links.
Pricey beer | Heineken plans to boost beer prices where possible next year to offset surging costs for raw materials and energy, particularly in Europe.
Tackling burps | Rumin8, an Australian startup, says giving livestock its lab-made feed additive is an alternative to harvesting vast quantities of greenhouse gas-busting seaweed.

Ukraine storage | Countries, charities — and Ukrainian farmers themselves — will fund roughly 15 million metric tons of additional grain storage, Bloomberg Government reports.
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