Sino-US food war: 1.4 billion people's jobs are "stuck", how can domestic seeds turn things around?
The Food Crisis of the 21st Century
Perhaps the most threatening threat today is not a thermal weapons war, but a food war. Based on the global changes brought about by food security, countries are now preparing their own strategic grain reserves and preparing for possible future food crises. Even in the 21st century, there is a food crisis. It sounds far from us, but it is not unfounded. It is a real threat and it is difficult to be detected by people, especially in today's game of great powers. When everyone's eyes are still focused on economic and military aspects, in fact, the competition between countries is culture and food. Today, we are facing major changes unseen in a century. The new crown epidemic, the Russian-Ukrainian war, and the deterioration of the global climate are all bringing uncertainty to global food security. In addition, China is also preparing to adjust the agricultural structure at any time to prevent and respond to frequent natural disasters. There are still many problems in the domestic agricultural structure. According to Song Min, a researcher at the Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the arable land area of domestic agriculture is more and more restricted, and the potential for developing agricultural production capacity through other means is getting smaller and smaller. At present, the contribution rate of improved varieties of grain production has reached 45%. The key and core of how to improve agricultural production in the future lies in the seeds. As a country with large resources, China pays great attention to the collection and preservation of resources while its grain output is gradually increasing. Seeds that seem to be inconspicuous are related to the fate of the real people. To say that the root of agriculture is not only the selection of land and agricultural methods, but the most important thing is the selection of seeds. But when it comes to seed storage and diversity, it's the United States that remains the best. The United States has 550,000 crop material resources, and China has 520,000 copies, ranking second in the world. From the perspective of agricultural performance, Chinese seeds are in the world's leading position in the breeding level and yield of rice and wheat. But this does not mean that we can take it lightly, China still has many shortcomings in seed storage. It is believed that many people have imported a large amount of basic crops such as soybeans and corn every year until China, and the expenditure on this part is as high as hundreds of billions of dollars every year. In addition, with the improvement of people's material level, China also relies more on imports in terms of sugar crops and meat varieties to meet domestic meat demand. Domestic demand for meat is also very high. Industry insiders said that the current development of China's agriculture is in a period of stagnation and a low period of profit growth. The small and scattered shortcomings of Chinese seeds have not changed. There are more than 6,000 seed companies in the country, but less than 100 companies can actually carry out breeding innovation and have market competition. We have a strong navy today, excellent aviation performance, and a thriving economy, but we don't have a strong seed business. This is very dangerous in the future. On the other hand, the seed companies in the United States are richer than China in terms of seed development and seed conservation. As the saying goes, people rely on food for the sky. In today's food war, the contest between China and the United States has begun to reveal that how to solve the problem of 1.4 billion people being stuck in their jobs may be a problem that needs to be faced in the near future. Seed Wars
Although China is a big agricultural country, it has never been an agricultural power. Soybean, domestic production has developed since the 1980s. my country is not only the largest soybean producer in the world, but also the largest soybean importer. As of 2020 soybean import data, China's annual soybean production has reached 20 billion kilograms, but the import volume is five times that. As a common seed, soybean has many applications. The proportion of soybeans in agriculture is extremely important. The first is oil extraction. The domestic diet structure and industrial application determine the direction of soybean oil, not to mention the needs of 1.4 billion people in China. Then there is the feed. Soybeans can be put into the breeding industry as feed. In this way, due to the huge demand for soybeans, the farming industry will also be affected by the level of soybean production. For this reason, China has to import more soybeans to meet the needs of farmers. If soybeans are affected, it will affect livestock breeding, which will affect the price of meat, which will eventually reflect on people's livelihood and become a livelihood issue. Most domestic agricultural production is dominated by small farmers. The biggest difference between Chinese agriculture and American agriculture is fully automated production. The United States has unique advantages in this regard. Some may say the benefits of China's plains, the Yangtze River Delta. But that's still a little thin compared to American agriculture. Geographically, there are not many areas in China that can realize large-scale automated production. Except for a few large inland plains, almost all small farmers produce. The agriculture in the central and eastern regions of the United States is developed, the land is vast and the population is sparse, and the per capita arable land is abundant, which can meet the basic conditions for automated production. In contrast, the reduction of labor costs brings about the embodiment of agriculture's economic advantages. In contrast, foreign automated agriculture has more advantages. Let’s take a look at the competition and disadvantages of meat. Taking pork as an example, the three major pig breeds with the highest sales and share in the world are Danish Landrace and British Yorkshire pigs. and American Duroc pigs. And these three major pig breeds have a market share of more than 90% in my country. Local pig breeds in China, such as the Chenghua pig in Sichuan, almost faced extinction. With the introduction of foreign pig breeds, the structure of local pig breeds has been deconstructed, and 31 of more than 100 local pig breeds are now at risk of extinction. Speaking of this, some people may understand something. If China is sanctioned by the United States in terms of today's agricultural structure and food demand, then the problem of food shortage may not be faced by China. Sichuan Chenghua Pig is also facing a certain crisis. In fact, this worry is not an exaggeration, and the United States is indeed doing it. The difference between kiwifruit and kiwifruit lies in the different breeding, but this is actually a seed exported from China, which was later bred in New Zealand to produce a yellow-hearted kiwifruit. Why the soybean issue is so hot in agricultural discussions today is precisely because we have seen the threat posed by American agribusiness in the past. The demand for soybean seeds in the United States began as early as the late 19th century. During this period, the United States began to collect soybean seeds everywhere, and purchased a large number of local soybean seeds from domestic farmers in China. Crossing the ocean, selling at high prices, but we didn't realize the importance of seed banks at the time. It was not until a hundred years later that we realized that the United States has mastered 20,000 soybean seeds. These 20,000 copies are equivalent to independent data that can help the United States establish new breeding, crossbreeding and genetic selection strategies. Food Apocalypse
Familiar chemicals such as DDT and Agent Orange are produced by Monsanto, the largest leading agricultural enterprise in the United States . GMO soybeans in the U.S. have a feature. In the agricultural chemical glyphosate, most plants cannot withstand its strength, but Monsanto's GMO seeds can. Tolerance options for different herbicides At first, Argentina imported a large amount of soybean seeds from the United States in order to meet the domestic demand for soybeans. Although the problem was quickly resolved, the newly exposed phenomenon has become a pain point for Argentina's agriculture. With the increase in the import volume of soybean seeds, the local soybean seeds have not been effectively preserved, and the imported seeds are difficult to preserve the planting opportunities for the second year. It can be said that they are consumed once they are planted. The increase in import demand also led to higher import prices, and the Argentine soybean seed market soon came under the control of Monsanto. Argentine soybeans barely survive the toss of nature In 2000, Monsanto decided to charge royalties to Argentine agriculture. But this cost is too high for farmers to bear, and the Argentine government has no way to solve the problem of insufficient domestic soybean seeds. As a result, Argentina's soybean agriculture was instantly reversed by Monsanto, which became an important factor in destroying Argentina's agriculture. Now that the United States and China have launched a trade war and technology blockade, we truly feel that the national struggle is not far away from us. Just in the past few years, Western countries have imposed sanctions on Russian agriculture. After the Russian-Ukrainian war, the US-led agricultural giants launched a seed war against Russia, which hit Russia's potato and sugar beet markets hard. Faced with such a situation now, the only thing we can take out and deal with temporarily is China's wheat and rice. As the domestic basic grains, wheat and rice are the main grains of the Chinese people, so we don't have to worry about this. But in secondary grains like soybeans, potatoes, and corn, we still need to prepare for a potential crisis. This is not only related to the lives of 1.4 billion people, but also to the development of the country.