U.S. Embassy, Birthdays, and a Party!

June 27, 2008- Friday
We woke up early and went for a run and then prepared to visit the U.S. Embassy. We knew that we were going to be talking to the people from the Foreign Ag Service, but when the two van loads of us arrived there, we were actually at the Foreign Ag Service office building. A graduate student in Agricultural Economics from California was the one to give a presentation on what the FAS office does. She’s been in China off and on for a couple of years researching the issues with water quality. She was fascinating! She showed many power point slides about agricultural issues facing China, America, and the rest of the world.

Our visit to the Foreign Agricultural Service of the United States Embassy gave us some interesting insight into the demographics of Chinese agriculture and foreign trade. The Foreign Agricultural Service of the U.S. Embassy is in all of the key countries and even in other cities in China. They do a lot of background research for the United States, looking at what happens in China and how it will affect American agriculture. The USDA has 45 employees in China and that is our largest overseas presence. There are offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.

With all of the arable land in China that can be used, being used, they have to find better ways to feed the people. Agriculture here contributes 11 percent of the GDP, industry is 49.5% and services is 39.5%. Agriculture in China employs 43% of the labor force. Here there are 10 people to feed per hectare of arable land, which is more than twice the world average of 4.4. We have learned in class about the reform that occurred in Chinese agriculture in 1978 when the process went from the commune system to individual farmers. This bestowed ownership, investment, and interest on the farmers causing them to be more productive and benefit much more from their work. Compared to the commune system, where they were paid the same amount no matter how hard they worked or how much was produced, the farmers are in a much better position. Renee said that there are 680 million people farming on those small plots of land. The major challenge comes when those people need to stay satisfied, sustained, and employed, but their efficiency needs to be increased. Her statement was that it is not possible in China to consolidate the small plots of land covering the gigantic landscape. The land is contracted by the provinces to the farmers for 30 years at a time and those contracts will probably be passed down to family members at the end of those 30 years. The state doesn’t just come in and take it; it goes to the next generation. The people cannot afford to buy tools and in rural areas they are starting to encourage farm cooperatives, but people do not go for it. It is starting to work in wealthy areas, but the piece of land each farmer has is the only thing they have. If they trust other people and combine their land, they are risking everything.

Many American companies have market share in China. A key point that our host, Renee, hit on was that water scarcity issues is a main problem for Chinese agriculture. She said that John Deere, an American owned company, is the 3rd largest irrigation systems producer in the world. They are able to sell their irrigation products here and they would like to be able to sell machinery, but with the plots of land being so small, the farmers are not able to afford it or use it practically. Another company she talked about was Tyson foods. She said that with 1.3 billion people to feed, the quality chicken and pork that Tyson produces definitely performs well in the market.

Renee reminded us that for the last ten years, China’s Gross Domestic Product growth has been above 10% per year. This is causing huge growth in the middle class, and as more people start having more money, they are buying more meat. The spike in the interest for meat causes an increase in the need for grain. The people of China would like to produce almost 100% of the food they consume, but it is just not possible for them to produce enough with all of those mouths to feed. Of the Chinese average household income, 66% goes to pay for food consumed whereas in the United States 10% of the income goes to pay for food. Even though China is the world’s largest producer, they are the worlds largest demand by volume of food. As the prices around the world go up, this income percentage for Chinese citizens is even higher. The United State import deficit with China is at 27%, meaning we import 27% less from China than what they do from us. Currently, the country of China says that they do not produce any genetically modified foods. They may have to resort to this measure as they look to increase the amount of food they produce. Many of the soybeans that they import from the United States are likely genetically modified and most of them go to feed Chinese livestock.

The Chinese have a huge market for pork as 47% of the entire world’s pork is consumed here. However, they are not accepting any pork at this time from the United States because of a feed additive they are concerned about. Furthermore, the Sichuan province which was the one affected by the earthquake, was the largest producer of pork in the country. As the price of pork goes up with the lack of imports from the U.S. and the decrease of production from the Sichuan province, the Chinese will have to further sacrifice their income for food. United States beef has not come to China since 2002 because of their fear of Mad Cow Disease.

The Chinese are able to make some income as a result of some of their exports. They are the largest exporter of aquatics to the United States and although their apples do not come in as apples they do come in as juice. China is the world’s largest producer and exporter of Apple Juice!

Although more and more people in the rural areas and 131 million transit workers in urban areas are consuming more protein, the people in rural areas such as Inner Mongolia do not have refrigerators so they only get their protein one day a week. The Foreign Agriculture Service works to improve agricultural mechanization, post harvest treatment, and distribution to insure better life for the people of China and a better connection between China and the United States. No where else in the world is there a market like China. The citizens are ready to consume more value added products and we as a United States producer of food, need to be ready to be competitive people in the market. Renee touched on the fact that since in China they are only allowed one child per family, the one child is provided with whatever they want and need, causing obesity concerns for the current generation.

In 1995, the Chinese producers were exporting soybeans now they are huge importers. As time goes on, that will probably happen with other grains. Imagine if it does!
As consumers in China become more educated they are demanding Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) and with a large percentage of the Chinese consumer expenditure spent on dining out, there are become more and more regulations on food preparation in restaurants.

When I asked Renee about the Chinese stance on renewable fuels, she said that they started production of corn based ethanol, but capped it rather recently because of the inflation prices. They are looking at other sources such as methanol production from animal waste.

When Melissa asked about their methods of educating the public and the producers on agriculture Renee told us that most of the farmers cannot read so they have a TV channel that shows agricultural news and recommended practices. When a question came up about Sustainability, Renee told us that the public is concerned, but it is pretty challenging since this is the country where everything in the world is produced. Pollution is such a big player in this game of protecting the environment.
Renee gave us her business card so that we could email her with questions as we start to prepare for our final papers and on the way out I asked her if she’d be able to email us the power point if we emailed her. I had taken notes, but I knew I didn’t catch all of it. She said that reminded her she wanted to give us the power point on CD’s and in hard print! Yes!

We came back for lunch and decided to try the Chinese fast food place that isn’t very far from our campus at all. We run by it almost every morning. It was okay. All that I ordered was rice, but the stuff other people got didn’t look that good. For example, Nick got some kind of chicken soup type stuff that still had a foot of the chicken and the head in it. He worked around those items. It didn’t matter how our lunch was as we stopped at a bakery on the way home and snagged some good eats. Ashe got a slice of a strawberry cake and I got chocolate. It wasn’t your normal cake either- it had chunks of fruit in it, but it was good.

Our afternoon class was the agricultural portion of our curriculum. Nia talked about irrigation has the highest return on investment compared to most other agricultural input costs. You know, we hear so many different numbers from different tearchers and field trips, but they are all usually about the same. She said, that with 10% of the world’s arable land, China feeds 22% of the world population. She hit on the fact that intellectual property rights prohibit seed U.S. seed from being sold in China. I am not sure if that is right or not. I know that intellectual property rights prohibit anyone from being able to save seed from their own crop and plant it the next year rather than buying new from a company, but since another teacher told us that companies such as Pioneer and Monsanto are prevalent here, I would think that their seed would be sold here.

Earlier in the day, DangFong said we would be going to a restaurant for Nick’s birthday that night and then informed us that it was also her birthday! She led us down the street from our hotel to a restaurant we had been at before. This is where we had previously eaten the roast duck. We separated into two tables as we had our whole group, DangFong and her son, and Sarah, the World Food Prize student from Iowa who is studying here and going with us on our touristy excursions. DangFong did all of the ordering and once again, platefuls of food came out one right after the next and were placed on the lazy Susans in the middle of our table. Some of the food included: a dish of celery and onions cooked in some sort of sauce, sprouts, a cabbage salad type thing, a couple of different types of soup including an fish one that had the head of the fish in it, some different chicken dishes, Beijing roast duck, and some other stuff that I cannot remember. Another dish that was thrown in there was corn that tasted like corn puffs coated in sugar and served with a sugary sauce. It was great. After we had stuffed ourselves with this food, DongFang pulled out an elaborate box with a big ribbon on it. She instructed Nick to cut the ribbon off and inside we found more food, a cake! It was huge and lived up to the Chinese reputation of exquisitely decorated food. We all ooo and awed over it and then we sang “Happy Birthday” to Nick and DangFong. I think she really enjoyed it. They cut the cake up for all of us and even though the pieces were huge the bakery only provided small serving plates. Also, since they have no forks in China, the bakery provided small little forks you might use to pick up a strawberry with for fondue. It was fun trying to eat the cake that way. Eventually, we resorted to chopsticks. We insisted to DongFang that we pay as it was an American tradition to do so on someone’s birthday and we were not letting her pay for all of that food we just ate. I think she appreciated that as well. She’s great.

That evening we were to go to a party hosted by the Chinese students. Our dinner with DangFong ran over, making us about 45 minutes late to the party, but it worked out just fine. Greg, one of our tour mates, was the representative from our group to MC the event and they had a representative do the same. I think most of us expected the event to be in a similar classroom to the one we had been gathering in and that we’d do similar type things as the previous two days. Boy, were we wrong. We climbed the stairs to the top floor to find a big room filled with chairs around the outer edges and tables covered with all kinds of pop and snacks. There was a stage, dance party lights, and they were blaring “Backstreet Boys,” a mid-90’s American pop music group that we have heard a lot of here. The only thing missing was a disco ball. We walked in, looked at each other, and all thought to ourselves, “Let’s just go for it.” We spread ourselves out amongst the 50-60 Chinese students who were there and let the party begin! One of their students played a string type instrument and another one played a horn of some sort. Two of them sang a duet of the Olympic Theme Song, “Welcome to Beijing.” I will download that song when I get better internet, I love it! One of our girls, Johanna, taught simple ballet moves and it was so funny because the Chinese boys joined in. When that happened, Greg, our representative host, got on the microphone and encouraged the American boys to do the same. It was awesome to look around at their faces.

Paige led them in a popular American dance similar to the Cha Cha Slide, but I can’t think of it’s name. We played a few rounds of musical chairs and a couple of rounds of telephone spacing the Chinese and American students every other spot. We did it in two separate teams. The leader whispered the name of the school into the first Chinese student’s ear and he simply told the American student just tell them it is the name of the school. That is what we did and the info didn’t get messed up. Otherwise, I know we would have never made it. One of their students did some Tai Chi for us and another one did some martial arts moves with some num chucks. The entertainment was endless. The had us cut out Chinese the Chinese character for happiness from lines they had drawn on folded over paper (it was similar to making a paper snowflake). We handed out our CD’s and even though we didn’t have enough (we only had about 45) they agreed to share and seemed really excited about them. One guy asked what they were, which was odd since normally they seem pretty technologically advanced, but after some explaining he knew what to do with the. We did some more dances and the night was over.

We thanked them and headed to our hotel. We hung out in our rooms for a while, but didn’t get too rowdy because we had a big day trip to the Summer Palace the next day, a famous Beijing icon, the next day.