• Corn Wars: The farm-by-farm fight between China and the U.S. to dominate the global food supply
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[url]http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122441/corn-wars[/url] [QUOTE]For decades, China has increased corn yields by putting more acres into production, but they’re [B]running out of arable land, and the USDA now estimates that Chinese corn consumption will rise by 41 percent by 2023, far outpacing production increases.[/B] The only tenable way for China to meet its own demand, then, is by [B]planting high-performance hybrids, which can single-handedly double or potentially even triple per-acre corn productio[/B]n. Chinese scientists haven’t developed a significant corn hybrid in years. But [B]Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer, the two American seed giants, have produced so many successful hybrids that they now control 45 percent of all the seed sold in the world. [/B] It was early May 2011, and Mo and Wang Lei, vice chairman of Kings Nower Seed at the time, were driving country roads in Tama County, Iowa, allegedly searching for a DuPont Pioneer test field. But apparently uncertain if he was in the right place or unsure of what kind of seed DuPont Pioneer was testing, Mo had Wang pull to the edge of a field, so they could question a farmer in the midst of spring planting. Mo and Wang told the farmer they had been attending an international agricultural conference at Iowa State and wanted to see someone planting a real cornfield. The farmer was dubious. Ames was nearly an hour away with nothing but expanses of cornfields in between, all at the peak of planting season. How had these two men chanced upon his field on the very day that he happened to be planting an experimental and top-secret seed under development by DuPont Pioneer? The next day, a DuPont Pioneer field manager spotted the same car.[B] He watched Mo scramble up the ditch bank, and then kneel down in the dirt and begin digging corn seeds out of the ground.[/B] When confronted by the field manager, Mo grew flustered and red-faced. He now claimed to be a researcher from the University of Iowa—not Iowa State—on his way to a conference. But before the field manager could question him further, Mo fled. He jumped into the waiting car, and Wang took off, swerving through the grassy ditch before fishtailing onto the gravel road and speeding away.[B] The genetic profile of the blue DuPont Pioneer inbred corn seed, one variety stolen by Mo Hailong in Tama, Iowa, is a closely guarded secret. Farmers planting them are forbidden from keeping the seeds or collecting kernels from the ears they produce, and must sign nondisclosure forms covering the details of their company-mandated planting plans.[/B] When it comes to the Chinese form of capitalism, the line is undeniably murky. The government has taken a strong hand in recent years in encouraging the growth of China’s agricultural sector. [B]In 2013, for example, China’s Shuanghui International entered an overvalue bid to buy Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest producer of pork. [/B]Under questioning by Congress,[B] Smithfield insisted the purchase came without the urging or backing of the Chinese government. But after the purchase[/B] received congressional approval, Nathan Halverson at the Center for Investigative Reporting [B]discovered that the Bank of China, the state bank of the Chinese government, had approved the $4 billion loan for Shuanghui to purchase Smithfield in a single day[/B]—and in China, Shuanghui has touted the support the government is giving them. In the wake of that purchase, [B]the Chinese government has been actively consolidating the country’s seed companies, which currently number more than 5,000.[/B] This consolidation would centralize research, improving China’s ability to develop its own hybrids to compete with giants like DuPont and Monsanto, and it would also allow China to mimic the field-to-slaughter vertical integration that has given meat producers like Smithfield and Cargill such an advantage in the United States. DBN Group is a notable example of a seed company that is booming thanks to consolidation and government assistance. Founded in 1994 by seed-tech whiz kid Shao Genhuo, DBN Group has recently acquired more than 30 feed operations from the Chinese government, and the company runs China Farmer University jointly with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. [B]By targeting Mo and his sister Mo Yun as the leaders of the spy ring, the FBI may hope to incriminate Shao (who is married to Mo Yun)—and, ultimately, implicate Chinese agriculture ministers. But the U.S. government’s argument that the technology behind Roundup Ready soybeans and Bt corn constitutes not just trade secrets but national security secrets[/B] is a problematic one. Companies like DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto like to maintain that they are striving only to feed a burgeoning global population. Last year, Niebur, of DuPont Pioneer China, asked, “Without China’s food security, how can we ever imagine an effective, realistic, sustainable global food-security system?” But DuPont Pioneer’s goal, of course, is not global food security or feeding the Chinese people, but rather increasing market share and profit by keeping China as a customer. And the Department of Justice has taken up the argument that such a goal is not only of importance to our economy but a matter of national security, an unsettling conflation of the interests of large corporations with that of the country itself. [B] Today, it’s estimated that 92 percent of American corn and 94 percent of American soybeans are GMOs, almost all of it produced by Monsanto or DuPont Pioneer, and again, nearly half of the seed sold globally. The federal government considers agricultural products both an asset and a weapon in a long-range geopolitical chess match with China.[/B] [/QUOTE]
[quote]He watched Mo scramble up the ditch bank, and then kneel down in the dirt and begin digging corn seeds out of the ground. [/quote] Man doesn't wait for anything, he just dives right in. Also: [quote]But the U.S. government’s argument that the technology behind Roundup Ready soybeans and Bt corn constitutes not just trade secrets but national security secrets is a problematic one.[/quote] I never thought I'd see the day where corn would be part of national security. Goodness, this whole thing seems strange.
[QUOTE=Vaught;48852273]Also: I never thought I'd see the day where corn would be part of national security. Goodness, this whole thing seems strange.[/QUOTE] It's the age of genetic engineering and modifications. Future advances that countries make will probably become even more closely-guarded, considering we'll need more and more of them to be made to sustain ourselves-- even if we can only manage to do so poorly. We've got to consider all the pressures we'll be under (and are already under) from overpopulation, overconsumption of our natural resources (including depletion of arable land, which is a MASSIVE problem for Asia and China in particular), and above all: climate change. Secrets have always been a thing with goods and knowledge, especially scientific things. GMOs are taking us in an interesting direction. They've always been around, we've been selectively breeding organisms to suit specific purposes/survive for as long as there has been agriculture, but now synthetic biology is enabling new possibilities.
China is certainly keeping thier ears open for any of our corn secrets.
[QUOTE=Mingebox;48852520]China is certainly keeping thier ears open for any of our corn secrets.[/QUOTE] OH YOU!
Everyone is so eager to engineer a plant that produces more Why can't they give vertical farms a chance? It seems like something China could be good at, too
meanwhile the japanese are researching hydroponic plant farms. I'd like to see farming go this way [url]http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/japanese-plant-experts-produce-10000-lettuces-a-day-in-led-lit-indoor-farm-9601844.html[/url]
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;48854187]Everyone is so eager to engineer a plant that produces more Why can't they give vertical farms a chance? It seems like something China could be good at, too[/QUOTE] Vertical farms are untested, require a lot of energy, and require the building of entirely new structures. Genetic engineering is extremely well-tested, still just uses the sun's energy directly, and works on normal fields they already have in place. There's not much incentive to develop vertical farms when you have something that you actually know is profitable as an option. It's an interesting idea, but it's a much less simple solution that involves a lot of development for something that's fairly dubious as to whether it would be beneficial at all.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;48854187]Everyone is so eager to engineer a plant that produces more Why can't they give vertical farms a chance? It seems like something China could be good at, too[/QUOTE] Mostly because the massive energy consumption of vertical farms, plus the massive maintinence costs, also tons of specialised equipment would have to be developed. It might make sense for other things but corn probably wont
[QUOTE=Sableye;48854270]Mostly because the massive energy consumption of vertical farms, plus the massive maintinence costs, also tons of specialised equipment would have to be developed. It might make sense for other things but corn probably wont[/QUOTE] Like I said, it seems like something China would be good at. For a US corporation, it's a risky venture that may not return on investment. For the Chinese government, it's a side project that they can spend petty cash on.
Closed loop aquaponic (yes, with the fish), solar powered, tower farms. :speedfap: Because regular farming is disastrous to the environment.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;48854451]Like I said, it seems like something China would be good at. For a US corporation, it's a risky venture that may not return on investment. For the Chinese government, it's a side project that they can spend petty cash on.[/QUOTE] the chinese have even less expertise though in such projects, the closest analog to vertical farms is the artificial growth chambers that dupont and monsanto use to test dangerous strains of plants or test different conditions for plants
[QUOTE=OvB;48854488]Closed loop aquaponic (yes, with the fish), solar powered, tower farms. :speedfap: Because regular farming is disastrous to the environment.[/QUOTE] How else to grow the world's staple foods; wheat, maize, potatoes, rice, soy, sugarcane, sugar beet, fruits? Sure, you might be able to grow some highly expensive, and[URL="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/why-salad-is-so-overrated/2015/08/21/ecc03d7a-4677-11e5-8ab4-c73967a143d3_story.html"] nutrient poor salad[/URL] in those UV lights indoors chambers. But how is that going to meet the food demands of the world's hungry? [QUOTE] Calories matter because every last one of us needs about 1 million of them each year. They certainly aren’t the only thing we need; we also need vitamins and minerals, fats and protein. But if we don’t have those 1 million calories, other needs fade into the background. There’s not much point in talking about phytonutrients if people are starving. In the calorie department, corn is king. In 2014, average yield in the United States was 171 bushels per acre. (And the world record is an astonishing 503 bushels, set by a farmer in Valdosta, Ga.) Each bushel weighs 56 pounds and each pound of corn yields about 1,566 calories. That means corn averages roughly 15 million calories per acre. By contrast, wheat comes in at about 4 million calories per acre, soy at 6 million. Rice is also very high-yielding, at 11 million, and potatoes are one of the few crops that can rival corn: They also yield about 15 million (although record corn yields are much higher than record potato yields). Other vegetables, while much more nutritious than corn, wheat or potatoes, are far less energy-dense. Broccoli yields about 2.5 million calories per acre, and spinach is under 2 million. We all need those vegetables, but we get our full day’s worth of nutrition from them in a fraction of the 2,000 daily calories we need to get by, leaving plenty of room for inexpensive, easily grown calories that aren’t as nutrient-dense. “Corn has a particular kind of metabolism shared only with 5 percent of flowering plants,”, those plants (called C4, for a four-carbon molecule that’s part of the photosynthesis process) have special cells that make them up to three times as productive as the unfortunate 95 percent. “Corn has adapted to just about every climate that humans have adapted to. Tropical and temperate, dry and rainy, cool and warm.” Which means there’s a huge gene pool to choose from when changing conditions make further adaptation necessary. [B]You could raise a dozen 250-pound hogs on one acre’s worth (assuming corn was all they ate). They’d add up to almost 2 million calories, which means that corn-fed pork has the same calorie-per-acre yield as spinach.[/B][/QUOTE] How would you gonna replace this critical part of agriculture? What will convince, for ex. the farmers of Mato Grosso, wich harvest [B][URL="http://www.peteava.ro/id-520564-jimmy-s-global-harvest-brazilia"]soy 3 times a year[/URL][/B], to construct buildings on those lands they own and do tower farms instead of regular agriculture? And wouldn't that be more detrimental to the environment? The processes that go into the making of the cement,solar panels,plastics,machinery, that they'd have to buy, not to mention the fact that they'd have to hire permanent employees... how can this lead to cheaper, more, and better food?
Hhahahahaha How to feed the world's hungry! Dude, nobody gives a fuck about feeding the world's hungry. With what we actually produce, we could feed them. Hell, african countries rely mostly on subsistence agriculture. As far as everyone is concerned, this battle is only for the markets of usa europa and china, nothing less nothing more. And lets face the truth, if there's hungry people in those countries, is because their government is doing something VERY wrong. You can't say food lacks when there's ton of wheat and meat being thrown away or being used. Otherwise shitty and non healthy at all ways.
Honestly I am not surprised China is stealing our trade secrets. It isn't like they have never done that in the past.
[QUOTE=Cutthecrap;48854642]You can't say food lacks when there's ton of wheat and meat being thrown away or being used.[/QUOTE] I'm aware of this systemic issue, and you're free to come with an appliable solution, if you're so smart. Now, it's not the state's fault that in plenty of developing countries, the rural population makes up more than half of the total population, and that the majority of them still grow crops in the traditional way, and as such the productivity/ha is shitty. Education, financing, and use of genetics is needed in order for the small farmers of Africa to start getting surplus and flood their cities' markets with more and cheap food, and not rely anymore on expensive import food. And I'm not sure how the gov'ts of africa are gonna do anything to help in that regard, considering that [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_government_budgets_by_country"]Nigeria(182mil population) government' budget is as small as Slovenia's(2mil population country)[/URL]. What is needed is non-refundable funds for agriculture(wich should come from the international community of countries imo; if $9 trillion could be used by countries worldwide for the '08 bailouts, so too could they put money towards an agriculture financing fund), in the same way as the EU has done, and an educated rural population that takes the initiative to obtain those funds.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;48854187]Everyone is so eager to engineer a plant that produces more Why can't they give vertical farms a chance? It seems like something China could be good at, too[/QUOTE] Think about how massive those types of buildings would be, the cost, and how unfeasible that is for the grain belt in the us, especially since the chance of them getting hit by a tornado would be common and insanely costly to replace.
[QUOTE=SpaceGhost;48854796]Think about how massive those types of buildings would be, the cost, and how unfeasible that is for the grain belt in the us, especially since the chance of them getting hit by a tornado would be common and insanely costly to replace.[/QUOTE] I think I was pretty clear in implying this is something CHINA should do, not the US. [editline]7th October 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Sableye;48854512]the chinese have even less expertise though in such projects, the closest analog to vertical farms is the artificial growth chambers that dupont and monsanto use to test dangerous strains of plants or test different conditions for plants[/QUOTE] It's basically a bunch of green houses stacked on top of each other, it's not that difficult a system to design.
Whatever happens, there's so many Chinese they can just liquify the undesirable ones who don't make it in society into food for the rest.
[QUOTE=Mingebox;48852520]China is certainly keeping thier ears open for any of our corn secrets.[/QUOTE] Some argue it's bullshit corporations patent and require fees for using certain seeds. The money they spend on R&D is pretty insane though (Monsanto), considering they're the leaders of advanced biotechnology. But some farmers can't afford that, and they'd like high yield/better seeds too. (Not to mention the problems with food distribution around the world in general.) As for many Chinese farmers on the other side of the world, they are probably not too scared about using illegaly obtained U.S. patended seeds lol, but this should be interesting because it's pretty serious business.
[QUOTE=godfatherk;48854609]And wouldn't that be more detrimental to the environment? The processes that go into the making of the cement,solar panels,plastics,machinery, that they'd have to buy, not to mention the fact that they'd have to hire permanent employees...[/QUOTE] The way we farm now pollutes continuously and destroys ecosystems through nutrient run-off. The ocean provides food for billions, but farming actively destroys it. We need to develop [I]some kind[/I] of closed system farming so that fertilizers and other farm-associated chemicals are collected and recirculated rather than dumped into the rivers. [editline]7th October 2015[/editline] By closed system, I mean the water, chemicals, additives, pesticides, etc used in the farming process are recycled into the system rather than dumped. Which is why I used aquaponics as an example: [img]http://i.imgur.com/OPlHISe.jpg[/img] [editline]7th October 2015[/editline] You could do it in the open air under natural sunlight, just as long as it's a sealed system. Would be difficult given the amount of ground you would have to cover with what is essentially a water-tight concrete tub.
[QUOTE=OvB;48855405]The way we farm now pollutes continuously and destroys ecosystems through nutrient run-off. The ocean provides food for billions, but farming actively destroys it. We need to develop [I]some kind[/I] of closed system farming so that fertilizers and other farm-associated chemicals are collected and recirculated rather than dumped into the rivers. [editline]7th October 2015[/editline] By closed system, I mean the water, chemicals, additives, pesticides, etc used in the farming process are recycled into the system rather than dumped. Which is why I used aquaponics as an example: [img]http://i.imgur.com/OPlHISe.jpg[/img] [editline]7th October 2015[/editline] You could do it in the open air under natural sunlight, just as long as it's a sealed system. Would be difficult given the amount of ground you would have to cover with what is essentially a water-tight concrete tub.[/QUOTE] Worth noting this isn't some sort of weird pipe dream SciFi. You can already create aquariums that are almost perfectly isolated (sans light and some basic care in sake of keeping it stable) and the (admittedly underwater) plants supply both oxygen and food for the fish which in turn releases CO2 and breaks down the eaten plant matter. All we need to do is to tune this to a bit higher efficiency and to involve above-ground plants as well.
Do Monsanto and DuPont control 45% of all corn seeds in the world or 45% of all seeds in general sold in the world?
[QUOTE=amorax;48856761]Do Monsanto and DuPont control 45% of all corn seeds in the world or 45% of all seeds in general sold in the world?[/QUOTE] It reads like "all seeds" This is also unfortunate that china is trying to steal the engineering work behind these seeds, I'd like to actually see China participate in the modern world by buying products from the US.
[QUOTE=glitchvid;48857088]It reads like "all seeds" This is also unfortunate that china is trying to steal the engineering work behind these seeds, I'd like to actually see China participate in the modern world by buying products from the US.[/QUOTE] Well, I've been trying to find a source that details seed production by country and the only thing I've been able to find is this link below: [url]http://www.escaa.org/index/action/page/id/7/title/seed-production-in-eu[/url]
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;48856509]Worth noting this isn't some sort of weird pipe dream SciFi. You can already create aquariums that are almost perfectly isolated (sans light and some basic care in sake of keeping it stable) and the (admittedly underwater) plants supply both oxygen and food for the fish which in turn releases CO2 and breaks down the eaten plant matter. All we need to do is to tune this to a bit higher efficiency and to involve above-ground plants as well.[/QUOTE] Aquaponics works great in a personal, small scale farm/garden. Scaling it up to industrial sized, large scale farms might be difficult.
[QUOTE=OvB;48857414]Aquaponics works great in a personal, small scale farm/garden. Scaling it up to industrial sized, large scale farms might be difficult.[/QUOTE] Any links to websites on how to do it yourself? I'm an amateur gardener and I would love to try this out one day.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;48860918]Any links to websites on how to do it yourself? I'm an amateur gardener and I would love to try this out one day.[/QUOTE] No clue, just google around. [url]http://homeaquaponicssystem.com/[/url] looks like a pretty good start.
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