2013 China Ag Class

May 15 

               Today was our first day in Beijing. We started our morning on the bus learning about traffic laws they have here like – You can only drive on days according to your licenses plate number, if you don’t wear your seatbelt it’s a 200 Yuan fine and 3 point cut to your license (once 12 points have been taken you have to go back to driving school), if you get a DUI it cost you 4500 Yuan (750 U.S. dollars) and you automatically have to go back to driving school.

                Next we went to the Pioneer head quarters here in China and they discussed their business with us. China is the second leading corn producer in the world. A problem they face is counterfeit seed. China has 20% of the world population, but only 9% of the arable land in the world. Since the people do not support genetically modified grain, it limits their hybrids to just 30 with only 1 or 2 actually available. With that said, a bag with 4400 kernels in it is just 9 U.S. dollars and has doubled in the last 3 years here on price. We also lightly touched on the planting season this year and learned that within the next 2 weeks it should be wrapped up.

               Following the info on corn, we jumped right into the soybean side of China by having someone from the United States Soybean Export Council speak to us. China is the largest soybean export market in the U.S. They import 70 million metric tons of it annually (close to US total production), mainly for cooking oil and livestock feed. None of this is used for bio-fuels because they do not have a market for it. China can only produce 14 million metric tons of soybeans a year but help by importing about 24 million metric tons just from the U.S.  China’s land size is similar to the U.S. but the population is very different. They have a lack of natural resources to produce more.

               Following our dinner at the silk market today we went into the market and bartered for items such as silk scarf, luggage, North face jackets, suits, watches and more. There is no set price for the items like in the U.S. so you have to come to an agreement on a price. We all had lots of fun and really enjoyed ourselves bartering for items. Too bad it’s not like that in the US.  It’d be a lot more fun shopping!

               Our last stop today was to the CP group. We were the first group of our kind to take a tour like this and discuss with them their world-wide business based out of Thailand. Their 3 principles of the company are as follows: 1. Benefit the people, 2. Benefit the country, 3. Benefit the company. China has the potential to expand more into raising their own pork and according to Dr. Gary Stoner, and has the potential to sufficiently supply themselves without U.S. imports that only make up less than 1.6 % of their national consumption. This company is the 2^nd leading pork producer in the world behind Smithfield. Tomorrow we are looking forward to going to the Great Wall and meeting our rival school, NDSU, at the China Agricultural College, China’s #1 ag college.

 City lights

 

 CP

 

 DuPont

 

 DuPont Building

 

US Soybean Export Council