May 18, Wednesday

Greetings from China,  

               Today was our full first day in Beijing. Beijing is a very large city with a population of 20 million people in an area that is four times the size of New York. Our first stop for the day was at the DuPont Pioneer Chinese Headquarters located in the Central Business District of Beijing. The lead marketing and sales director, Adrian Gomez, originally from Mexico, discussed with us the operations of Pioneer in China. Erica Wang, the technical agronomist was also present to answer questions.

In China, Pioneer is only allowed to obtain one license for selling seed, that product is corn. Throughout the country approximately 38 million hectares of corn are planted each year. This is the sole reason Pioneer focuses on corn rather than the other crops within their company. The seed is completely produced locally throughout the Chinese provinces. There are 13 research and development locations along with 4 production facilities, these are comparable to what we would see in the United States.

One of the issues Pioneer faces in China is the selling of counterfeit seed. This occurs when people either mislabel seed as a Pioneer brand or steal Pioneer's hybrids and sell it for their own profit. This is controlled by very detailed packaging and labeling such as barcodes and secret codes only to be detected by black light. This is to insure the product is what the farmer is paying for.  

Different from what we are used to in the United States, the amount of seed needed for each farmer is typically smaller. Therefore, the bag sizes only amount to 4,000 kernels per bag. Although Monsanto and Syngenta are large US competitors located in China, the largest competition for Pioneer is the local seed markets. On the other hand, northern China is home to some larger farmers that would be comparable to the United States where as the southern part you will find the smaller farmers. The most popular diseases and pests found in corn are Northern and Southern Corn Leaf Blight along with corn borer. Agronomists in China recommend a spring application of fungicide for larger farmers but it is not economical for smaller farmers to apply.  

Our second stop for the day was with CP Group, a diversified agriculture company from Thailand that is very large in China and 13 other countries. This is the largest laying operation in Asia and the world with a high interest in biosecurity as we were required to enter a disinfectant chamber for 30 seconds before setting foot on the farm. Mr. Yang led the tour through the site that we visited which was their egg laying farm that consisted of 18 laying barns with 167,000 chickens in each barn. With a total capacity of 3 million laying hens on the site they collect around 2.3 million eggs daily. CP Group works with a cooperative leasing 5,000 acres from the local farmers, the poor population, and the disabled for 20 years. This allows for small farmers, the poor, and disabled to obtain a sustainable income to support their families.  

The technology at CP Group is phenomenal. The use of robots to detect temperature in barns as well as the temperature of each hen allows them to have the highest efficiency amongst their laying hens. There is no use of antibiotics and disease is controlled by vaccines, ventilation and the biosecurity measures mentioned above. The breed of chickens at CP Group are Highland Brown and Lumen Brown, these produce brown eggs which are the consumer preference. After 52 weeks of laying the hens are slaughtered and used in soup that is beneficial to pregnant women in the Chinese culture. They are also used as crocodile feed which is located at this site also. The chicken manure is used as organic fertilizer which is applied to the peach farm located on site.

Dr. Gary Stoner, the vice chairman of CP Group also provided some perspective on agriculture relations between the United States and China. He gave us advice about how important critical thinking is. For example, when comparing Chinese and United States numbers in terms of export, production, and yield it is important to take into account the per capita and how it can distort the graph. A large concern in the United States and the world is the decreasing of China's GDP. Dr. Stoner mentioned that we should not be alarmed as this is expected to happen and the overall trend line is still increasing. As far as regulations on GMO importing, Dr. Stoner believes that China will eventually have to accept GMO corn because of the increase in population.  

The day ended with going to the Silk Market. This consists of many different silk products as well as electronics, purses, kids’ toys, and common souvenirs. It was set up like a shopping mall but the fun part was that all prices were negotiable. It was fun hearing who got the best deal and who came home with the most unique items. We were able to obtain some personal items - Sam bought some silk scarves and Scott bartered down the price on some pretty sweet Legos!