China Agri News Week 41, 2020
This is the news overview of week 41 from the agricultural team of the Netherlands Embassy in Beijing.
Corona gives a boost to Dutch greenhouse builder in China
The construction of a 17.5-hectare greenhouse near the Chinese city of Shanghai is in full swing. The delivery of the first phase is expected in spring. The greenhouse is a cooperation between Dutch company FoodVentures and Chinese real estate developer Evergrande.
FoodVentures CEO Dirk Aleven: "Corona has given a boost to the demand for greenhouse projects in China and the Far East". Although construction was halted briefly due to the corona lockdown, 200 people are now working in shifts to make up for the delay. The way things are looking now, the first cucumbers and lettuce will be produced in the spring of 2021. After the summer of 2021, the complete area will be taken into production (Source: Hortidaily).
China's autonomous agricultural machinery sales surge
China's sales of self-driving agricultural machinery equipment and systems reached more than 11,700 units in the first half of this year, posting strong year-on-year growth of 213 percent.
Since 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and the Ministry of Finance has launched pilot unmanned agriculture programs for different soils, terrains, and crops across the country. And as of September, China had set up 18 unmanned pilot agriculture zones for 14 types of crops in 12 provinces and autonomous regions, covering more than 5,300 hectares of farmland (source: China Economic Net).
Coronavirus isolated from the packaging of imported frozen food in Qingdao
The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Saturday confirmed the detection and isolation of living novel coronavirus on the outer packaging of imported frozen cod in the eastern coastal city of Qingdao.
A total of 2.98 million samples had been tested across the country's 24 provincial-level regions by Sept 15, including 670,000 taken from cold-chain food or food packaging, 1.24 million from working staff, and 1.07 million from the environment. Only 22 samples from cold-chain food or food packaging tested positive for the virus, the China CDC said (Source: Chinadaily)
Custom rejection info for imported food in September 2020
The General Administration of Customs China released a list of non-compliant food products. A total of 218 batches of imported food from 36 countries/regions were rejected in September. Regarding the country of origin, the largest proportion of non-compliant imported food in September came from Ecuador, followed by Japan and Indonesia. As for food category, 30.7 percent were aquatic products, most of which were frozen shrimps. Animal epidemic disease detected accounted for 23.7 percent of all rejections in September (Source: Chemlinked).