China Brief Agricultural News Week 16, 2020

Nieuwsbericht | 22-04-2020 | 09:50

A lot of Attention for Digitalization of Agricultural E-commerce

Bright Food Group Shanghai Farm actively promotes and pushes for digital transformation. They try to better serve agricultural operations, production, and distribution by combining cloud computing, mobile internet, and big data with traditional agriculture practice. For more info on the digitalization and modernization on the distribution of agricultural products, and how the government supports big e-commerce businesses, see our article here: Shanghai to Support the Rapidly Developing Fresh Fruit E-commerce.

First Successful 5G Plant Protection Drone Tested

Chongqing's first 5G network plant protection drone was successfully tested at the scientific research base of Chongqing Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The drones is equipped with an integrated UAV plant protection system and a remote sensing big database (Source: Farmers Daily Paper).

China to Construct Hundreds of Cold Chain Facilities

This year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs will initiate the construction of a cold chain logistics facility for the storage and preservation of agricultural products. The new construction focusses on four levels: 

• At least 100 cold chain logistics bases for agricultural products will be built. Enterprises and social capital investors will account for the majority of the investment. Government investments will not exceed 50%. 
• 300 warehouse cold chain facilities for local agricultural products will be built. The projects will be set up in China's special agricultural product advantages zone, and large counties (urban areas) and will support the vegetable, fruit, meat, and aquatic product production. Investments will be controlled centrally and will cost an estimated 20 million yuan per project. 
• Township warehouse cold chain logistics facilities.
• Village-level storage and fresh-keeping facilities

Source: China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (Chinese only)

Chinese Herbs are Popular

In the first quarter of 2020, the export of Chinese medicinal materials and Chinese patent medicines increased substantially. In the first quarter, China's exports of Chinese medicinal materials and Chinese patent medicines were close to 33,000 tons, an increase of 10.3% year-on-year; the export value was 1.88 billion RMB (about 243 million euros), a rise of 3.2% year-on-year (source Chinese only: Chinese Customs Website).

Seafood Export Sees Decrease

Following the epidemic situation, many countries have strengthened the sanitary inspection and quarantine of imported products, if not banned. As a consequence, China's aquatic products exports reduced with 800 thousand tons, a decrease of 21.1% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2020 (source Chinese only: Chinese Customs Website).

Canned Foods Exports Increased

In the first quarter, China's canned food exporting to ASEAN increased with 28.4% year-on-year (source Chinese only: Chinese Customs Website).

Grain importing increased with 5.7%

To ensure sufficient market supply and stable prices, grain imports of China have increased significantly. In the first quarter, China's grain imports were 24.06 million tons, an increase of 5.7% year-on-year. However, the import value did not change much. It was 62.12 billion yuan, an increase of 0.1% over the same period of last year. In other words, China spent almost the same amount of money as last year but bought more grain than last year (source Chinese only: Chinese Customs Website).

Import pork increased with 70%

China has also stepped up its procurement of meat from the global market. According to the statistics of GACC, China imported 951 thousand tons of pork in the first quarter, an increase of 70%. Among the import, 168 thousand tons of pork was imported from the United States, an increase of 6.4 times, worth 3.04 billion yuan an increase of 16 times (source Chinese only: Chinese Customs Website).

Landscape Sector Suffers Significant Losses

In the first quarter, the landscape sector as a whole suffered significant losses. The landscape sector in China includes operations such as seeding, nursery stock plantation, trees and shrubs planting, plantation for gardens and greening project in public, urban landscaping plan, landscape design for afforestation plan initiated by government or real estate, and maintenance management. As of April 12th, several listed companies, namely, Tiehan Ecology, Meichen Ecology, Meng Cao Ecology, Meishang Ecology, Nongshang Environment, and Hangzhou Garden released the first quarter performance forecast for this year, and four companies suffered substantial losses. 

• Tiehan Ecology suffered the most significant loss, namely an estimated 195 to 200 million yuan in the first quarter of 2020. However, in the first quarter of 2019, the company also suffered a loss of 93.42 million yuan. 
• Meichen Ecology suffered a loss of approximately 49 to 54 million. In the first quarter of 2019, the company made a profit of 89.033 million yuan. 
• Meishang Ecology suffered an estimated loss of 31 to 36 million yuan in the first quarter of 2020. In the first quarter of 2019, the company made a profit of 11.1244 million yuan.
• Meng Cao Ecology suffered a loss of approximately 15 to 20 million in the first quarter of 2020. In the first quarter of 2019, the company made a profit of 20.172 million yuan.

According to an announcement released by the listed enterprises, most companies will be issuing shares and bonds (source Chinese only: CHLA).

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