Chinas Farm Expansion Changing Imports
Reuters recently reported that worldwide, the United States exported an all-time record of $664.1 million worth of live breeding animals, semen and livestock embryos last year, an 82% jump in two years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service.
Last year, Chinese companies bought $41 million worth of live breeding animals and genetics — up nearly threefold from five years ago, according to USDA FAS. In the first two months of 2012, China imported 62% of the total number of U.S. breeder pigs brought in for all of 2011.
“When you have a nation’s diet changing as rapidly as China’s, the most efficient way to build up production is to improve your animal genetics,” said Ronald Lemenager, a professor of animal sciences at Purdue University in Indiana. “We have the genetics they want. Genetics and nutrition go hand-in-hand,” said Mike Phillips, president of the trade group U.S. Livestock Genetics Export Inc. in Salem, Illinois. “The more they use our genetics, the more they’re going to need to import corn and soybeans from the U.S. and elsewhere.”
A more recent article in DeltaFarmPress.com concludes with, “The agricultural technology that gave US farmers a competitive advantage for many years is now spreading worldwide. And while the sale of that technology may continue to benefit a small number of farmers and agribusinesses, it also means that most U.S. producers of meat and grain face an increasingly competitive worldwide agricultural marketplace”.