US Agricultural Product Layout in Shenyang Sounds Alarm for China's Largest Granary

China Daily website Shenyang report: On September 17, the US Department of Agriculture unveiled its agricultural trade office in Shenyang, a central city in Northeast China. This is the fifth office the department has established in China, following Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu. At this point, the US strategic layout for agricultural products in China has reached China's most core granary.

According to a press release provided by the US Consulate General in Shenyang, the Shenyang agricultural trade office aims to help promote and sell US agricultural, fishery and forestry products in Northeast China.

US Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Jim Miller, who made the special trip to unveil the office, also made no attempt to conceal America's ambitions regarding Northeast China. He said: "Opening a fifth trade office in mainland China marks the US Department of Agriculture's expansion to the center of Northeast China. As one of China's international trade centers, Shenyang offers ample opportunities for US agricultural exports."

Northeast China is the main producing area for China's soybeans, corn and japonica rice, and is one of China's largest granaries. The US Department of Agriculture setting up an office here undoubtedly represents America's attempt to further strengthen its occupation of China's agricultural product market.

Previously, some experts had already expressed concern about this. Relying on its absolute technological advantage in the field of genetically modified food, the United States has already begun to increasingly win a dominant position in the world's grain seed market. Once US genetically modified grain seeds are promoted on a large scale worldwide, grain seeds cultivated locally in other countries will likely be quickly squeezed out of the market. This will lay a solid foundation for the United States to control the world's food supply at the source.

One of the crops most suitable for cultivation in Northeast China is soybeans. The import of US agricultural products, especially soybeans, may deal a huge blow to agriculture in Northeast China and bring disastrous consequences to local farmers.

"We have always said the wolf is coming, and this time they have really come into the house. As long as a trade office is set up, genetically modified agricultural products will soon come in," said Li Xiaobo, an international trade expert at Shenyang Agricultural University. Li said that Northeast China is a potential untapped market for the United States, and as Northeast China further opens up, US agricultural products are bound to pour in in large quantities, including many "dangerous foods" such as "genetically modified soybeans."

Previously, as China's agricultural product market opened to the United States, US genetically modified agricultural products such as soybeans and corn poured in like a tide, and in just a few years they controlled China's market. According to data from the China Chamber of Commerce of Import and Export of Foodstuffs, Native Produce and Animal By-Products, China's soybean imports reached 42.552 million tons in 2009, of which imports from the United States reached 21.809 million tons, accounting for 51.3% of total imports.

According to a CCTV report in March, because the price of imported soybeans was too low, a large number of soybean processing enterprises in Heilongjiang Province, China's main producing area for non-genetically modified soybeans, had already stopped production.

In addition, these genetically modified soybeans imported from the United States have not undergone credible health tests at all, and have therefore also been boycotted by many international organizations. Li Xiaobo worries that once imported genetically modified agricultural products occupy the market, they will not only threaten people's health, but also endanger the interests and survival of local farmers.

"I heard that the American 'counterparts' have large government subsidies. If their products come in, then we definitely won't be able to compete," said Sister Chen, a farmer in Liaozhong County, Shenyang, who is deeply worried about this.

"While Americans see business opportunities, we should see warning signs," Li Xiaobo said.