@Team Blue and the reason why he distrust Monsanto...LOL
Chinese Economics Thread
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Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
I guess that is not direction to go It is expensive to tunnel thru the Himalaya to channel water to Xinjian though they start doing some study and feasibility engineering. But China has a lot of Saline Alkali soil and unproductive land that can be recover to productive land and a lot of study has been done and experimental farm tested They should increase the acreage this year. the trick is to rehabilitate the land and find rice seed that can thrive in those soil
China coast as well is saline alkali soil due to proximity to the coast and then huge land in Xinjiang.
Saline alkali soil in guangdong turn productive
A barren land in Xinjiang turn productive
Saline alkali soil close to the coast Qingdao
The main limiting factor for converting desert into farmland is water. There is no readily available water source near the Taklamakan desert. With the greening of the Gobi desert there is at least the Yellow river to rely on with water transfer projects. It seems more economically feasible to improve existing farmland than to transfer massive amounts of water to an inland desert.
Furthermore the slowing population growth means that demand for food will eventually flatten in the next couple of decades. The cost of a massive multi-decade water transfer project into the Taklaman desert would have to contend with the growth of food prices slowing when the demand flattens. This doesn't even address the question of the long-term sustainability of the water supply.
How abo GMOs? I am sure that they can modify the seeds so that some crops need less water, can withstand harsher conditions (desert, warm weather, etc), require less maintenance etc
GMOs have a bit of stigma attached but ultimately thats the final solution for China's historical food shortages.
China is already commercializing GMOs. The resistance to GMO adoption is more from public/consumer sentiment than the government. GMO crops are also not necessary to create more resistant strains. The new saline-alkali soil tolerant rice was developed by crossbreeding different varieties of rice and was not a GMO crop (people are fine with changing genetics by crossbreeding but not genetic engineering???). The ultimate problem with growing crops in the desert is that there is no water, not that there is less water. It doesn't matter if a crop requires less water if there is no water to begin with.
I would not worry about food shortages due to not enough agricultural land. The population growth is slowing meaning food demand will flatten/stabilize (there is an upper limit to the number of calories a single person can consume per day). In this case the problem changes from not enough agricultural land to how to create sustainable agricultural land. What I mean by sustainable is how do you keep the crop yield from a piece of farmland the same/steady for the next hundred years? When the government talks about sustainable agriculture and "green"/"environmental" practices this is the problem that is being addressed.
Vis a vis GMO regulation, there is a genuine health concern vis a vis allergies. If you understand how allergies work, it is a reaction to proteins. For instance, in cold resistant corn, the cold resistant protein comes from Arctic fish DNA/RNA. Some people have lethal allergenic reactions to certain proteins, so GMO foods need to be highly regulated unless you want people with allergies going to the hospital after consuming unmarked peanut proteins from their tofu or something like that.
Difference between natural and GMO hybridizing is that it's impossible to naturally cross breed shrimp and wheat for instance. So the allergenic risks are well understood (i.e. I won't die of seafood poisoning from eating my rice).
Difference between natural and GMO hybridizing is that it's impossible to naturally cross breed shrimp and wheat for instance. So the allergenic risks are well understood (i.e. I won't die of seafood poisoning from eating my rice).
Naturally this fall under general GMO R&D, regulation and passing health and safety tests
The same way vaccines are tested is the same way that GMO will be tested
D
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"Manufacturing exodus from Vietnam and India as Panasonic looks to shift production to China"
