China ‘May Lease Foreign Fields’
- I’ve felt for some time that China would use its vast financial resources (the result of being on the other end of the U.S.’s trade deficits) to deal with its impending oil shortages. I’ve also thought that as food supplies get short, they’ll do the same thing there as well and simply go out and buy the food they need. Supplies may be short but China, if anyone, can afford to buy their way through the situation.
- Of course, the effects of a big buyer unleashed like this will be bad for the rest of the world and prices in general - but then, that’s a given. I’m not saying China will be wrong to do this. No way. Any of us would do this if we were in that situation. I’m just reading the tea-leaves here and watching the future unfold a bit forward of where we are now.
- Thanks to Cryptogon, I picked up on this story about the news that China is considering leasing fields for food production in foreign countries. The future is taking form.
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China could lease overseas farming land to beat rising food prices, according to reports from Beijing.
Soaring grain prices have encouraged the ministry of agriculture to consider the scheme, according to the Beijing Morning newspaper.
Chinese enterprises would lease or even buy farmland in Latin America, Australia and the former Soviet Union.
The land in production could replace Chinese farmland lost to rapidly growing cities and industrial zones.
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