Waarom kopen Chinezen nu massaal enorme hoeveelheden granen in deze crisis?

Concerns are mounting about China’s grain supply this year, despite government assurances that the summer harvest was at ‘an all-time high’. Output has been hit by drought and heavy rains and many farmers are hoarding crops in expectation that prices will continue rising because of low supply, traders say

Another serious problem that threatens China's food supply is insect infestations. The fall armyworm (FAW), which feasts on corn, has been detected in all but five of China's provinces, pushing corn prices to five-year highs, despite the release of 1.4 billion bushels of corn from the country's reserves, reported Forbes.

Another major threat to China's crops are hordes of locusts which have munched their way across Asia. On July 31, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs ordered the spraying of pesticide and deployment of drones to fight off the crop-chomping insects, which it reported had damaged about 90 square kilometers of cropland over the past month in regions of Yunan Province that border Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam.

The desert locust swarms that started in East Africa this February have spread to the Middle East and South Asia – and may reach East Asia. But despite Chinese concerns about a plague of locusts, the government said in early March that the real threat is a reappearance of the larvae of the fall armyworm moth. First seen in China in 2019, this insect breeds faster than locusts and is now well-established in the country, appearing in large numbers in the south and south-west.