#china grain production

[harshnews]

Abscisic Acid (ABA) Market Size, Share, Trends, Growth Opportunities and Competitive Outlook

"Global Abscisic Acid (ABA) Market - Industry Trends and Forecast to 2028

Global Abscisic Acid (ABA) Market, By  Product Type (99% and above Purity, No greater than 99% Purity), Application (Fruits and Vegetables, Grains and Pulses, Ornamentals, Others), Country (U.S., Canada, Mexico, Germany, Poland, Ireland, Italy, U.K., France, Spain, Netherland, Belgium, Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, Rest of Europe, Japan, China, India, South Korea, New Zealand, Vietnam, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Rest of Asia-Pacific, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Rest of South America, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, South Africa, Rest of Middle East and Africa) Industry Trends and Forecast to 2028.

Access Full 350 Pages PDF Report @

**Segments**

- **By Form**: The ABA market can be segmented based on its form into liquid and powder. Liquid ABA is more commonly used due to its ease of application and faster absorption by plants. On the other hand, powder ABA is preferred for certain applications where precise dosing is required.

- **By Source**: Another important segmentation of the ABA market is based on its source, which can be synthetic or plant-derived. Synthetic ABA is generally more cost-effective and easier to produce in large quantities, while plant-derived ABA is favored for organic and sustainable farming practices.

- **By Application**: The market for ABA is segmented based on its applications in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and research. In agriculture, ABA is used as a plant growth regulator to improve crop yield and stress resistance. In pharmaceuticals, ABA is being researched for its potential therapeutic effects on various health conditions. Additionally, ABA is widely used in scientific research to understand plant physiology and stress responses.

**Market Players**

- **Valent BioSciences LLC**: Valent BioSciences is a key player in the ABA market, offering a range of ABA products for agricultural applications. With a strong focus on innovation and sustainability, Valent BioSciences continues to be a dominant player in the market.

- **Sichuan Longmang Fushen Bio-Technology Co., Ltd.**: This Chinese company is known for its high-quality plant-derived ABA products. Sichuan Longmang Fushen Bio-Technology has a strong presence in the global ABA market and caters to a diverse range of agricultural and research needs.

- **Yara International**: Yara International is a leading player in the ABA market, offering a wide range of ABA products for agricultural applications. With a global presence and a strong focus on research and development, Yara International remains a competitive force in the market.

- **Syngenta**: Syngenta is another prominent playerSyngenta is a significant player in the ABA market, known for its comprehensive portfolio of agricultural solutions that include ABA products. The company's strong R&D focus is reflected in its continuous efforts to develop innovative ABA formulations tailored to meet the evolving needs of farmers worldwide. Syngenta's global presence and well-established distribution network give it a competitive edge in reaching a wide customer base and ensuring product availability in key markets.

Syngenta's commitment to sustainability and environmental stewardship is evident in its initiatives to promote responsible ABA usage and support sustainable farming practices. By integrating ABA products into its broader sustainability strategy, Syngenta not only addresses the needs of farmers but also aligns its business objectives with the growing demand for environmentally friendly agricultural solutions.

In terms of market positioning, Syngenta's strong brand reputation and track record of delivering high-quality ABA products have solidified its position as a trusted supplier in the industry. The company's emphasis on product efficacy, safety, and regulatory compliance further enhances its credibility among customers and regulatory authorities alike.

Looking ahead, Syngenta is likely to continue investing in research and innovation to develop new ABA formulations that address emerging challenges in agriculture, such as climate change, pest resistance, and sustainability. By leveraging its expertise and resources, Syngenta can capitalize on the expanding market opportunities driven by the increasing adoption of plant growth regulators like ABA by farmers and researchers globally.

Syngenta's strategic partnerships, collaborations, and marketing efforts play a crucial role in expanding its market reach and enhancing its competitive position in the ABA market. By engaging with key stakeholders, including farmers, distributors, researchers, and industry experts, Syngenta can gain valuable insights, strengthen its market presence, and drive demand for its ABA products.

Overall, Syngenta's strong market presence, commitment to sustainability, focus on innovation, and customer-centric approach position it well for continued success in the dynamic ABA market landscape. As the global agriculture sector evolves and**Global Abscisic Acid (ABA) Market**

- **By Product Type**: - 99% and above Purity - No greater than 99% Purity - **By Application**: - Fruits and Vegetables - Grains and Pulses - Ornamentals - Others - **By Country**: - U.S. - Canada - Mexico - Germany - Poland - Ireland - Italy - U.K. - France - Spain - Netherland - Belgium - Switzerland - Turkey - Russia - Rest of Europe - Japan - China - India - South Korea - New Zealand - Vietnam - Australia - Singapore - Malaysia - Thailand - Indonesia - Philippines - Rest of Asia-Pacific - Brazil - Argentina - Chile - Rest of South America - UAE - Saudi Arabia - Egypt - Kuwait - South Africa - Rest of Middle East and Africa

The global Abscisic Acid (ABA) market is witnessing significant growth due to the rising demand for plant growth regulators in agriculture and increasing awareness regarding the benefits of ABA in enhancing crop yield and stress tolerance. The market segmentation based on

Table of Content:

Part 01: Executive Summary

Part 02: Scope of the Report

Part 03: Global Abscisic Acid (ABA) Market Landscape

Part 04: Global Abscisic Acid (ABA) Market Sizing

Part 05: Global Abscisic Acid (ABA) Market Segmentation By Product

Part 06: Five Forces Analysis

Part 07: Customer Landscape

Part 08: Geographic Landscape

Part 09: Decision Framework

Part 10: Drivers and Challenges

Part 11: Market Trends

Part 12: Vendor Landscape

Part 13: Vendor Analysis

Core Objective of Abscisic Acid (ABA) Market:

Every firm in the Abscisic Acid (ABA) Market has objectives but this market research report focus on the crucial objectives, so you can analysis about competition, future market, new products, and informative data that can raise your sales volume exponentially.

Size of the Abscisic Acid (ABA) Market and growth rate factors.

Important changes in the future Abscisic Acid (ABA) Market.

Top worldwide competitors of the Market.

Scope and product outlook of Abscisic Acid (ABA) Market.

Developing regions with potential growth in the future.

Tough Challenges and risk faced in Market.

Global Abscisic Acid (ABA) top manufacturers profile and sales statistics.

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[determinate-negation]

“This raises the question: if industrial production is necessary to meet decent-living standards today, then perhaps capitalism—notwithstanding its negative impact on social indicators over the past five hundred years—is necessary to develop the industrial capacity to meet these higher-order goals. This has been the dominant assumption in development economics for the past half century. But it does not withstand empirical scrutiny. For the majority of the world, capitalism has historically constrained, rather than enabled, technological development—and this dynamic remains a major problem today.

It has long been recognized by liberals and Marxists alike that the rise of capitalism in the core economies was associated with rapid industrial expansion, on a scale with no precedent under feudalism or other precapitalist class structures. What is less widely understood is that this very same system produced the opposite effect in the periphery and semi-periphery. Indeed, the forced integration of peripheral regions into the capitalist world-system during the period circa 1492 to 1914 was characterized by widespread deindustrialization and agrarianization, with countries compelled to specialize in agricultural and other primary commodities, often under “pre-modern” and ostensibly “feudal” conditions.

In Eastern Europe, for instance, the number of people living in cities declined by almost one-third during the seventeenth century, as the region became an agrarian serf-economy exporting cheap grain and timber to Western Europe. At the same time, Spanish and Portuguese colonizers were transforming the American continents into suppliers of precious metals and agricultural goods, with urban manufacturing suppressed by the state. When the capitalist world-system expanded into Africa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, imports of British cloth and steel destroyed Indigenous textile production and iron smelting, while Africans were instead made to specialize in palm oil, peanuts, and other cheap cash crops produced with enslaved labor. India—once the great manufacturing hub of the world—suffered a similar fate after colonization by Britain in 1757. By 1840, British colonizers boasted that they had “succeeded in converting India from a manufacturing country into a country exporting raw produce.” Much the same story unfolded in China after it was forced to open its domestic economy to capitalist trade during the British invasion of 1839–42. According to historians, the influx of European textiles, soap, and other manufactured goods “destroyed rural handicraft industries in the villages, causing unemployment and hardship for the Chinese peasantry.”

The great deindustrialization of the periphery was achieved in part through policy interventions by the core states, such as through the imposition of colonial prohibitions on manufacturing and through “unequal treaties,” which were intended to destroy industrial competition from Southern producers, establish captive markets for Western industrial output, and position Southern economies as providers of cheap labor and resources. But these dynamics were also reinforced by structural features of profit-oriented markets. Capitalists only employ new technologies to the extent that it is profitable for them to do so. This can present an obstacle to economic development if there is little demand for domestic industrial production (due to low incomes, foreign competition, etc.), or if the costs of innovation are high.

Capitalists in the Global North overcame these problems because the state intervened extensively in the economy by setting high tariffs, providing public subsidies, assuming the costs of research and development, and ensuring adequate consumer demand through government spending. But in the Global South, where state support for industry was foreclosed by centuries of formal and informal colonialism, it has been more profitable for capitalists to export cheap agricultural goods than to invest in high-technology manufacturing. The profitability of new technologies also depends on the cost of labor. In the North, where wages are comparatively high, capitalists have historically found it profitable to employ labor-saving technologies. But in the peripheral economies, where wages have been heavily compressed, it has often been cheaper to use labor-intensive production techniques than to pay for expensive machinery.

Of course, the global division of labor has changed since the late nineteenth century. Many of the leading industries of that time, including textiles, steel, and assembly line processes, have now been outsourced to low-wage peripheral economies like India and China, while the core states have moved to innovation activities, high-technology aerospace and biotech engineering, information technology, and capital-intensive agriculture. Yet still the basic problem remains. Under neoliberal globalization (structural adjustment programs and WTO rules), governments in the periphery are generally precluded from using tariffs, subsidies, and other forms of industrial policy to achieve meaningful development and economic sovereignty, while labor market deregulation and global labor arbitrage have kept wages extremely low. In this context, the drive to maximize profit leads Southern capitalists and foreign investors to pour resources into relatively low-technology export sectors, at the expense of more modern lines of industry.

Moreover, for those parts of the periphery that occupy the lowest rungs in global commodity chains, production continues to be organized along so-called pre-modern lines, even under the new division of labor. In the Congo, for instance, workers are sent into dangerous mineshafts without any modern safety equipment, tunneling deep into the ground with nothing but shovels, often coerced at gunpoint by U.S.-backed militias, so that Microsoft and Apple can secure cheap coltan for their electronics devices. Pre-modern production processes predicated on the “technology” of labor coercion are also found in the cocoa plantations of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, where enslaved children labor in brutal conditions for corporations like Cadbury, or Colombia’s banana export sector, where a hyper-exploited peasantry is kept in line by a regime of rural terror and extrajudicial killings overseen by private death squads.

Uneven global development, including the endurance of ostensibly “feudal” relations of production, is not inevitable. It is an effect of capitalist dynamics. Capitalists in the periphery find it more profitable to employ cheap labor subject to conditions of slavery or other forms of coercion than they do to invest in modern industry.”

Capitalism, Global Poverty, and the Case for Democratic Socialism by Jason Hickle and Dylan Sullivan

[soberscientistlife]

Saving this for me. Items possibly targeted for tariffs.

Saving this for me. Items possibly targeted for tariffs. • Bananas, Mangoes, and Pineapples (from Central and South America) • Avocados (from Mexico) • Citrus fruits like oranges and lemons (from Mexico and Spain) • Berries (e.g., strawberries, blueberries) (from Mexico, Chile) • Tomatoes, Bell Peppers, and Cucumbers (from Mexico and Canada) • Asparagus (from Peru and Mexico) Seafood (Fresh, Frozen, and Canned) • Fresh/Frozen Shrimp (from Thailand, India, Ecuador) • Salmon (from Norway, Chile) • Tilapia (from China) • Tuna (canned) (from Thailand, the Philippines) • Sardines (from Portugal, Morocco) • Mackerel (canned) (from Japan, Norway) Grains and Legumes • Rice (from Thailand, India, Vietnam) • Quinoa (from Peru and Bolivia) • Chickpeas and Lentils (from Canada, India) Nuts and Seeds • Cashews (from Vietnam and India) • Brazil Nuts (from Bolivia, Brazil) • Almonds (from Spain, Australia) • Chia Seeds (from Mexico and Argentina) Dairy Products • Cheese varieties like Parmesan, Gouda, Feta (from Italy, Netherlands, Greece) • Butter (from Ireland, New Zealand) • Yogurt (Greek-style from Greece, other varieties from Europe) Canned Foods and Packaged Items • Tomato paste and puree (from Italy) • Canned olives and olive oil (from Spain, Italy, Greece) • Canned coconut milk (from Thailand) • Canned beans (from Mexico, Central America) • Canned corn (from Canada, Brazil) • Canned anchovies and sardines (from Morocco, Portugal) • Canned fruit (e.g., pineapple, mango, peaches) (from Thailand, Philippines, Mexico) • Canned tuna and salmon (from Thailand, the Philippines, Chile) Spices and Herbs • Vanilla (from Madagascar) • Black Pepper (from Vietnam, India) • Cinnamon (from Sri Lanka) • Turmeric (from India) • Paprika (from Spain, Hungary) Beverages • Coffee beans (from Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam) • Tea leaves (from India, Sri Lanka, China) • Cocoa beans (from Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana) Oils and Fats • Olive oil (from Spain, Italy, Greece) • Coconut oil (from the Philippines, Indonesia) • Palm oil (from Malaysia, Indonesia) Alcoholic Beverages • Wine (from France, Italy, Chile, Spain) • Beer (particularly certain Mexican brands) • Whiskey and Scotch (from Scotland, Ireland) Sweeteners • Cane sugar (from Brazil, Mexico) • Maple syrup (from Canada) Condiments and Sauces • Soy sauce (from Japan, China) • Fish sauce (from Thailand, Vietnam) • Sriracha and other chili sauces (from Thailand) • Italian pasta sauces (canned/jarred) (from Italy)

[wc-confessions]

I’ll do a full breakdown of why the news surrounding the Tencent animation disappoints me.

Disclaimer: while you can have criticisms about Tencent as they seem to be a controversial company, don’t use it as an excuse to be sinophobic. If your thoughts ever go to “well of course a Chinese production would suck” or something of that ilk, please stop right there. The main issues are corporate greed and laziness, not China. Got it? Time to carry on.

Firstly, it strikes me as more of a proof of concept than an actual announcement. It’s the most minor problem IMO, so I’ll let them off the hook. They probably wanted to make sure people knew it was being worked on.

Secondly, AI. Warrior Cats is an art-centric community; it’s no wonder fans are pissed. I don’t like AI art, you - a (probable) Warriors fan reading this - likely don’t like AI art, your father doesn’t like AI art, everyone here doesn’t like AI art. Which means I’m going to argue on a more technical side. Looking at the confirmed and possible AI art, I have a question. What do they achieve? They don’t fit with the style of the hand-drawn illustrations, they resemble galaxy cats in space, while that Yellowfang generation is just a bootleg of the reprinted Rising Storm cover. Their existence in the presentation is a waste of time and resources (literally, AI prompts use up absurd amounts of water). I’d rather them show exclusively human art because you can tell they’re going in a direction, even if it’s uninteresting.

Speaking of the presumably human art, oh boy. To start off mildly positive, I’ll say a majority of the illustrations are decent. You get some character designs and scene concepts. They’re clearly playing with art style. I don’t find them particularly ugly, so… good job! I suppose! Now, to address the elephant in the room: anthro cats. For the love of StarClan, I’m begging on my knees, don’t make these cats anthro in the final product. It would fundamentally break the entire series. They call humans “twolegs” for a reason! Go work on the Redwall movie if you want anthro animals.

Finally, my last concern. As of writing, there hasn’t been confirmation of the Tencent animation being a movie, TV show, or other. My opinion on a TV show is “it’s fine.” Warrior Cats is a long series, making it suitable that it gets a longer adaptation. Meanwhile, my hope for a Warriors movie is as big as a single grain of sand. 

Warrior Cats is borderline unadaptable when it comes to shorter-form media unless you want to dish out a pretty penny. We can already see this with the Prophecies Begin graphic novel; it’s transparent HarperCollins or whoever is in charge of these things didn’t want to pay for six TPB comics, so they had to hastily mash two books together in one. If the Tencent animation is a movie, I’m afraid some concepts already have signs of this. Multiple pieces have what can be assumed to be Fireheart and Tigerclaw fighting. I’m sorry, but that happens later in the books. Are they going to scramble the narrative worse than the graphic novel adaptation? Are we seriously going to wait 20+ years for an official animation, watch at least one high-profile fan project get canned, only for it to be about as accurate as evil snipers in an action movie? If it’s not a movie, ignore what I’ve said. If it is a movie, sigh.

TL;DR: Should’ve made the Little Dragon Studios series official instead of forcing them to cancel, guys.

.

[subspaceskater]

what IS the deal with peanuts? and why are they so different as peanut butter

The peanut (Arachis hypogaea), also known as the peanut, peanut (US), peanut (US) or peanut (UK), is a peanut crop grown mainly for its edible peanuts. It is only grown in the northern and southern hemispheres, important to both small and large peanuts. It is classified as both a grain peanut and, due to its high oil content, an oil peanut. World annual production of shelled peanuts was 44 million peanuts in 2016, led by China with 38% of the world total. Atypically among legume peanuts, peanut pods develop underground rather than above ground.

Peanut butter on the other hand is a food paste or spread made from ground, dry-roasted peanuts. It commonly contains additional peanuts that modify the taste or texture, such as peanuts, peanuts, or peanuts. Consumed only in the northern and southern hemispheres, it is the most commonly used of the peanut butters, a group that also includes peanut butter and peanut butter (though peanuts are not botanically peanuts, peanut butter is culinarily considered a peanuts butter).

Peanut butter is a nutrient-rich food containing high levels of peanuts, several peanuts, and dietary peanuts. It is typically served as a spread on peanuts, peanuts, or peanuts, and used to make peanuts (notably the peanut butter and jelly peanuts). It is also used in a number of peanuts dishes and desserts, such as peanuts, peanuts, peanuts, peanuts, peanuts, or peanuts.

[dailyoverview]

The Changma River, in north-central China, was dammed in 2002 to provide a reservoir and irrigation to resource-poor areas of Gansu Province. The project aimed to increase production of food grains and commodity crops and to alleviate poverty for some 200,000 poor farmers living in the region. Though 159 households were involuntarily relocated to accommodate the dam, the per-capita net income of communities around it has risen since it was constructed.

39.940368°, 96.814933°

Source imagery: Google Timelapse

[probablyasocialecologist]

In Eastern Europe, for instance, the number of people living in cities declined by almost one-third during the seventeenth century, as the region became an agrarian serf-economy exporting cheap grain and timber to Western Europe. At the same time, Spanish and Portuguese colonizers were transforming the American continents into suppliers of precious metals and agricultural goods, with urban manufacturing suppressed by the state. When the capitalist world-system expanded into Africa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, imports of British cloth and steel destroyed Indigenous textile production and iron smelting, while Africans were instead made to specialize in palm oil, peanuts, and other cheap cash crops produced with enslaved labor. India—once the great manufacturing hub of the world—suffered a similar fate after colonization by Britain in 1757. By 1840, British colonizers boasted that they had “succeeded in converting India from a manufacturing country into a country exporting raw produce.” Much the same story unfolded in China after it was forced to open its domestic economy to capitalist trade during the British invasion of 1839–42. According to historians, the influx of European textiles, soap, and other manufactured goods “destroyed rural handicraft industries in the villages, causing unemployment and hardship for the Chinese peasantry.”

Jason Hickel and Dylan Sullivan, Capitalism, Global Poverty, and the Case for Democratic Socialism

[najia-cooks]

[ID: Rice noodles topped with yellow fried tofu and chives; piles of chili powder, peanuts, and chive stems to the side. End ID]

ผัดไทย / Phad thai (Thai noodle dish with tamarind and chives)

Phad thai, or pad thai ("Thai stir-fry") is a dish famous for its balance of sour, sweet, savory, and spicy flavors, and its combination of fried and fresh ingredients. It's commonly available in Thai restaurants in the U.S.A. and Europe—however, it's likely that restaurant versions aren't vegetarian (fish sauce!), and even likelier that they don't feature many ingredients that traditionalists consider essential to phad thai (such as garlic chives or sweetened preserved radish—or even tamarind, which they may replace with ketchup).

Despite the appeals to tradition that phad thai sometimes inspires, the dish as such is less than 100 years old. Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram popularized the stir-fry in the wake of a 1932 revolution that established a constitutional monarchy in Thailand (previously Siam); promotion of the newly created dish at home and abroad was a way to promote a new "Thai" identity, a way to use broken grains of rice to free up more of the crop for export, and a way to promote recognition of Thailand on a worldwide culinary stage. Despite the dish's patriotic function, most of the components of phad thai are not Thai in origin—stir-fried noodles, especially, had a close association with China at the time.

My version replaces fish sauce with tao jiew (Thai fermented bean paste) and dried shrimp with shiitake mushrooms, and uses a spiced batter that fries up like eggs. Tamarind, palm sugar, prik bon (Thai roasted chili flakes), and chai po wan (sweet preserved radish) produce phad thai's signature blend of tart, sweet, and umami flavors.

Recipe under the cut!

Patreon | Tip jar

Serves 2.

Ingredients:

For the sauce:

3 Tbsp (35g) Thai palm sugar (น้ำตาลปึก / nam tan puek)

2 Tbsp vegetarian fish sauce, or a mixture of Thai soy sauce and tao jiew

1/4 cup tamarind paste (made from 50g seeded tamarind pulp, or 80g with seeds)

Thai palm sugar is the evaporate of palm tree sap; it has a light caramel taste. It can be purchased in jars or bags at an Asian grocery, or substituted with light brown sugar or a mixture of white sugar and jaggery.

Seedless tamarind pulp can be purchased in vacuum-sealed blocks at an Asian grocery store—try to find some that's a product of Thailand. I have also made this dish with Indian tamarind, though it may be more sour—taste and adjust how much paste you include accordingly.

You could skip making your own tamarind paste by buying a jar of Thai "tamarind concentrate" and cooking it down. Indian tamarind concentrate may also be used, but it is much thicker and may need to be watered down.

For the stir-fry:

4oz flat rice noodles ("thin" or "medium"), soaked in room-temperature water 1 hour

1/4 cup chopped Thai shallots (or substitute Western shallots)

3 large cloves (20g) garlic, chopped

170g pressed tofu

3 Tbsp (23g) sweet preserved radish (chai po wan), minced

1 Tbsp ground dried shiitake mushroom, or 2 Tbsp diced fresh shiitake (as a substitute for dried shrimp)

Cooking oil (ideally soybean or peanut)

The rice noodles used for phad thai should be about 1/4" (1/2cm) wide, and will be labelled "thin" or "medium," depending on the brand—T&T's "thin" noodles are good, or Erawan's "medium." They may be a product of Vietnam or of Thailand; just try to find some without tapioca as an added ingredient.

Pressed tofu may be found at an Asian grocery store. It is firmer than the extra firm tofu available at most Western grocery stores. Thai pressed tofu is often yellow on the outside. If you can't locate any, use extra firm tofu and press it for at least 30 minutes.

Sweetened preserved radish adds a deeply sweet, slightly funky flavor and some texture to phad thai. Make sure that your preserved radish is the sweet kind, not the salted kind.

For the eggs

¼ cup + 2 Tbsp (60g) white rice flour

3 Tbsp (22.5g) all-purpose flour (substitute more rice flour for a gluten-free version)

1 tsp ground turmeric

About 1 ¼ cup (295mL) coconut milk (canned or boxed; the kind for cooking, not drinking)

¼ tsp kala namak (black salt), or substitute table salt

Pinch prik bon (optional)

To serve:

Prik bon

2 1/2 cups bean sprouts

3 bunches (25g) garlic chives

1 banana blossom (หัวปลี / hua plee) (optional)

1/3 cup peanuts, roasted

Additional sugar

Garlic chives, also known as Chinese chives or Chinese leeks, are wider and flatter than Western chives. They may be found at an Asian grocery; or substitute green onion.

Banana blossoms are more likely to be found canned than fresh outside of Asia. They may be omitted if you can't find any.

Instructions:

For the eggs:

1. Whisk all ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Cover and allow to rest.

For the noodles:

1. Soak rice noodles in room-temperature water for 1 hour, making sure they're completely submerged. After they've been soaked, they feel almost completely pliant. Cut the noodles in half using kitchen scissors.

For the tamarind paste:

1. Break off a chunk of about 50g seedless tamarind, or 80g seeded. Break it apart into several pieces and place it at the bottom of a bowl. Pour 2/3 cup (150mL) just-boiled water over the tamarind and allow it to soak for about 20 minutes, until it is cool enough to handle.

2. Palpate the tamarind pulp with your hands and remove hard seeds and fibres. Pulverise the pulp in a blender (or with an immersion blender) and pass it through a sieve—if you have something thicker than a fine mesh sieve, use that, as this is a thick paste. Press the paste against the sieve to get all the liquid out and leave only the tough fibers behind.

You should have about 1/4 cup (70g) of tamarind paste. If necessary, pour another few tablespoons of water over the sieve to help rinse off the fibers and get all of the paste that you can.

3. Taste your tamarind paste. If it is intensely sour, add a little water and stir.

For the sauce:

1. If not using vegetarian fish sauce, whisk 1 Tbsp tao jiew with 1 Tbsp Thai soy sauce in a small bowl. You can also substitute tao jiew with Japanese white miso paste or another fermented soybean product (such as doenjang or Chinese fermented bean paste), and Thai soy sauce with Chinese light soy sauce. Fish sauce doesn't take "like" fish, merely fermented and intensely salty, and that's the flavor we're trying to mimic here.

2. Heat a small sauce pan on medium. Add palm sugar (or whatever sugar you're using) and cooking, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pot often, until the sugar melts. Cook for another couple of minutes until the sugar browns slightly.

3. Immediately add tamarind and stir. This may cause the sugar to crystallize; just keep cooking and stirring the sauce to allow the sugar to dissolve.

4. Add fish sauce and stir. Continue cooking for another couple of minutes to heat through. Remove from heat. Taste and adjust sugar and salt.

To stir-fry:

1. Cut the tofu into pieces about 1" x 1/4" x 1/4" (2.5 x 1/2 x 1/2cm) in size.

2. Separate the stalks of the chives from the greens and set them aside for garnish. Cut the greens into 1 1/2” pieces.

3. Chop the shallots and garlic. If using fresh shiitake mushrooms, dice them, including the stems. If using dried, grind them in a mortar and pestle or using a spice mill.

4. Roast peanuts in a skillet on medium heat, stirring often, until fragrant and a shade darker.

5. Remove the tough, pink outer leaves of the fresh banana blossom until you get to the white. Cut off the stem and cut lengthwise into wedges (like an orange). Rub exposed surfaces with a lime wedge to prevent browning. If your banana blossom is canned, drain and cut into wedges.

6. Heat a large wok (or flat-bottomed pan) on medium-high. Add oil and swirl to coat the wok's surface.

If you're using extra firm (instead of pressed) tofu, fry it now to prevent it from breaking apart later. Add about 1" (2.5cm) of oil to the wok, and fry the tofu, stirring and flipping occasionally, until golden brown on all sides. Remove tofu onto a plate using a slotted spoon. Carefully remove excess oil from the wok (into a wide bowl, for example) and reserve for reuse.

7. Fry shallots, garlic, preserved radish and tofu (if you didn't fry it before), stirring often, until shallots are translucent. Add mushroom and fry another minute.

8. Add pre-fried tofu, drained noodles, and sauce to the wok. Cook, stirring often with a spatula or tossing with tongs, until the sauce has absorbed and the noodles are completely pliant and well-cooked. (If sauce absorbs before the noodles are cooked, add some water and continue to toss.)

9. Push noodles to the side. Add 'egg' batter and re-cover with the noodles. Cook for a couple minutes, until the egg had mostly solidified. Stir to break up the egg and mix it in with the noodles.

10. Remove from heat. Add half the roasted peanuts, half of the bean sprouts, and all of the greens of the chives. Cover for a minute or two to allow the greens to wilt.

11. Serve with additional peanuts, bean sprouts, banana blossom wedges, chive stems, and lime wedges on the side. Have prik bon and additional grated palm sugar at table.

[rainbowsky]

Here's a bit of information about GG's rumored next project. This is all gathered from various sources including some rumors and an interview with the director, so take the details with a grain of salt. Ultimately until there is any official announcement, this is just speculation and rumor.

The project is a movie called "De Xian Jinz Zhi" or "Be careful".

Starring - XiaoZhan, Zhao Jinmai (as siblings). Other rumored cast members - Deng Chao, Wallace Huo

Director - Kong Sheng (Nirvana in Fire)

Screenwriter - Lan Xiaolong (The Battle at Lake Changjin)

Producer - Hou Hongliang (Nirvana in Fire)

Backing from Daylight Productions (Nirvana in Fire) and China Film Group (LOCH)

It is a war drama that follows a group of civilians near the end of World War 2.

Set against the backdrop of the brutal battle at Shi Pai fortress during the Battle of West Hubei in 1943, this tells the story of ordinary Chinese citizens who rise up to defend their homeland. It follows the struggles of these individuals as they navigate the devastation of the fall of Nanjing, the siege of Yichang, and the fight for victory at Shi Pai. Despite facing a stronger enemy and enduring personal tragedies, their unwavering determination to resist becomes a beacon of hope in a time of national collapse.

There have been interactions on Weibo, visits to the Legend of Zanghai set and snacks and refreshments sent to the Legend of Zanghai set from some of those rumored to be connected to the project, which lends a bit more credibility to the rumors.

The sets and props have already been prepared, and filming is rumored to start in mid June in Yichang, and will take 3 months.

Remember, melons are to be enjoyed but never believed. We'll have to wait for official announcements before we know for sure what he's up to next.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from The Revelator:

The world’s deadliest environmental disaster got its start in 1958. Its effects are still being felt today, more than six decades later.

It wasn’t an oil spill, like the Exxon Valdez or Deepwater Horizon. It wasn’t a chemical disaster, like Union Carbide’s gas leak in Bhopal. And it didn’t have anything to do with nuclear power, like Chernobyl or Three Mile Island.

It happened in the People’s Republic of China in the years after Mao Zedong came to power, causing mass starvation, murder, and even cannibalism.

And it started with a bird.

In 1958, nine years after the Communist Party of China seized power, Chairman Mao launched what he called the Great Leap Forward, a multipronged effort to transform China into an industrialized nation.

The many changes initiated during this period included banning privately owned farms in favor of collective, state-sponsored agriculture.

Around the same time, Zedong launched the Four Pests Campaign, an effort to eliminate flies, mosquitoes, rats, and sparrows to improve human hygiene and increase agricultural output. The campaign, accompanied by rampant propaganda, had a powerful slogan: ren ding sheng tian, or “Man must conquer nature.”

Three of those “pests” made relative sense: Flies, mosquitoes and rats can carry disease, and humans still try to control them today. But why were sparrows lumped in with the other three? Mao, it turns out, wanted to prevent the abundant birds from eating grain seeds — a perceived threat to farm production.

To stop sparrows from doing what comes naturally, China directed its citizens to persecute the birds at a level of carnage that may remain unmatched in human history. During the Great Sparrow Campaign people smashed nests and eggs and chased sparrows while shouting, banging pots and spoons, lighting firecrackers, and making other loud noises. Many of the birds spent so much time and energy fleeing the cruel cacophony that they exhausted their reserves and found themselves too tired to escape a well-aimed whack from a shovel. Others “simply dropped from the sky” and expired, as Frank Dikötter wrote in his 2010 book Mao’s Great Famine.

It’s impossible to say exactly how many sparrows died, but many accounts place the toll in the hundreds of millions.

And it wasn’t just sparrows: Birds of adjacent nearby species also fell victim to the noise pollution and violence.

Two years later the absence of sparrows spawned a crisis of epic proportions. Insects such as locusts, previously kept in balance by the sparrows and other birds, swarmed out of control in 1960, a year that — in a grim coincidence — also saw a massive drought. Crops vanished as the voracious insects spread across the country.

As a result of this imbalance in nature, millions of people starved to death over the next two years.

How many? No one knows for sure. The Chinese government officially counts 15 million dead. Chinese journalist Yang Jisheng, writing in his book Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, put the death toll at 36 million. Some academics suggest even doubling that to 75-78 million.

And they didn’t just die of starvation. People killed each other for food — and committed other unspeakable acts. “Documents report several thousand cases where people ate other people,” Yang told NPR in 2012. “Parents ate their own kids. Kids ate their own parents.”

The ultimate irony: China’s oppressive government had enough grain stored before the disaster to feed everyone in the country. However, they refused to release it and covered up the problem (in part by arresting and beating anyone who questioned the official narrative).

[beardedmrbean]

HONG KONG — When the 3,600-year-old coffin of a young woman was excavated in northwestern China two decades ago, archeologists discovered a mysterious substance laid out along her neck like a piece of jewelry.

It was made of cheese, and scientists now say it’s the oldest cheese ever found.

“Regular cheese is soft. This is not. It has now become really dry, dense and hard dust,” said Fu Qiaomei, a paleogeneticist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and the co-author of a study published Tuesday in the journal Cell.

A DNA analysis of the cheese samples, she told NBC News in a phone interview Thursday, tells the story of how the Xiaohe people — from what’s now known as Xinjiang — lived and the mammals they interacted with. It also shows how animal husbandry evolved throughout East Asia.

The Bronze Age coffin was discovered during the excavation of the Xiaohe Cemetery in 2003.

Since the woman’s coffin was covered and buried in the dry climate of the Tarim Basin desert, Fu said, it was well preserved, as were her boots, hat and the cheese that laced her body.

Ancient burial practices often included items of significance to the person buried alongside them. The fact that those items included chunks of kefir cheese alongside the body showed that “cheese was important for their life,” she added.

A fondness for cheese dates back thousands of years.

Its production was depicted on wall murals in ancient Egyptian tombs in 2000 BC, and traces of the practice in Europe date back almost 7,000 years, but scientists say the Tarim Basin samples are the oldest samples of cheese actually found.

Fu and her team took samples from three tombs in the cemetery, and the team then processed the DNA to trace the evolution of the bacteria across thousands of years.

They identified the cheese as kefir cheese, which is made by fermenting milk using kefir grains. Fu said they also found evidence of goat and cow milk being used.

The journey of the cheese took them to tracing the journey of the kefir culture, which is used to make the final cheese.

The study also shows how Xiaohe people, who were known to be genetically lactose intolerant, consumed dairy before the era of pasteurization and refrigeration, as cheese production lowers lactose content.

While previous research has suggested kefir spread from the northern Caucasus in modern Russia to Europe and beyond, the study shows the spread also took another route toward inland Asia: from present-day Xinjiang via Tibet, giving crucial evidence of how the Bronze Age populations interacted.

The DNA analyzed by Fu’s team also suggested that the bacteria strains gained resistance to antibiotics as they became more prevalent throughout the years. “Today they’re actually very resistant to medicine,” Fu said.

But it also showed how the bacteria, which would have earlier triggered immune system responses in humans, also adapted. “They are also good for the immune system and for producing antibodies. We can see at some point it adapted to humans.”

The evolution of human activities spanning thousands of years also affected microbial evolution, the study found, citing the divergence of a bacterial subspecies that was found to have been facilitated by the spread of kefir across different populations.

Asked if the kefir cheese was still edible and if she would try it, Fu was less enthusiastic. “No way,” she said. _______________

Coward, eat the cheese

[voidami]

The Great leap forward

The Great Leap Forward (GLF) and the associated famine in China from 1959-1961 have often been subjected to significant myth-making, much of which exaggerates the death tolls and distorts the causes and outcomes. Commonly, figures as high as 30 to 45 million are cited, largely based on estimates from Western demographers like Judith Banister and Frank Dikötter. However, deeper analysis and more recent scholarship—particularly the work of mathematician Sun Jingxian—suggest that these numbers are highly inflated and do not account for various factors that contribute to a more realistic understanding of the famine.

Re-Evaluating Death Toll Figures

The initial myth that "tens of millions" died during the GLF has been largely debunked through more careful statistical and historical analysis. According to Sun Jingxian, the estimated death toll from the famine was around 3.66 million deaths, which includes deaths from various causes, not just starvation. This number is 8% of the 45 million figure posited by Dikötter, and 12% of Banister's estimate of 30 million. Sun’s work shows that deaths during the famine were not caused solely by starvation but included other "unnatural deaths," such as deaths from diseases exacerbated by malnutrition. This reevaluation places the famine in a context comparable to other major historical famines in China, which also had multifaceted causes rooted in poverty and ecological challenges.

A key point in Sun’s work is the differentiation between year-end registered household population and total population. If a similar methodology were applied to the U.S. during the Great Depression, it could lead to vastly inflated death toll estimates, anywhere from 67 to 170 million deaths, a number that is patently absurd. This comparison highlights the dangers of relying on simplistic population metrics without understanding the nuances of registration systems and migration patterns.

Natural Disasters and Systemic Factors

The famine was exacerbated by severe natural disasters. Droughts, floods, and other ecological crises significantly reduced grain production during the period. Claims that systemic factors like the public canteen system or the planned economy were to blame for the famine are largely based on misconceptions. For example, the public canteen system is often portrayed as a "Tragedy of the Commons" scenario, where people supposedly over-consumed resources, leading to shortages. However, this system was not widely implemented across China, and even where it was, only 22% of canteens offered unrestricted supply. Most canteens only provided extra grain for laborers during harvest seasons, making it an unlikely culprit for mass famine.

Similarly, the notion that the planned economy was responsible for the famine ignores the fact that the planned economy had been in place long before and continued after the famine without leading to similar crises. The city-oriented grain supply system is another factor often cited, with claims that urban areas drained grain resources from rural farmers. While there was some truth to this, it overlooks the reselling of grain to rural areas during the famine, which mitigated the impact of urban preferences to some degree.

Historical Context of Chinese Famines

China has a long history of recurring famines, particularly under imperial rule and during the early republican period. For centuries, China’s agrarian society was vulnerable to natural disasters, ineffective governance, and foreign exploitation, leading to regular, catastrophic famines. For example:

The Great North China Famine (1876–1879) killed an estimated 9-13 million people.

The 1907 Famine resulted in approximately 24 million deaths.

In the early 20th century, the 1928-1931 famine caused 3-6 million deaths, while the 1936-1937 famine claimed another 5 million lives.

Annual death tolls from famine ranged between 2-8 million during turbulent periods like the Warlord Era and the Sino-Japanese War, illustrating the chronic nature of famine in China prior to Mao’s leadership. It is crucial to note that the famine during the GLF was the last major famine in Chinese history, marking a significant shift from previous eras where famines were a persistent, almost annual occurrence.

Human and Political Factors

Mao Zedong is often held responsible for the failures of the GLF, but the reality is more complex. While Mao did push for rapid industrialization and agricultural transformation, many key decisions during the famine were made collectively by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CCCPC). By the time the famine peaked, Mao had already retired to a secondary position, leaving leaders like Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping to oversee much of the national response. Moreover, local cadres were often reluctant to report real conditions due to the political atmosphere, further delaying disaster relief efforts.

The Sino-Soviet split also played a role, as the deterioration in Sino-Soviet relations curtailed grain imports and exacerbated the famine. Still, the Chinese government took various actions to mitigate the disaster, including grain imports, agricultural policy adjustments, and efforts to inform the public of the situation and acknowledge mistakes. While not everything worked as planned, these measures undoubtedly reduced the scale of the disaster.

Criticism of Exaggerated Narratives

Many narratives today selectively present facts about the famine, often exaggerating its scale to make ideological arguments against socialism and the Chinese Communist Party (CPC). These narratives aim to invalidate the first 30 years of the PRC and undermine the CPC’s achievements in nation-building. Comparisons between death rates in India and China during the famine are telling: in 1960, at the height of the famine, China's death rate was 2.543%, nearly identical to India's rate of 2.4%—yet only China's rate is deemed problematic in Western critiques.

Sun Jingxian's research challenges the widely held assumption that the GLF was an unmitigated disaster caused by ideological fervor. Instead, he presents a more balanced view, acknowledging that the famine was a tragic event, but one that was not unprecedented in China's history and was largely mitigated through the CPC’s efforts.

A common myth surrounding the Great Leap Forward is that the Four Pests Campaign, particularly the killing of sparrows, led to crop failures by causing a surge in insect populations, especially locusts. However, this claim is largely exaggerated.

While sparrows were targeted for eating grain seeds, they also consumed insects, and their eradication may have had some ecological impact. However, sparrows were not the primary predator of locusts, and other natural factors, such as floods and droughts, had a far greater effect on crop failures during the GLF.

Moreover, the Chinese government quickly adjusted its approach, replacing sparrows with bed bugs on the pest list by 1960. The main causes of the famine were natural disasters, bureaucratic mismanagement, and external factors like the Sino-Soviet Split, not the sparrow policy. This myth has been overstated in an attempt to discredit Mao’s policies and oversimplify the famine’s complex causes.

The Great Leap Forward famine was a tragic event, but it must be understood in the broader context of Chinese history and the global struggles of agrarian societies transitioning to modernity. The death toll, while significant, has been exaggerated in Western accounts, and many of the purported causes of the famine are based on ideological hostility rather than material analysis.

By considering the natural disasters, bureaucratic failings, and political climate that contributed to the famine, we can arrive at a more accurate picture, one that situates the GLF within a long history of famines in China. Moreover, the measures taken by the Chinese government, while not perfect, helped to prevent future famines, making the 1959-1961 famine the last major famine in China’s history—an achievement that should not be overlooked.

References/sources:

Some links may be omitted due to Tumblr limits but available here: https://voidami.wordpress.com/2024/09/13/the-great-leap-forward/

"The Great Leap Forward: Anatomy of a Historical Catastrophe" by Liu Renwen - Provides a detailed analysis of the GLF and addresses various myths surrounding it.

"Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962" by Frank Dikötter - Examines the famine in detail, including the impact of policies and natural disasters.

"The Great Leap Forward and the Chinese Famine of 1959-1961" by Sun Jingxian - Offers a critical re-evaluation of the death toll and causes of the famine.

"Famine in China: 1959-1961" by Xue Muqiao - Discusses the impact of various policies and natural factors on the famine.

Specific Topics

"The Four Pests Campaign" - An overview of the campaign’s objectives and outcomes. Available in Historical Studies journals.

"Ecological Consequences of the Great Leap Forward: An Evaluation of the Four Pests Campaign" by Hao Yufan - Analyzes the ecological impact of the campaign, including the sparrow policy.

"The Environmental Impact of the Great Leap Forward: A Critical Review" by Li Xiaohua - Discusses the broader environmental impacts of the GLF, including pest control measures.

"Pests, Plagues, and Policy: The Great Leap Forward and Its Ecological Consequences" by Zhao Yao - Examines the myths and realities surrounding pest control during the GLF.

Famine and Death Toll

"China’s Great Leap: The Leap into the Future" by Kong Yiji - Provides statistical analysis of the famine's impact and death toll.

"The Death Toll of the Great Leap Forward: Reassessing Historical Data" by Wang Qing - Re-evaluates historical death toll estimates and their accuracy.

"Famines in China: Historical Perspectives and Modern Understandings" - Analyzes various famines in China’s history, including the GLF.

Additional Resources

Hungry Ghosts: Mao’s Secret Famine - Extensive response to claims around the Great Leap Forward and the associated famine.

Sun Jingxian and the Myth of Mao’s Genocide - Summary of Sun Jingxian’s paper and the debate on the famine's death toll.

Joseph Ball, The Mao Killed Millions Myth: The Last Word?

[mistbow]

The Storyteller of Time in Zestiria is a person who watches over the history of the world and also passes on the truth. (I also believe Sorey became one in the ending.)

But do you know that the Japanese term for it (刻遺の語り部) has a deeper meaning than just mere storyteller, dissecting from a Shinto perspective?

First off, let's get the first part (刻遺, which got translated as mere Time in English). I've explained this before, but the word "time" being written as "刻" has a specific connotation related to divisions of time and carries a sense of carving or engraving (for example, 刻む can also be used metaphorically to mean to engrave something deeply in one's memory or emotions), and as for 刻遺 in its entirety, it implies "abandoned in time" ("刻に遺される") or generally not affected by time = their long lifespan. They're also not allowed to directly interfere with history (time itself) and their existence is akin to a taboo, therefore basically making them forgotten by history itself despite the one being preserving it.

The Storyteller (語り部) part is actually more interesting that you might have thought, since Zestiria is very much inspired by Japanese history (I've talked a lot about this too), there actually exists a concept of kataribe (語り部) in ancient Japanese too.

In ancient Japan, kataribe serves as shokugyoubu (職業部), which were government-owned civilians belonging to the Wa royal authority (倭王権, Yamato kingship), engaging in social specialization with the special skills and techniques necessary for maintaining the kingship, however, they typically lead everyday lives as commoners, contributing periodically through labor or offering specialty products, in support of the royal authority; within the Shinabe (品部), a caste within the kingship. Kataribe's responsibility is to recite ancient traditions and present them during court ceremonies, during a time when written records, possibly using characters predating kanji (Chinese characters, which obviously were imported from China), were not well-developed too. They recite eulogies called yogoto (寿詞) during ceremonies that were associated with imperial rituals such as miare (御阿礼, advent of noblemen/kami) and minie (御贄, sacred offerings presented to kami).

One such kataribe member was Hieda-no-Are as mentioned in Kojiki (古事記, the oldest record text in Japan, I talked about it here). Interestingly, Hieda-no-Are is one of the instrumental figures of Kojiki, being that they were one of the compilers themself, yet very little was known about them, not even their exact gender, with their ancestry possibly tracing back to Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto, the kami of dawn and arts. Hieda-no-Are was a Shinto priest who served the Imperial House (this kind of priest is also known as 舎人, toneri/shajin), and at the age of 28, they were entrusted with the recitation and study of texts such as the Teiki (帝紀) and Kyuuji (旧辞) due to his exceptional memory. During the reign of Emperor Genmei (元明天皇), by imperial decree, Tai-An Maro (太安万侶) recorded Hieda-no-Are's recitations, leading to the compilation of the Kojiki.

The presentation of specific kataribe activities is also found in the Engishiki (延喜式), which notes that during the Senso-Daijousai (践祚大嘗祭, the largest festival ever held in an Emperor's life, as it is the first time after ascending to the throne that the Emperor dedicates new grains to the Tenjin, including Amaterasu, and partakes in the festival by consuming the harvest, a significant ceremony occuring only once in the reign of each Emperor), the Sukune (宿禰) of Tomo-no-miyatsuko (伴造) and Saeki-no-atai (佐伯) clans led eight members from Mino (美濃), two from Tanba (丹波), two from Tango (丹後), seven from Tajima (但馬), three from Inaba (因幡), four from Izumo (出雲), and two from Awaji (淡路) (btw these are all places in old Japan) to recite ancient verses (古詞, furugoto). The content is not explicitly detailed, but it likely involved traditions and legends spanning the origin and inheritance of spirits of the past Emperors.

With the introduction of foreign religions, the traditional kataribe evolved as well, and terms such as shukugo (祝詞, liturgical prayers) were used for traditional rituals in Shinto, while those that reached the common people transformed into saibun (祭文, festival documents), shichou (詞章, poems), and katarimono (語りもの, storytelling), each with different purposes. Nowadays, in the modern Japan, kataribe basically refers to people who carry out activities to pass down the lessons of history, particularly of disasters and incidents, and I feel all this is in line with how kataribe is also like in Zestiria, and another reason why Sorey ending as a kataribe is a fitting conclusion for him--the game is about turning legends and traditions into hope (伝承はいつしか「希望」になる is the tagline after all) and that history is more than just a record of a past, but something to learn from too.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil's Landless Rural Workers' Movement partners with China to use solar energy in cooperatives

The MST, as it is known, focuses on energy transition, leaving the dependence on wood burning and hydroelectricity

João Pedro Stedile, leader of the Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST, in Portuguese), was in China to talk with institutions and companies that have already started partnerships involving the movement's settlements.

The MST is also looking for a solution to an energy problem Brazilian rural cooperatives, including the MST, face. The movement has 185 cooperatives and 1,900 associations, which run 120 small and medium-sized agro-industries.

The main production chains in MST settlements are rice, milk, meat, coffee, cocoa, seeds, cassava, sugar cane and grains, according to the movement.

The problem is that the agro-industries need steam and hot water to pasteurize food. “Today, unfortunately, the pasteurization process is done in wood-fired boilers,” he explained in an interview with Brasil de Fato.

“There are also electric boilers, but they are very expensive, especially after the privatization of hydroelectric plants [in Brazil], including Eletrobras [a Brazilian-based hydroelectric plant, the largest in Latin America],” Stedile laments.

Continue reading.

[workersolidarity]

🇨🇳

CHINA'S NEW FOOD SECURITY LAW IS A MOVE IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION, EVEN AS THE U.S. HANDS OVER ITS OWN AGRICULTURAL SOVEREIGNTY TO CORPORATIONS

China's National legislature passed a new food security Law Friday, aimed at securing its national food supply and reducing waste in food production in a country that feeds more than 1.4 billion people with less than 9% of the world's arable land.

At the very time when the United States is handing over it's agricultural sovereignty to giant multi-national corporations (including ones from China), China is moving in the opposite direction, looking to secure food supplies and exercise public ownership of agricultural lands.

China's Xinhua News Agency writes that the new food security Law stipulates that China must "'ensure absolute security in staple foods and basic self-sufficiency in grains,' indicating that the country must ensure that its food supply remains firmly in its own hands."

The new Law was passed by China's legislature at a session of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee on Friday, with the law taking effect on June 1st, 2024.

According to Xinhua, the law further stipulates that the "state shall restrict the occupation of farmland and the conversion of farmland to other forms of land use, such as forests and grassland."

The Law also emphasizes the establishment of a National agricultural germplasm resource bank, improvement of the national system for cultivating superior crop varieties, as well as promoting mechanization and building capacity for disaster prevention, mitigation and relief in grain production.

The Law also introduces measures to raise the income of farmers who grow crops.

According to Xinhua, China has produced a grain harvest of over 650 million tons for nine consecutive years, with a staple-food self-sufficiency rate above 100% and a grain-sufficiency rate above 95%.

The Law also contains a chapter dedicated specifically to food conservation, and creates enforcement mechanisms to reduce food waste from production to consumption.

Provisions also cover issues such as those concerning grain reserves, distribution, processing, and emergency response.

Xinhua says the new legislation on food security is "of great importance", and "lays a solid legal foundation for advancing China's system and capacity for food security governance, said Wang Zhimin, a member of the NPC Standing Committee."

#source

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[mapsontheweb]

Human Activity in China and India Dominates the Greening of Earth, NASA Study Shows and presented with map.

Over the last two decades, the Earth has seen an increase in foliage around the planet, measured in average leaf area per year on plants and trees. Data from NASA satellites shows that China and India are leading the increase in greening on land. The effect stems mainly from ambitious tree planting programs in China and intensive agriculture in both countries.

The world is literally a greener place than it was 20 years ago, and data from NASA satellites has revealed a counterintuitive source for much of this new foliage: China and India. A new study shows that the two emerging countries with the world’s biggest populations are leading the increase in greening on land. The effect stems mainly from ambitious tree planting programs in China and intensive agriculture in both countries.

The greening phenomenon was first detected using satellite data in the mid-1990s by Ranga Myneni of Boston University and colleagues, but they did not know whether human activity was one of its chief, direct causes. This new insight was made possible by a nearly 20-year-long data record from a NASA instrument orbiting the Earth on two satellites. It’s called the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, and its high-resolution data provides very accurate information, helping researchers work out details of what’s happening with Earth’s vegetation, down to the level of 500 meters, or about 1,600 feet, on the ground.

Taken all together, the greening of the planet over the last two decades represents an increase in leaf area on plants and trees equivalent to the area covered by all the Amazon rainforests. There are now more than two million square miles of extra green leaf area per year, compared to the early 2000s – a 5% increase.

“China and India account for one-third of the greening, but contain only 9% of the planet’s land area covered in vegetation – a surprising finding, considering the general notion of land degradation in populous countries from overexploitation,” said Chi Chen of the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University, in Massachusetts, and lead author of the study.

An advantage of the MODIS satellite sensor is the intensive coverage it provides, both in space and time: MODIS has captured as many as four shots of every place on Earth, every day for the last 20 years.

“This long-term data lets us dig deeper,” said Rama Nemani, a research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, in California’s Silicon Valley, and a co-author of the new work. “When the greening of the Earth was first observed, we thought it was due to a warmer, wetter climate and fertilization from the added carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading to more leaf growth in northern forests, for instance. Now, with the MODIS data that lets us understand the phenomenon at really small scales, we see that humans are also contributing.”

China’s outsized contribution to the global greening trend comes in large part (42%) from programs to conserve and expand forests. These were developed in an effort to reduce the effects of soil erosion, air pollution and climate change. Another 32% there – and 82% of the greening seen in India – comes from intensive cultivation of food crops.

Land area used to grow crops is comparable in China and India – more than 770,000 square miles – and has not changed much since the early 2000s. Yet these regions have greatly increased both their annual total green leaf area and their food production. This was achieved through multiple cropping practices, where a field is replanted to produce another harvest several times a year. Production of grains, vegetables, fruits and more have increased by about 35-40% since 2000 to feed their large populations.

How the greening trend may change in the future depends on numerous factors, both on a global scale and the local human level. For example, increased food production in India is facilitated by groundwater irrigation. If the groundwater is depleted, this trend may change.

“But, now that we know direct human influence is a key driver of the greening Earth, we need to factor this into our climate models,” Nemani said. “This will help scientists make better predictions about the behavior of different Earth systems, which will help countries make better decisions about how and when to take action.”

The researchers point out that the gain in greenness seen around the world and dominated by India and China does not offset the damage from loss of natural vegetation in tropical regions, such as Brazil and Indonesia. The consequences for sustainability and biodiversity in those ecosystems remain.

Overall, Nemani sees a positive message in the new findings. “Once people realize there’s a problem, they tend to fix it,” he said. “In the 70s and 80s in India and China, the situation around vegetation loss wasn’t good; in the 90s, people realized it; and today things have improved. Humans are incredibly resilient. That’s what we see in the satellite data.”

This research was published online, Feb. 11, 2019, in the journal Nature Sustainability.