With our minds occupied by the annoying situation with China over canola import bans in 70 percent of that country’s ports, it’s hard to take the long view on the golden opportunity China offers prairie farmers.
After all, the present dispute is probably cutting Canadian canola seed exports to China by two-thirds, if the torrid pace of pre-ban exports in October and November are indication of what the winter would have given us. (Canola oil shipments are far up, however, showing that Chinese buyers know how to get around the regulations.) So basing optimistic market demand projections on a nation that can so easily squeeze imports might seem rash at the moment.
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But an interview I just listened to on Bloomberg radio just brought up the same long-term potential that I have been hearing from many analysts: China is not only growing, but also running out of water for crop and livestock production.
“They already predict a 37 percent drop in three of their major grain crops by 2050,” Elizabeth Economy (btw: that’s her real name) of the Council on Foreign Relations told Tom Keene of Bloomberg. “This is a really serious challenge for not only China but also for the rest of the world when you think about feeding 1.6 billion people.”
As one of the places in the world that has lots of land and few people, the Canadian prairies are one of those places for which China’s problems become our opportunities. As groundwater and river water supplies across China decline, the country will need to import food that it presently produces with irrigation. Who better to do it than prairie farmers?
Already China is planning to divert a river from Tibet that presently flows into India so that it will flow into the populous regions of China. And it is proposing diverting a southern Chinese river to send its water north where supplies are running dangerously low. (Economy noted that the more-northern Chinese who would receive the water are against the latter diversion: the water is so polluted local authorities could not afford to clean it to a safe level!)
When it comes to a fight between water for people or water to irrigate crops or feed pigs, people are always likely to win. So that should provide a long term basis for a growing market for most grains and meats from the prairies. And for that, we can feel optimistic.
