soybeans

This week’s News on China. • More US sanctions against Chinese chip industry • China tightens graphite export controls • Industrial renaissance in northeast China • China approves GM soybeans and corn

Via Zerohedge…

The White House by Nancy OhanianThe worst-run White House ever? You bet! Just ask Susan Glasser at the New Yorker.

Chinese President Xi Jinping maintains a good relationship with Trump, but Chinese media has called the US a trade bully
 
US President Donald Trump has warned of imposing tariffs on as much as $500 billion in Chinese exports if Beijing retaliates against his administration’s $34 billion levies which went into effect July 6.

China has announced that in retaliation for the 25% tariffs imposed on Chinese steel, aluminum and other exports to the U.S. it will impose 25% tariffs on, among other things, U.S. soybean imports.
Let us think about soybeans.

On July 7, 2017, officials in Arkansas and Missouri enacted a temporary ban on dicamba, the herbicide blamed for vaporizing and damaging crops which have not been genetically engineered to withstand the weedkiller. The Arkansas Plant Board had voted June 23, 2017 to temporarily ban the spraying of dicamba on any crops except pasture land for 120 days. [1]
The newest ban, set to start July 11, 2017, extends the 120-day moratorium.

The largest peach grower in Missouri has filed a lawsuit against Monsanto alleging that the biotech giant is responsible for illegal herbicide use that is believed to have caused widespread crop damage in southeast Missouri and neighboring states. [1]
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Soybean fields in parts of Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee are plagued by “superweeds” that have become resistant to glyphosate, the main ingredient in biotech company’s Monsanto’s RoundUp herbicide. Farmers are now dousing the plants with illegal chemicals to try and kill the rogue weeds.

Four Nebraska farmers are now suing the agricultural giant Monsanto because they believe the herbicide Roundup has caused them to develop cancer. The farmers feel that Monsanto did not give them accurate information about the safety of Roundup and that their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is directly linked to daily exposure to the chemicals in the herbicide.

Beekeepers have instinctively known this all along, but a new landmark study has linked insecticide dust to damaged beehives. This is a sad but welcome confirmation of what beekeepers in Minnesota have been trying to tell the world for years now.