From China to America, monumental forces are driving global demand for food, feed and renewable fuel. Faced with a worldwide credit crunch, demand will probably take a breather, but the long-term trends are still strong.

Meet Your Chinese Customers
A dynamic economy means better diets for millions and improved markets for American farmers.
Story and photos by Jim Patrico

Like millions of Chinese, Chen sought to escape the grind and poverty of the rural countryside for the money and hope of the cities of China. City dweller in China earn more than three times what their cousins make in rural areas. Chen left his farming village in a rural province and came to Beijing three years ago. Xu left a job in a video camera factory near Hong Kong and joined him last year.

Chen works an afternoon and evening shift as a laboratory assistant at Chinese Agricultural University, which provides him and his family with a one-room apartment next to a lab on campus. He also works in the mornings as a construction materials salesman for one company and sells lab equipment for another. His three jobs earn him about $750/month for working seven days a week. The family apartment has a bed with mosquito net, a hot plate, a furnace/air conditioner, a TV, a kitchen cabinet, a cabinet for clothes, a short table and three stools.

On this particular day, the Chens are entertaining a guest from America, so they plan a special lunch. It begins with a trip to a nearby supermarket where they buy fish, pork, cooking oil and vegetables. The fish and pork are extravagances. In most weeks, the Chens have meat or fish only once. But that is a great improvement over what they would have had in their home villages. There, meat is a treat to be enjoyed only for holiday meals.

Over lunch, Chen talks about his hopes. In five years, he says, he would like to buy an apartment and a car. He would like to run his own business because, without a college education, he has few prospects for promotion. Had he stayed in the village, he says, he could not have pursued such dreams.

Despite their progress, the Chens do face problems. The central government of China is of two minds about rural/urban immigrants. On the one hand, the economy has a voracious appetite for workers, so the government wants people to come to the cities. On the other hand, the government fears that the epic migration could pull too many people away from the farming villages that feed the rest of the population. So the government erects bureaucratic roadblocks.

The Chens—and millions like them—are in Beijing and other cities on temporary permits. These permits have no set time limit, but the government could order them to leave at any time. The Chens temporary status means that they cannot receive the same free health care as permanent Beijing residents. Nor can they send their daughter to free public schools. And, if they eventually earn enough to upgrade from the single room they now call home, they have to find a landlord willing to take a chance on a temporary renter…not an easy task.