Japan quake brings opportunity to China's agriculture

Global Times, March 25, 2011

Chinese producers and traders of agricultural products complain that exports to Japan have suffered a sharp decline since a massive quake and tsunami disrupted the country's transportation systems and power supply supplies.

Agricultural officials and other experts believe that this trouble will ease and Chinese farm produce exports to Japan could even increase as recovery efforts continue.

"Our company's export of grilled eel to Japan stopped right after the earthquake," said Zhang Lisen, president of Xilong Food Company in east China's Jiangxi Province.

The firm, which mainly produces grilled eel, relies heavily on the Japanese market. It ships an average 2,000 tonnes of frozen grilled eel to Japan every year.

Zhang was pessimistic about the quake-rattled Japanese market and has a plan for the worst case scenario: "shut down the factory and send workers home."

Eel is favored by Japanese who believe eating eel boosts stamina, especially in hot weather.

However, eel farming in Japan can only satisfy 30 percent of its demand, forcing the country to import the rest, said Zou Shengyuan, secretary-general of Jiangxi's fishery association

Commerce statistics show that around 70 percent of China's total eel exports were delivered to Japan.

"The quake could hurt China's export of expensive freshwater products,like grilled eel, to Japan as disasters bring down consumer confidence," said Guan Shaofei, director of the provincial fishery bureau.

Grilled eels were sold to Japan at around 30,000 dollars per tonne, according to Guan.

In south China's Guangdong Province, exports of fresh eel to Japan fell 30 percent over the past week after disasters disrupted transportation and power supply in Japan, said Xu Limin, president of Guangdong's eel association.

"Breeders had to grill the eel to buy some time since fresh eel goes bad easily," he said.

The problems in Japan also brought headaches to agricultural producers and traders in east China's Shandong Province who export the bulk of the province's farm produce to the quake-stricken country.

"The power disruption would make keeping farm produce fresh extremely difficult," said Cao Menghui, president of Yiping Agricultural Product Group, a garlic products manufacturer based in Jinan, Shandong's provincial capital.