Chinese farmers have been buying feed as well as fertilizers, seeds, chemicals and machinery online as the spring planting season gets under way and normal supply chains are disrupted by the coronavirus outbreak.
The development is ensuring higher profits for the e-commerce platforms that are offering farming related products.
Supplies such as feed, fertilizer and seeds are typically sold to farmers in China through a network of traders and local distributors, but the coronavirus scare has undermined transport links and shut factories.
Boosting livestock production in China
In a statement released this week, China's ministry of agriculture and rural affairs said that more will be done to ensure that the country's livestock and poultry businesses will meet their output and supply targets despite the slowdown caused by the coronavirus epidemic.
“Since the outbreak, measures taken by related authorities have boosted production resumption and helped firms in accessing feed and finding buyers,” Han Changfu, China's minister of agriculture and rural affairs, told a video conference on coordinating and boosting livestock and poultry production in south China.
Han said feed supply has been "basically secured, poultry inventory reduced and livestock production recovery [is] gaining momentum."
However, local authorities need to ensure a high level of livestock and poultry output in order to increase the supply of meat products, they need to address any problems regarding production and transport to make up for capacity loss and to minimize the impact of the epidemic, said officials.
The ministry said the video conference also highlighted the need to facilitate poultry sales by actions such as the orderly reopening of live poultry markets and the expansion of hog production through speeding up the construction of production capacity expansion projects and through supporting small and medium-sized producers in scaling up output.
“Targeted policies will be introduced to incentivize hog and poultry farming, while prevention and control measures will be beefed up against animal diseases including bird flu and African swine fever (ASF),” said the Chinese ministry.
