China's Beans Troubled

TIANJIN - Aug 29/12 - SNS -- The coming marketing year could be a troubled one for China's dry edible bean industry, with many regions reporting a ongoing deterioration in the quality of the crops and their susceptibility to plant diseases.

Several speakers attending this year's China Pulse Import and Export Industry Conference noted that, as is in the case in most countries, China's farmers hold back a portion of their crop as planting seed.

However, this has resulted in a situation where a greater proportion of the seed stock are carrying plant diseases. There also appears to be a breakdown in the genetic attributes in the seed, which seemed more obvious for varieties produced from seed which was originally imported from the United States and elsewhere. This is showing up as changes in size, shape and color.

Some companies involved in the bean trade are working to convince farmers to upgrade their planting seed and have put in test plots to show farmers the difference in the way the plants develop and in the quality of the harvest seed. While this would increase production costs, they hope to show farmers that net income would also improve.