An Empirical Study on the Relationship Between China's Maize Price and Maize Import and Export Trade

Based on the time series of China’s maize trade and domestic maize price,the article analyzes the relationship between domestic maize price and China’s maize international trade by using empirical methods.The results show that there is a connection between domestic maize prices and China's maize international trade,but the link is not very close.Domestic maize price is the cause of China’s maize international trade change,but its impact is very limited;China's maize international trade also can make some difference on the domestic maize price.Based on the results of research,the article brings three suggestion and expectation to adjust China’s maize international trade and the cost control reasonably in order to stabilize domestic maize price and maize yield,and to protect domestic grain security.

Price transmission in hog and feed markets of China

There is an increasing demand for feed as the industrialization of hog production in China. Land scarcity limits China＇s ability to continue increasing its hog production without feed imports, particularly soybean, and the feed markets are increasingly integrated into the global market. This study performs an analysis of price transmission between the hog price in China and feed prices, specifically domestic maize price and international soybean price, from January 2000 to April 2014. We identified a long-term stable equilibrium relationship between the three markets. However, further analyses show that there is no significant Granger causality between hog and feed market, and the long-run equilibrium partially results from Granger causality between the international soybean market and domestic maize market. This suggests that the domestic hog market has been distorted by different policies. The results also indicate that the efficiency of price transmission is very low and it takes about 11 months to correct one-half of any long-run disequilibrium for the hog market in China. Therefore, to stabilize hog price in China, only market intervention to regulate the maize and soybean markets would be insufficient and comprehensive measures need to be taken into account such as hog production modernization, agricultural insurance, epidemic surveillance etc.

Muscled Maize

A crop disease that almost decimated the maize stocks of East Africa four years ago is now being fought back with painstaking research by Kenyan scientists.A new maize hybrid,known as Wei 101,promises to prevent maize lethal necrosis（MLN）by up to 96 percent,saving farmersfrom devastating financial losses. The hybrid has under- gone field trials and will be available to farmers in the next few months,