Three Globalisations and Chinese Weather Checkers

TL;DR

Agribusinesses worldwide are adapting to a new era of ‘strategic capitalism’. Case in Point: Olam and Pulses. India’s Defence Minister recently hinted at the possibility of China “weaponizing” weather modification for strategic gains. Will China’s geopolitical hunger games trigger a series of escalating weather weaponization adventures?

The more I study agritech and its future in a deglobalizing world, agribusiness gameplays are starting to look like geopolitical maneuvres.

Ajay Shah , in a recent fascinating oped, calls it the 'Third Globalisation'.

“The first globalization was the golden age from the Suez Canal (1869) to the First World War (1914), where the steamship, the telegraph, and the Suez Canal resulted in a great surge of cross-border activity…The second globalization' featured unconditional access for the periphery to the advanced economies that are the core of the world economy. The third globalization' makes this access more conditional on foreign policy and military alignment.”

Take the case of India launching its pulse procurement portal in January where farmers are being promised that their pigeon pea-a bad choice of a name, if you ask me, from erstwhile English colonizers to call it ‘pigeon fodder’ when it is the staple protein source for millions- will be bought by National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd and the National Cooperative Consumers' Federation of India through Direct Benefit Transfer….

IF…..

they register in the portal.

The wooing initiatives, hopefully, will make India self-sufficient in pulses by 2027.

“Grow pulses, don't worry about prices. We will procure at MSP. By December 2027, the country should become self-reliant in pulses. We will not import even one kilo of pulses from January 2028,” - Amit Shah, Minister of Cooperation(Source)

It isn’t exactly a coincidence that Olam is launching the ‘Nutriwaah’ pulses brand at the same time, amidst ADM quietly acknowledging its challenges in building a low-volume, high-profit margin nutrition business.

In 2023, India ‘imported 2.13 MT of pulses – 1.08 MT (lentil), 0.62 MT (tur or pigeon pea) and 0.42 MT (urad or black gram) mostly from Australia, Canada, Myanmar, Mozambique, Tanzania, Sudan and Malawi so far (Source) and earlier in November 2023, India requested Brazil and Argentina to grow tur and urad (black gram).

Not just India, China diversified its import sources from the US to Brazil, while rebuilding food security cooperation and market access for US farmers and ranchers in China. In its efforts to improve self-sufficiency, earlier in October, China added ‘37 varieties of GM corn and 14 varieties of GM soybeans to its list of GM crops, which previously only included papaya and cotton.’ (Source)

“While the initial planting area for GM corn in 2024 is expected to be modest, at around 670,000 hectares, the potential impact is significant. The success of this initial phase could pave the way for wider adoption, potentially transforming China's agricultural landscape.”Source: Gajendra Babu B., Ph. D.

India and China have a long history of civilizational contact and over recent years, the bilateral relations have taken a strong turn with old neighbors learning to flex their muscles.

“Changes like this in internal and external policy are in line with the logic of India's long-held policy.? India has always considered itself a world power. However, it has only been less than 10 years since India shifted from multi-balancing to multi-alignment, and now it is rapidly transforming toward a strategy of becoming a pole in the multipolar world. The speed of such changes is rarely seen in the history of international relations.” - What I feel about the ‘Bharat narrative’ in India by Zhang Jiadong

That India has been closely looking at China's alleged attempts to alter the Galwan River and its advancements through geoengineering technologies was evident in a statement made by India’s defense minister without obviously naming Galwan River.

This is not the first time India and the rest of the World have accused China of weaponizing geoengineering and debt relief. Although Climatic modification as a weapon was formally prohibited under the Environmental Modification Convention, geoengineering ‘circumvents’ this treaty.

Geoengineering techniques come with various means and attribution errors - Should I apply the ‘force majeure’ clause and blame it on Climate or should I blame the enemy country?

1. Weather Modification - When China announces its aspirations to bring ‘5.5 million square kilometers of its land area under its weather modification program by 2025’, ‘more than 1.5 times the total size of India’, it can dramatically alter monsoon patterns in neighboring countries such as India, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Vietnam.
2. River Water Obstruction - If China manages to dam Brahmaputra, as it did to Mekong, it will significantly affect the ecological balance and livelihoods of millions across the coast of Laos, India, Thailand and Vietnam
3. Artificial Islands - How do you build a governmental monopoly over the global seafood industry? If you are China, you construct illegal artificial islands along the South China Sea which controls ‘60 percent of the global maritime trade transits.

When ENMOD has no teeth to regulate geoengineering risks, there is great potential for the next Palantir-esque agritech startup to build a platform that could identify geoeconomic risks through environmental intelligence data.

Or is it already out there somewhere? Let me know. I would love to dig in.

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