National Geographic

98 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC • FEBRUARY 2018Charoen Pokphand, or CP Group, is converting6,425 acres of filled-in mudflats outside the cityof Cixi to food production. The goal is “to createvalue for society in all directions,” says WangQingjun, a senior vice president dressed in looseslacks and shirtsleeves.This is what China’s agricultural future lookslike too: a transnational corporation sinkingbillions of yuan into an agrifood complex com-prising fields, farms, factories, corporate offices,and even, eventually, employee housing rangingfrom apartments to water front villas. Last sum-mer, rice paddies covered 3,600 acres. Of those,115 acres were grown organically and stockedcluster of flat-roofed, two-story apartment build-ings painted yellow, surrounded on three sides bypeanut and corn fields. Across the road, the dairy’salfalfa fields roll into the distance. A woman hang-ing laundry in her small concrete yard told me thewater now smelled funny. Several people told methe dairy didn’t hire many workers, their homeswere crumbling, and rental income had notbudged in four years. Everyone complained aboutan inescapable stench from manure sprayed onthe fields. Nobody I talked with seemed happyabout having moved, but hardly anyone seemedall that upset either. The overriding sentiment wassimply resignation.For most rural Chinese these agricultural proj-ects are at best double-edged swords, just as theyare elsewhere in the world. Big animal farms canoffer some Chinese an escape from the grindingtoil of peasant life, but they also bring significantenvironmental and health risks. A 2010 censusof pollution by the Chinese government foundagriculture to be the largest polluter of water,greater even than manufacturing. And with all ofChina’s pollution challenges, it’s hard to see howlarge-scale animal production will escape thepollution and public health problems attributedto, say, dairies in California—which are smallerthan the mega-farms in China.The government says it recognizes the dangersand emphasizes addressing animal waste in a sus-tainable way. These concerns are shared by manyof the agribusinesses in China, including ModernFarming. In Bengbu the company installed a bio-gas digester to turn manure into enough energyto meet one-third of its needs there and usesthe by-products to fertilize its fields. “Almost nowaste,” says Liu Qiang, the mild- mannered, be-spectacled guide who took me around the farm.The whole thing, from the fields to the barns, themilking parlors to the bottling plant, he says, is “ademonstration for this country.”ACROSS HANGZHOU BAY from Shanghai, atthe edge of a shimmering expanse of mudflats,a Thai animal-feed conglomerate is building amegafarm with a sustainable bent. In exchangefor a break on the rent and a 20-year contract,