Globalization, Agriculture and Weevils

This post was written partly so I could include the word "weevil" in the title of a blog post although this article does go to show how China's opening up to the rest of the world brings costs and well as benefits.

Closer integration with the world economy brings the inflow of FDI, expertise, skills, technology and agricultural pests including the infamous weevil.

China Fights Off Invading Moths and Weevils [PlanetArk]

BEIJING - China has drawn up a plan to tackle the growing threat from invasive foreign agricultural pests, whose numbers have risen since the country embarked upon an opening up to the outside world 30 years ago.

Local governments in coastal and border provinces and regions had signed a "document of responsibility" to stop such pests entering China, the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement on its Web site (www.agri.gov.cn).

In the 1970s, China discovered just one foreign pest species, but in the first eight years of this century it had found almost 20, the ministry said.

Some of the most serious pests include rice water weevils, which attack rice crops, and codling moths, originally from Europe and whose larvae feed on apples and pears.

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