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Ag trade mission to China focuses on women

 

 The director of Michigan’s Department of Agriculture says the U.S. needs to continue to craft relationships in China to build marketing opportunities.

Jamie Clover Adams was part of a recent trade mission to China with a focus on women’s roles in agriculture.  She says while many American women have been involved in agriculture for generations, the Chinese women they met with were independent entrepreneurs.  “In China, women still have not moved up the ladder as far as roles in government or in big business, but they sure are the drivers, at least that I could see, in entrepreneurship in China.”

Clover Adams says many of the women they met have the same food concerns as Americans which could be another marketing avenue for U.S. food and ag companies.  “E-commerce has about a 49 percent penetration in China and of those, 68 percent of those people use a mobile devise to buy their products—so I really think that American companies need to think about that.”

She tells Brownfield there’s also a growing trend in China to buy food online and the exploding ecommerce opportunities should not be ignored.

AUDIO: Interview with Director Jamie Clover Adams