"China's northeast cornbelt likely to be hit by fall armyworm in 2020: government report"

Don't say I never gave you anything.
A snippet that may (or may not) be profit-making come July.
From Reuters, December 26:

China warned earlier this week that a destructive pest that has threatened the country’s grain output is expected to hit more crops across wider areas in 2020, including the key corn-growing region in the northeast.

Fall armyworm, first detected in China’s southwestern province of Yunnan in January this year, is expected to spread to the corn belt in the northeast next year, a government institute said in a report on Monday, citing the pest’s reproduction patterns and high mobility.

“It is expected that in 2020, fall armyworm will be very severe and the situation will be extremely grave,” according to the report by the National Agriculture Technology Extension Service Center(NATESC), an institute under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

The pest infested 16.88 million mu (1.13 million hectare) of land in 26 provinces and regions in 2019, NATESC said in the report. Fall armyworms, which feast in large numbers on the leaves and stems of many plant species, including sorghum, corn and sugarcane, can’t be eradicated and can infest and damage hundreds of hectares of crops in a single night.

China is the world’s second-biggest corn consumer and producer. While 98.1% of the land infested by fall armyworm in 2019 was corn field not in the northeast, 19 other crops including wheat, ginger, sugarcane and sorghum were also hit, NATESC said in the report, published on its website.

Beijing warned earlier this year that armyworm was a severe threat to the country’s food security and in May launched a campaign to “snatch grain from the insect’s mouth”....MORE

As noted last August:

...I joke about Harbin: 

Meanwhile in Harbin
Have I mentioned I have an odd fascination with Harbin China?
From Peoples Daily:

Brrr! Tourists wear funny animal-like hats to withstand the cold in Harbin, Northeast China's #Heilongjiang province, on Feb 12, when temperatures fell as low as -22C pic.twitter.com/338jMremlV

— People's Daily, China (@PDChina) February 15, 2019

But it goes beyond the fact Harbin is the coldest big city (sorry Moscow) in the world:

"China Is Facing Food-Supply Crisis, Notable Challenges to Regime’s Ambitions"

Okay, time to fess up.
I've mentioned I have a strange fascination with the city of Harbin China,
And I've mentioned part of the reason is it is so darn cold. Which is true.
But the other reason is it is the largest city in Heilongjiang province which, of the 22 mainland provinces (they claim Taiwan is #23) is the largest producer of corn in the country and at just under 1/5 of China's total production is a world-class resource....

And:
"China’s ailing rust belt struggles to shake off reliance on state support"