KFC, Apple in China hit by South China Sea spat

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In this photo taken on Tuesday, July 19, 2016 and released by Guo Lu, policemen stand watch Chinese people carrying national flags hold a protest outside a KFC restaurant outlet in Baoying county in east China's Jiangsu province. In an apparent attempt to head off large-scale street demonstrations, Chinese state newspapers have criticized scattered protests against KFC restaurants and other U.S. targets sparked by an international tribunal's ruling that denied Beijing's claim to virtually the entire South China Sea. (Guo Lu via AP)

BEIJING (AP) — To the challenges facing KFC and Apple in China, add a surprise backlash from Beijing's spat with the Philippines over the South China Sea.

Nationalists are protesting at KFC outlets and calling for a boycott, spurred by government accusations that Washington encouraged Manila to oppose Beijing's claims to vast tracts of ocean.

Photos circulated online show young Chinese wearing scarves with patriotic slogans smashing Apple iPhones in protest.

State media have fanned public anger with a torrent of criticism of last week's ruling by a U.N. tribunal, which found no legal basis for Beijing's claim to most of the South China Sea.

"The Chinese public, as optimistic and positive as they are, are deeply patriotic and nationalistic, especially people who are younger," said James Roy of the research firm China Market Research Group. KFC and Apple "are just very closely associated with the United States, and you are seeing people picking the closest symbol they can think of to demonstrate against."

The protests are a reminder of the political risks for global brands in China, where they regularly become targets of nationalist sentiment, often stirred up by official media.

In 2012, sales of Japanese autos plunged when Tokyo and Beijing were in a dispute over control of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea.

The Chinese leadership has tried to tamp down this week's protests with demands in state media to leave foreign companies and their customers alone.

"This is not the right way to express patriotism," said the government's Xinhua News Agency. The China Daily newspaper called the protests "jingoism that does a disservice to the spirit of devotion to the nation."

Some KFC customers have responded by posting photos of themselves online with a bucket of chicken, axes or other weapons and signs reading, "patriotic hooligans, try harassing me and I'll take you out."

Phone calls to spokespeople for KFC in China and written messages sent through the company website weren't answered.

A man in the eastern city of Yangzhou, northwest of Shanghai, said he watched a protest Tuesday morning after seeing a note online appealing to people to take part. He said it also told protesters to boycott Japanese and Korean goods.

"A group of more than 20 people including children broke into the restaurant and shouted at customers to leave," the witness, Guo Lu, said by phone from Yangzhou. He said police arrived quickly and pushed the protesters out of the restaurant.

The timing is unusually bad for KFC, which is China's biggest restaurant chain with more than 5,000 outlets but is overhauling its struggling business after a food scandal and marketing missteps.

KFC's owner, Yum Brands Inc., is preparing to spin off its China unit, which also includes Pizza Hut restaurants, as a separate company in October in hopes of improving its performance.

KFC has long been an all-purpose target for protests about U.S. issues, especially in areas outside big cities with few other foreign symbols. In 1999, after NATO jets bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, protesters wrecked KFC restaurants.

The company and other foreign chain restaurants in China also face an upheaval as customers migrate to fast-growing local competitors they say offer more nutritious meals.

For its part, Apple has faced a series of legal hurdles this year in China, its second-biggest market.

In April, it suspended its iBooks and iTunes Movies services, reportedly due to an order by Chinese regulators.

The next month, an intellectual property tribunal ordered Apple to stop selling its iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in Beijing after finding they look too much like a model made by a small Chinese brand. Apple was allowed to continue sales while it appeals.

Also in May, a court ruled a Chinese company is allowed to use the iPhone trademark on bags, wallets and other leather goods.

An Apple spokeswoman responded to a request for comment by pointing to CEO Tim Cook's positive comments in April about the company's future in China. Cook said Apple was "really optimistic" and planned to open five more stores in China during the current quarter for a total of 40.

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Real Estate Boom Pinches a Produce Supply in the Hudson Valley

STONE RIDGE, N.Y. — Apple trees have blossomed, and soon fruit will begin emerging at Elizabeth Ryan’s orchard in the Hudson Valley. Before long, her harvest will head south to Manhattan, where Miro Uskokovic, the pastry chef at Gramercy Tavern, will use it to create an apple and carob cake, while Michael Anthony, the executive chef at the Studio Cafe inside the Whitney Museum of American Art, will turn it into an apple compote spread over pie dough and covered with a streusel.

Ms. Ryan’s apples are also on school-lunch menus and sold at farmers markets all over the city. Her farm, Stone Ridge Orchard in Ulster County, is part of a rapidly expanding pipeline that carries fruits and vegetables from farms across New York State to consumers clamoring for fresh ingredients grown in soil not far away.

But the demand for locally grown foods is colliding with another powerful force: a booming real estate market, particularly in the Hudson Valley, driven by waves of newcomers from New York City, perhaps drawn by the region’s natural beauty, more relaxed pace and less expensive housing. The boom is gobbling up family farms as owners choose to cash in on the surging value of land rather than grapple with the perennial challenges of slim profit margins, high taxes, long hours and fickle weather.

The number of farms in New York State has been declining steadily, to 35,537 in 2012 from 38,264 in 1997, according to the most recent five-year census conducted by the Department of Agriculture. And since 1982, real estate development has swallowed more than 471,000 acres of the state’s farmland, according to data compiled by the American Farmland Trust, a preservation group.

Now a group of New York City lawmakers has teamed up with another preservation group, the Scenic Hudson Land Trust, to create a plan to preserve the region’s existing food system. As part of the initiative, lawmakers are seeking for the first time to set aside money in the municipal budget for the preservation of farmland in the Hudson Valley.

“The risk to farmland is a risk to healthy food for New York City residents,” Councilman Daniel R. Garodnick, Democrat of Manhattan, said. He said that many farmers markets were in neighborhoods that have few stores, if any, that sell high-quality produce.

Mr. Garodnick has proposed spending $50 million for a conservation easement program that would pay farmers the development value of their land and impose a deed restriction to permanently protect their land from development. Some farmers might use the money to make improvements, while others could lease or sell their land to other farmers.

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“If we want all New Yorkers to have access to fresh, local food, then we must save the nearby farms that serve the city’s neediest neighborhoods now, before they are lost to development,” Steve Rosenberg, executive director of the Scenic Hudson Land Trust, said. “This modest, but visionary, strategic investment will make the city a national model of how to create a more equitable and secure regional food system.”

Ms. Ryan, who also owns four other farms in Dutchess and Columbia Counties, said that Stone Ridge Orchard “illustrates the urgency of these issues.”

“It’s been here for 300 years,” she said.

Before she bought the farm two years ago for $1.25 million, a 450-unit condominium project had been proposed for the 113-acre site, which grows 150 varieties of apples and other types of fruit.

Ms. Ryan, 62, said she could easily sell Stone Ridge Orchard for several million dollars and retire. Instead, she is working with several conservation groups in hopes of having it permanently protected. She also plans to invest more money and expand her operation by establishing a bakery and selling hard cider.

“I’ve been told by my lenders that it’s a bad business decision, not to cash out your land for houses,” Ms. Ryan said. “Why do we do this? Because we love it, because we believe in it, because there is a joy and satisfaction in growing healthy food for people. It’s not just the direct nourishment of getting an apple, but the support and other forms of nourishment that come along with community, people getting together, people eating together.”

The economic impact of fresh food is also growing in the city. The number of farmers markets in New York City has nearly doubled, to 146 in 2015 from 79 in 2006, according to city officials. In the 2014-15 school year, the city spent over $27 million on locally produced food, a nearly $2 million increase from the previous year.

“It’s not only individual New Yorkers that are buying locally,” David Haight, the New York State director of the American Farmland Trust, said. “We’re seeing this trend in community institutions as well.”

But a study Mr. Haight’s group released in April found another ominous trend: Farmers in the state are aging, with nearly 30 percent of them age 65 or older. “So another big threat is the number of farms that are going to be up for grabs as senior farmers will be getting out of farming,” he said.

Proponents of farmland preservation point to the growing number of aging farmers in arguing that it is critical to pay for conservation programs now. Mr. Garodnick’s proposal is similar to conservation programs paid for by the federal and state government and by private foundations. In early May, the state announced a $20 million award to preserve 5,600 acres on 28 farms in the Hudson Valley.

Mr. Anthony, who works for the Union Square Hospitality Group, said farmland preservation is critical to the restaurant industry. “Poorly planned development and urban sprawl is destroying at a rapid pace our state’s best quality farmland and other vital agricultural areas,” he said, adding that conservation efforts were vital to ensuring “that safe foods are grown close to where they will be consumed.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has emphasized the need for improved access to affordable fresh fruits and vegetables, especially in low-income schools and neighborhoods, is reviewing Mr. Garodnick’s proposal, a spokeswoman said, and recognizes the importance of preserving farmland. The city’s budget has to be finalized by June 30.

A group of State Assembly members wrote a joint letter to Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, urging him to support the conservation plan.

“Most of us are the ones in our households who end up making key food decisions,” said Assemblywoman Didi Barrett, a Democrat, who wrote the letter and who represents Dutchess and Columbia Counties. “People I represent are the people who drive to the city each week for farmers markets. And people in the city want to know where their food is coming from and who their farmers are.”

Ms. Ryan said she traveled to the city regularly and was “very concerned to see so many neighborhoods where there’s very little greenery.”

“We see young kids and teenagers living on diet soda and Twinkies,” she continued. “That is a horrifying thing.”

Source by...http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/nyregion/real-estate-boom-pinches-a-produce-supply-in-the-hudson-valley.html

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