Agriculture topped China's list of concerns when it entered the World Trade Organisation 10 years ago, and a decade into membership some farmers are still anxious.
Feng Wei, a pig farmer in Jining , Shandong , says China's WTO entry has not benefited him at all, only harmed his business.
Tighter restrictions, for example, had created an imbalance between meat imports and exports, he said.
'China doesn't ban the use of antibiotics in pig, chicken and duck breeding, so the industry's abuse of the drugs has made it very tough to export the meat,' said Feng. 'But it's easy to import foreign pork into China.
'China probably hasn't imported much meat but once it does, butchers will begin to cut prices. And if they reduce the price by, say, 10 fen, then pig traders will have to cut their price by 30 fen.'
When China was applying for membership, academics, industry players and even then-premier Zhu Rongji voiced fears that the domestic sector would be crushed by imports as Chinese farmers lagged behind in technology and had little understanding of a market economy.
Professor Tian Zhihong, a member of the Ministry of Agriculture's WTO expert panel, noted that China's trade deficit in agriculture has grown steadily since first arising in 2004. According to customs data, China's agricultural trade deficit was US$4.6 billion in 2004, and ballooned to US$23 billion last year.