Jiang Wen does not know BHP Billiton or PotashCorp. But he knows that the mineral over which the companies are fighting in a $39bn hostile takeover is crucial for the farmers in Duzhuang, a village near Beijing.
“I’ve never heard of BHP – does this mean the price of potash is going to rise?” Mr Jiang asks repeatedly from his fertiliser store. Others in China’s agricultural areas say they have not heard of the bid for the Canadian fertiliser company by the world’s largest miner. But their interest in the price and availability of potash, a mineral used in fertilisers, is keen.
The significance of the bid, the biggest in a wave of mergers and acquisitions in the sector, reaches beyond investment bankers and boardrooms. Mr Jiang’s anxiety encapsulates the increasing interaction between globalisation, demographics, agriculture and food security.