Staple food supply sufficient: ministry
▶ Seed technology falls far behind, key to ensuring security
China’s agriculture ministry again stressed the importance of ensuring food security on Thursday, vowing to make ensuring grain production a top priority and a major political task in the next year.
The remarks were made during a press conference in Beijing, where officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs ( MARA) explained the food supply situation during the upcoming New Year’s Day and China’s Spring Festival, noting that the supply of staple foods is both sufficient and rich in variety.
During the holidays, the total supply of key foods will be sufficient – urban and rural residents will not face a shortfall of food or edible oil, nor will they lack meat and vegetables, Tang Ke, director general of MARA’s Department of Market and Informatization, told the press conference.
Overall, China’s grain sector will have another bumper harvest this year, while rice and wheat stocks will be at record highs, hog production has recovered well, and the output of poultry, fruits and vegetables is stable. The domestic agriculture market is expected to remain stable next year, according to the ministry.
China’s grain harvest remained at a stable and high level this year, totaling 669.5 million tons, a year- on- year rise of 0.9 percent. In this category, cereal output – including rice, wheat, corn, barley, sorghum, buckwheat and oats – reached 616.74 million tons, up 0.5 percent, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on December 10.
In the just concluded tone- setting Central Economic Work Conference, China vowed to solve issues related to seeds and arable land, and it designated ensuring grain safety as one of the eight priorities in the country’s economic work next year.
China needs to enhance the protection of seed quality resources and utilization, and enhance the construction of seed banks, the meeting said, explaining that China should improve technical research into seed sources, which is “also a bottleneck.”
“The central government’s special emphasis on national food security does not mean China has a ‘ food crisis,’ but is a result of the unstable external political environment, making self- sufficiency and technology independence increasing important,” Jiao Shanwei, editorin- chief of cngrain. com, a website specializing in grain news, told the Global Times.
Jiao noted that even in the domestic market, seed companies that account for a larger share are those jointly funded by foreign companies, rather than pure local players.