Food Security in China and Its Global Contribution
China produces a quarter of the world’s grain output with less than 10 percent of the world’s arable land, and feeds one fifth of the world’s population.
FOOD security is a main cornerstone of national security and development. In China, it’s a top priority for the government. By dramatically increasing grain production and modernizing the food industry, China has secured the baseline of enjoying grain self-sufficiency. Producing a quarter of the world’s grain output with less than 10 percent of the world’s arable land, and feeding one fifth of the world’s population, China has made a historic achievement with far-reaching impact on food security worldwide.
Key Factors behind Agricultural Development
In China, 75 percent of the extreme poor live in rural areas and most of them depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.
Despite the challenge, China has shown a strong commitment in alleviating poverty, which has generated remarkable accomplishments. In only four decades, over 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty.
As far as China’s experience is concerned, an enabling policy environment is key to agricultural development and food security. From the household contract responsibility system implemented in 1978 to the township enterprise reform, agricultural tax reform, reform of land use, supply-side structural reform, and rural revitalization, the issues relating to agriculture, rural areas and farmers have been top concerns on the national development agenda over the past four decades. The No.1 Central Document, the first major policy document released by the central government each year, has been casting highlights on agriculture for 16 consecutive years since 2004. These reforms and strategic orientations in different historical periods constitute the sources of growth in agriculture and rural areas as well as farmers’ income and livelihoods.
Another key element of China’s agricultural achievements has been its constant innovation in agriculture practices, which has resulted in transforming agriculture into a more efficient and sustainable sector, while at the same time having helped millions of smallholder farmers to increase their income. Agricultural mechanization and introduction of innovative technologies have improved traditional farming and productivity.
One example of this is the record high yields of hybrid rice. Unit yield is the key to improving crop productivity. Since the 1970s, a group of Chinese agricultural scientists led by Yuan Longping have dedicated themselves to optimizing breeding technology in order to improve the unit yield of rice. With the continual application of their research results over the years, unit rice yields have been dramatically increased, reaching 15 tons per hectare in 2014. Applied in more than half of the paddies in China, it has contributed tremendously to food security in China. Besides, policy makers, scientists, and agricultural
practitioners from over 100 countries have visited the China National Hybrid Rice Research and Development Center in Hunan Province and introduced the technology to their countries. Now Chinese scientists are working towards the goal of 18 tons per hectare.
Another example is the improved efficiency of water resource utilization. Agriculture depends heavily on water utilization. China’s total freshwater resources amount to 2.8 trillion cubic meters, accounting for only six percent of the world’s total, but it has to feed one fifth of world’s population. As a result, China suffers from a severe shortage of water, and has planned and built a number of major water conservancy projects for water saving and water supply. A full range of water-saving irrigation technologies that are reliable and complementary to each other have been developed and applied over the years, such as pipe irrigation, sprinkler irrigation, and micro-irrigation. Integration of water and fertilizer and other agronomy water-saving technologies have also been extended nationwide, contributing to the efficient use of water resources in agriculture.
Challenges Still Exist
Generally speaking, the world’s current food stockuse ratio is maintained within a reasonable range. Productivity is projected to outpace demand growth. That is to say, the world has the capacity to produce enough food for its population.
However, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), our food systems are facing a crossroads, and we have reasons to worry about global food security due to climate change, rapid urbanization, the change in demographics, the rapid loss of biodiversity, along with soil degradation and contamination, all of which threaten our capacity to produce enough food for a growing population.
For example, climate changes threaten to reduce both the quality and quantity of crop yields. Rising tem
peratures are also exacerbating water scarcity, changing the relationship between pests, plants, and pathogens and even altering the size of fish. Without urgent and concerted actions to tackle climate change, it is estimated that by 2100 maize yields could decline by 20-45 percent, wheat yields shrink by 5-50 percent, rice yields by 20-30 percent, and soybean yields by 30-60 percent.
In addition to this, trade is also an important dimension of food security.
Following years of relatively calm market conditions, the world agricultural markets today are facing mounting risks, including policy uncertainty resulting from trade tensions. The world today is calling for an open, transparent, and predictable trade, which is typically important for global food security.
China’s Partnership with the FAO
For over four decades, FAO and China have enjoyed a solid partnership and shared common goals for poverty reduction. The strategic partnership aims to support a large number of China’s priority areas for food and agricultural development, including innovative intensification of agricultural production, revitalization of ecosystems and biodiversity, and global health and poverty reduction through increased and efficient agricultural production.
The partnership has also taken on a new dimension since 2016, when FAO signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Ministry of Agriculture and
Rural Affairs of China (MARA) for the establishment of a comprehensive strategic cooperation partnership. The collaboration aims to foster innovation, synergies, and complementarities, which are essential for rural development. This supports the realization of China’s national development goal to eradicate extreme poverty by 2020, and to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) on poverty and hunger eradication by 2030.
Indeed, since FAO’S South-south Cooperation (SSC) Initiative was launched in 1996, China, as a major participant, supporter, and promoter, has dispatched more than 1,000 experts and technicians to 37 countries, taking up 60 percent of all dispatched personnel in FAO’S SSC Initiatives. In fact, China was the first country to establish an SSC strategic alliance with FAO in 2006.
The Fao-china SSC Program is committed to support the realization of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and in particular SDG1 (No Poverty) and SDG2 (Zero Hunger). Summarizing the outcome and impacts of the Program over the past decade, its achievements have been an important source of inspiration for farmers, recipient governments, FAO itself, and its development partners. The Program promotes inclusion at all levels, with the core principle of “leaving no one behind.” It has also been considered as an engine for innovation, and has been facilitating new technologies, implementation modalities, institutional frameworks, strategies, and policies for SSC.
The year 2019 marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the US $80 million Fao-china SSC Trust Fund in support of improving world food security and promoting sustainable agricultural development.
A number of SSC projects supported by the Faochina Trust Fund have demonstrated visible results. For instance, a significant investment from China, through the China-uganda SSC project, has enabled the development of an agricultural industrial park that stretches across five districts in Uganda, as a means to help transform the country’s agriculture from subsistencebased to commercial. This business model represents a promising innovation in the modalities of implementation of the Fao-china SSC Program, involving Chinese national and private firms in the promotion of more efficient value chains.
To date, more than 40 Chinese agricultural experts have been dispatched to provide technical assistance in the park’s development. Ultimately, the initiative aims at establishing three agricultural production and
processing centers, creating an integrated agriculturalindustrial chain. The park will lead the development of modern agricultural systems in Uganda and provide 100,000 job opportunities to the local people, helping one million people to increase their income. In the meanwhile, it will also help improve Uganda’s overall agricultural development and the international competitiveness of its products.
The Role of China in the Future
A steadfast advocate for multilateralism, China has already signed more than 120 agriculture-related agreements with over 60 countries and international organizations, doing its part to actively safeguard global food security. Latest records show that China has helped some 50 African countries implement hundreds of agriculture aid projects.
Another contribution to global food security is China’s unconditional aid within its capability toward global humanitarian crisis relief work. These efforts have proven successful in moving toward the global developmental goal of eliminating hunger, and won worldwide commendations.
It is believed that the challenges of poverty and food security can be tackled through forward-thinking and well-coordinated policies and partnerships. The whole society, government, private sector, and social organizations need to work together to achieve the SDGS, eradicating poverty and hunger by 2030.
The solemn commitments made by China within the framework of SSC and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) underline a much bigger role the country is going to play in the global arena in the near future. China is expected to draw upon experiences and lessons from past collaboration, develop flexible modalities to meet the growing needs of other countries, explore opportunities for a catalytic effect of the BRI, and seek broader partnerships for win-win cooperation, including through South-south and triangular cooperation (SSTC).
Future development should focus on a clear and identifiable impact on people’s livelihoods and achieve results to this end through activities that will be sustainable in the long run and that are in line with the concept of ecological progress. The activities will include policy dialogues, experience sharing, information exchanges, technology transfers, and capacity building, and all of them will utilize innovative platforms and approaches to help countries along the Belt and Road have a stable environment for sustained food and nutrition security. C