The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) began considering a draft law against food waste.
On December 22, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s legislative body, began considering a draft anti-food waste law in the face of the looming food crisis, which Communist Party President Xi Jinping previously said would prevent waste and strengthen legislative oversight.
On Dec. 21, Yue Zhongming, spokesman for the NPC Standing Committee’s Legal Affairs Committee, introduced at a regular press conference that the 24th meeting of the 13th NPC Standing Committee will consider the motion of the NPC Standing Committee Chairman’s meeting on the draft anti-food waste law submitted for consideration.
Yue Zhongming introduced the seventy-eighth meeting of the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Thirteenth National People’s Congress decided that the twenty-fourth meeting of the Standing Committee of the Thirteenth National People’s Congress will be held in Beijing from December 22 to 26.
According to it, the chairman’s meeting recommended that the 24th meeting of the Standing Committee consider the draft amendment to the Organic Law of the National People’s Congress, the draft amendment to the Rules of Procedure of the National People’s Congress, the draft amendment to the Law on The prevention of Juvenile Delinquency, the draft Law on the Protection of Yangtze River, the draft amendment to the Criminal Law (XI), the draft amendment to the National Defense Law, the draft Law on the Promotion of rural Revitalization, and the draft Law on Maritime Police; consider the meeting of the chairman of the Standing Committee of the NPC on the draft law on Hainan Free Trade Port, the draft law on anti-food waste, and the draft law on anti-organized crime; consideration of the motion of the Supervision and Justice Committee of the National People’s Congress on the draft law on the Ombudsman; consideration of the motion of the State Council on the draft revision of the law on maritime traffic safety; consideration of the motion of the State Council and the Central Military Commission on the the State Council and the Central Military Commission on the draft amendment of the military service law, on the draft amendment of the law on the protection of military facilities, and on the draft law on the protection of the status and rights and interests of military personnel.
In August, Xi Jinping made an eight-word comment on food and beverage waste: “shocking and distressing!” He also quoted the ancient poem “Who knows that every grain of food is hard work? Xi Jinping also stressed the need to strengthen legislation and enhance regulation.
The Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily backed up Xi’s remarks with data, saying that China wastes about 35 million tons of food each year, nearly 6 percent of total food production.
The National People’s Congress (NPC) then claimed to legislate immediately afterward. On Aug. 13, the Legal Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing Committee said it would make specific and clear provisions to stop food and beverage waste through various forms of legislation and decisions.
According to the Xinhua News Agency, Zhang Guilong, a first-level inspector of the Administrative Law Office of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing Committee, said that “specific legislative work will be done to strengthen management in all aspects of food production, acquisition, storage, transportation, processing, consumption, etc., to effectively reduce losses and waste; especially in the food and beverage consumption, actively advocate a reasonable and healthy food culture, and establish a long-term mechanism to stop food and beverage Wasteful behavior long-term mechanism.”
In this regard, some people questioned whether this is to limit the consumption of food and drink or waste? What standard is considered wasteful?
Some scholars believe that the food problem should have been solved through the market, the government plays a coordinating role, but now the pressure is put down to the people, it becomes a political movement. The waste of government agencies is amazing, a large amount of waste in the CCP is invisible to the people, the internal canteens of national or provincial government agencies, the kind of extravagant consumption at the expense of the state, these are long-standing.
The Institute of Rural Development of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released the “China Rural Development Report 2020”, saying that China is likely to have a grain deficit of about 130 million tons during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), with a deficit of about 25 million tons of grains (the three major staples).
On Dec. 10, Communist Party officials said this year’s grain harvest was “abundant” and 0.9 percent higher than last year.
However, China has continued to purchase foreign grain since the Wuhan pneumonia outbreak began earlier this year. China’s imports of barley, corn, sorghum and wheat rose 83.3% year-on-year to 20.86 million tons in the first nine months of 2020, according to Chinese customs data, and the scale of grain imports is expected to hit even higher records.
China’s grain production actually fell sharply, with some mainland Chinese media estimating a 30 percent reduction in production, after the Wuhan pneumonia epidemic and flooding devastated the country this year. However, no specific figures have been officially announced.
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