Communist Party officials have continued to emphasize that China’s grain supply is in a “tight balance” and have encouraged local governments and enterprises to increase grain reserves. On Friday, Liang Yan, deputy director of the Communist Party’s State Administration of Grain and Material Reserves, told a news conference that local governments and enterprises must do more to help ensure China’s food security.
Qin Yuyun, director of the grain reserve department of the Communist Party’s State Administration of Grain and Materials Reserves, also said at the press conference that current stocks of wheat and rice in China can meet consumer demand for more than a year, and that current policy requires major provinces to build local grain reserves to meet six months of market demand, and to build reserves of finished grains in large and medium-sized cities that can meet 15 days of consumer demand.
Bloomberg reported on April 2 that China’s national corn reserves have shrunk, with imports of corn and soybeans both hitting record highs last year.
In its “No. 1 Document” released on February 21, the State Council put more emphasis on food security than in previous years, calling on China’s provinces to increase grain production between 2021 and 2025.
Tang Renjian, minister of agriculture, said at a press conference on Feb. 22 that China’s grain supply and demand are not wide and have been in a tight balance. And with population growth, there will be a rigid increase in food demand, coupled with the uncertainty and instability of the external situation has increased significantly, the issue of food security can not be taken lightly for a moment, food security must not go wrong.
On August 17, 2020, the Institute of Rural Development of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released a report stating that by 2025, China is likely to have a grain deficit of about 130 million tons, with a deficit of about 25 million tons of cereals (the three major staples).
China is increasingly struggling to reach self-sufficiency in food, importing more than 100 million tons of grain each year, but major global grain powers have restricted exports under the impact of the Communist Party’s virus epidemic.
In an interview on November 14, 2020, David Beasley, Secretary General of the UN World Food Program (WFP), said that a more severe food crisis will come in 2021 than the CCP virus virus this year (2020).
According to the UN World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the CCP virus epidemic will lead to a massive food crisis, with the number of people suffering from severe hunger increasing to 265 million if the epidemic is not effectively controlled.
Concerned about food security, the CCP increased food imports during the CCP virus epidemic in 2020, importing more than 140 million tons of grain that year, an all-time record.
According to official data released by the CCP Customs at the end of 2020, in terms of grains, corn imports reached 1.23 million tons in November, soaring 1142.2% year-on-year; the annual cumulative corn imports between January and November were 9.04 million tons, up 122.8% year-on-year; wheat imports were 800,000 tons in November, up 77.6% year-on-year, and the annual cumulative imports were 7.49 million tons, up 150.6%; barley imports in November were 1.11 million tons, up 170.7% year-on-year; annual cumulative imports of 7.1 million tons, up 24.8% year-on-year.
An August 2020 article titled “China’s Food Crisis Is No Alarmist” wrote that there are currently hidden worries about China’s food security, and if decisive measures are not taken, China will have a food crisis in 10 years and simply cannot afford a food security-induced disaster.
The article argues that with economic development, China’s urbanization process began to accelerate, and large areas of good land were eaten away, accelerating China’s food crisis. in 2017, China’s grain sown area was 112,220 thousand hectares (1.683 billion mu), 815 thousand hectares (12.22 million mu) less than in 2016, a decrease of 0.7%. Of this, 92,930 thousand hectares (1.393 billion mu) were sown with cereals, a decrease of 1,464 thousand hectares (21.96 million mu), or 1.6%, from 2016.
According to data from the 2015 China Land Resources Bulletin released by the Ministry of Land and Resources of the Communist Party of China, China had 2.025 billion mu of arable land at the end of 2015. From the 2.025 billion mu actually retained in 2015 to the bottom line of 1.825 billion mu in 2030, there is still room for 200 million mu of arable land between the two. In other words, the amount of arable land in China is allowed to decrease by 200 million mu in 15 years. Some experts project that as early as 2015, China has already breached the red line of 1.825 billion mu of arable land.
According to the article, since 2003, China’s real estate market started to boom, and along with it, China’s food imports started to increase significantly, which is inextricably linked to the reduction of China’s arable land.
The article argues that the decreasing number of Chinese agricultural workers is also a cause of the food crisis. 2004-2015, the number of migrant workers in China has been on a steep rise, increasing by 48% in 10 years, and together with those employed locally, the total number of migrant workers in China has remained at around 270 million.
A large number of young and strong laborers have abandoned agricultural production and left the land to be cultivated by women or the elderly at home, directly causing the aging of the agricultural population, the hollowing out of agriculture and the bankruptcy of the countryside, as well as a large number of left-behind children and left-behind elderly. This, coupled with the rapid increase in the price of agricultural production materials and the lag in farmland water infrastructure, has increased the cost of farming and made it less risk-resistant and unprofitable for farmers.
Nearly a quarter of the population who have left agriculture have not invested too much time in agricultural production. A generation of rural residents are leaving the land, and it has become more common for their children (especially the post-80s and post-90s) to stay in the cities after studying in universities, and the land in their hometowns is gradually forgotten.
The article also argues that China’s land pollution hazards have increased and that the food and food security situation is critical.
The article writes that at least 10% of the soil in the Yangtze River Delta region is largely unproductive, and according to the survey, 30% of the land in the suburbs of Nanjing suffers from pollution. In Zhejiang province, 17.97% of the soil is contaminated to varying degrees, with widespread contamination of heavy metals such as cadmium, mercury, lead and arsenic.
In some cities in South China, 50% of the arable land suffered from cadmium, arsenic, mercury and other toxic heavy metals and petroleum-based organic pollution, and nearly 40% of the farmland vegetable soil heavy metal pollution exceeds the standard, of which 10% is a serious excess. South China mainly has heavy metal pollution such as copper, arsenic, zinc, nickel, lead, cadmium and mercury.
In Northeast China, there are serious pollution of Pb, Hg, Cd, As and Cr, mainly in the sewage irrigation areas, old industrial areas and suburban areas in Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning.
The main pollutants in the western region are heavy metals such as mercury, cadmium, arsenic, copper, lead, chromium, zinc and nickel, among which Yunnan, Sichuan, Baiyin City in Gansu and the Loop in Inner Mongolia are more seriously polluted. The exceedance rate of individual elements in Yunnan reaches 37 counties above 30%, while in the Loop a total of nearly 300,000 people are threatened by arsenic poisoning.
The article says that the food on the Chinese market still looks abundant. But it is clear to insiders that this is not naturally grown food, but food that is hormone-driven and grown. It takes a year to feed pigs, but what is available in the market is basically hormonal pigs that grow up in three months; it takes six months to feed chickens, but almost all chickens in the market now are hormonal chickens that grow up in 28 days. There are also vegetables, but also rely on hormone fertilizer to promote the growth.
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