Why to set up a new concept of food security

Before 2004, China's food self-sufficiency rate has been maintained at more than 95%, but in the past 10 years, the food self-sufficiency rate has been declining, dropping to about 85% by 2014. It is worth noting that the decline in the self-sufficiency rate is not caused by the decline in food production, but occurs when the grain output has achieved "eleven consecutive increases" and exceeded 600 billion kilograms in 2014, which indicates that the decline in China's food self-sufficiency rate is caused by the sharp rise in food demand. This has led to a debate on the concept of food security. Some people are worried about this situation and believe that China's food security has been greatly threatened. We should increase food production at all costs and improve the food self-sufficiency rate. Food security is equated with food self-sufficiency rate. The higher the self-sufficiency rate, the safer it is. This is the traditional view of food security.

In recent years, the central government's understanding of food security has changed. It has put forward a new national food security strategy of "focusing on ourselves, based on China, ensuring production capacity, moderate import and supporting science and technology". This new strategy is a major change in the concept of food security. We call it the new concept of food security. Compared with the traditional concept of food security that emphasizes the higher the food self-sufficiency rate, the better, it is a major change in understanding.

A 100% food self-sufficiency rate is certainly the safest, but judging from China's national conditions, such food security is neither economical nor necessary.

First of all, China's land resources are limited. The per capita cultivated area accounts for only 40% of the world average, and the quality cultivated land is even less. The quality cultivated land above Grade III accounts for only 27% of the total cultivated area. On the basis of a very high rate of self-sufficiency in grain, every percentage point increase in the rate of self-sufficiency in grain will increase the cost of grain by several percentage points, and the higher the rate of self-sufficiency, the higher the cost will increase geometrically. This is the so-called law of increasing marginal cost at work. According to relevant research, China's grain production cost has been on the rise since the mid-1980s, with an average cost per mu increasing by 15 times, an annual increase of more than 8%, and a cost per 100 kg of grain production increasing by 6.7 times, an annual increase of about 6%. On the other hand, China's industrialization and urbanization have not yet been completed, and the demand for land will increase significantly. If each urban resident occupies an area of 100 square meters, then if the urban population increases by 200 million, it will occupy an additional 2 million hectares of land. Industrial construction and the construction of transportation facilities such as roads and railways will also occupy a large amount of cultivated land. Under such circumstances, if more land is used for grain production, strict restrictions can only be imposed on the land for industrial production and urban development, and industrialization and urbanization will be seriously hindered. It is not worth the loss to sacrifice industrialization and urbanization to increase the grain self-sufficiency rate by a few percentage points. What's more, most of China's high-quality grain fields are distributed in densely populated and economically developed areas, such as the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, Huanghuaihai and other areas, while those areas with poor land and serious salinization, such as the northwest region, are also sparsely populated and economically developed areas. To maintain a very high rate of food self-sufficiency requires that the developed areas abandon industrial and urban development in favour of grain fields, which is economically inefficient.

Secondly, our country is seriously short of water resources. Water resources, like cultivated land resources, are decisive elements of food production. Although China is the fifth largest country in water resources in the world, its per capita water resources have been declining year by year. By 2014, it was only 1993 cubic meters/person, only one quarter of the world average level, equivalent to about three fifths of Japan, one fifth of the United States and one sixteenth of Russia, ranking 104th in the world and being listed as one of the 13 water-poor countries. Moreover, with the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization in China, the industrial and urban water consumption is increasing, occupying the water for food production and increasing the cost of agricultural water. What is more, the distribution of water resources in our country is extremely unbalanced. The proportion of inland renewable surface water resources in the north is only 19.7 per cent, while the proportion in the south reaches 80.3 per cent. Before the reform and opening up, the south was the main grain producing area, and grain was always transported from the south to the north. However, with the economic development, the cultivated land in the south is gradually occupied by industrialization and urbanization, and the comparative benefit of grain growing is getting lower and lower. Therefore, the north, which is short of water, gradually becomes the main grain producing area, and the grain transportation from the south to the north gradually evolves into the grain transportation from the north to the south. In order to solve the problem of water shortage in the north, the state built the South-to-North Water Transfer Project, transferring water from the south to the north and then transporting grain from the north to the south. This is the result of last resort. If we emphasize the excessive food self-sufficiency rate, the cost is very alarming in terms of water resources alone.

Thirdly, due to the limited farmland per capita in China, agricultural production is still dominated by small farmers, and the family management area is very small. Comparatively speaking, the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina and other countries with less land have huge family farms, and their labor productivity is dozens or even hundreds of times higher than that of China. Given the huge difference in labor productivity, the cost of grain production in China is much higher than that in foreign countries. Even if grain from the United States is shipped to China thousands of miles away, the price of imported grain is 50% or more lower than that of domestically produced grain. In addition, China's rising wage levels have led to a sharp increase in the labor costs of food production, which has also driven up food costs. In the face of the double dilemma of ceiling suppression of grain prices and floor rise of production costs, the more domestic grain production, the greater the loss, the lower the income of farmers, or even abandon their fields. If the government buys it at a high price, it will greatly increase the financial burden and storage pressure. Therefore, it is much more economical to import food in moderation than to produce it yourself.

Finally, pollution from agricultural production is getting worse. To produce more food, more fertilizers, pesticides and plastic films must be applied, which will lead to declining soil fertility and increasing environmental pollution. In recent years, the "eleven consecutive increases" in grain output have been achieved under the extensive use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and agricultural films. China's use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has greatly exceeded the world average. According to relevant data, nearly one-fourth of the topsoil of China's land is polluted to varying degrees by a variety of toxic and harmful pollutants, the types and quantities of pesticide residues are increasing year by year, and grain, agricultural and livestock products and vegetables have quality safety problems such as excessive pesticide residues.

It can be seen that if our country wants to maintain a high rate of food self-sufficiency, we will have to pay a huge price in resources, economy and environment. However, some people may say that grain is not an ordinary commodity, but a strategic commodity related to the food security of 1.3 billion Chinese people, and it is necessary to ensure that food is completely self-sufficient no matter how costly it is. Indeed, it is necessary to maintain a relatively high grain self-sufficiency rate, because China's population accounts for about 1/5 of the world's population, and if the self-sufficiency rate is low, it will import grain on a large scale, which will have a tremendous impact on the world grain market and international grain prices will soar. If those big grain exporters encounter a major famine year and grain production is greatly reduced, grain prices will not only rise like rockets, but also lead to large-scale famine in China and other parts of the world because of food shortages. Therefore, from this point of view, there is no doubt that China must maintain a high rate of grain self-sufficiency in any case in order to ensure the food security of China and the world.

However, it is not necessary to maintain a food self-sufficiency rate of 100%, and properly importing food does not mean reducing food security. At present, the self-sufficiency rate of grain in many countries in the world is relatively low, but they have never had a crisis of food shortage. For example, the self-sufficiency rate of grain in Japan and South Korea has been relatively low, but also showing a downward trend. From 1990 to 2011, Japan's grain self-sufficiency rate dropped from 22% to 20.3%, and South Korea's grain self-sufficiency rate dropped from 35.6% to 25.8%. However, with such a low grain self-sufficiency rate, Japan and South Korea did not feel that there was a problem with food security. Italy, Spain and other countries in Europe also have relatively low rates of food self-sufficiency, and they have no worries about food security. It can be seen that a high grain self-sufficiency rate does not mean a high food security factor, and vice versa.

Some people may worry that if China's relations with the rest of the world deteriorate sharply, or even in the event of an extreme event such as war, it is possible to impose a grain embargo on China. This worry is totally unfounded! China has such a large land area that with the significant increase in economic strength, it can be said that no country can impose an effective blockade on China. Moreover, grain production and grain production capacity are two concepts. Appropriately reducing grain production, leaving some grain fields idle, or planting other crops, so as to maintain the existence of grain production capacity, is a new way of thinking in implementing the food security strategy. In the event of a worldwide reduction in grain production or the imposition of a grain embargo on China, we need not worry, as long as we maintain grain reserves for half a year, and the food supply can be restored in half a year.

Thus it can be seen that maintaining an excessively high grain self-sufficiency rate is not the best choice, whether in terms of economy or necessity, and ensuring production capacity and moderate import is the best food security strategy. The history of the great famine in the past makes people feel the fear of food shortage is understandable, but it is not what it used to be, and the concept of food security has to change with the changes of the times.