Chen Wensheng: China's Agricultural Development and Food Security urgently need a New War

Agriculture is an irreplaceable strategic industry, food is the first demand for human survival, and food security is the long-term goal pursued by mankind. If China, with a population of more than one billion, is seriously short of food, even if the whole world empties its granaries, it will not be able to save China. The book Who Will Feed China by American scholar Scott R. Brown has shocked China and the world. Whenever the rising grain price triggers the world food crisis, it constantly rings the alarm bell: although there are many causes for each crisis, one of the important reasons is that the high added value and rapid growth of non-agricultural industries have irresistible temptation for the late-developing countries and regions, and the strategic position of agriculture is most easily ignored.

1. Strengthening agriculture as the foundation in the process of urbanization plays an important strategic role in strengthening the root of national survival, consolidating the foundation of the national economy, and increasing international competitiveness.

China needs less than one-tenth of the world's cultivated land to feed more than one-fifth of the world's population. This special national condition determines that agriculture should be the foundation of China's strategic position far more important than any other country in the world. Although China's agriculture is in the best period of development in history, and the total grain output has achieved ten consecutive increases, the rigid growth of grain demand in the process of industrialization and urbanization has challenged agricultural development with increasing resource and environmental constraints. At the same time, with the continuous advancement of China's industrialization and urbanization, the proportion of agriculture in GDP has been continuously reduced, and the source of income growth of farmers has been continuously changed from relying mainly on agriculture in the past to relying more and more on non-agricultural industries. The supporting role of agriculture in the national economy has never been fully demonstrated as it is today. In the global economic competition, the food crisis caused by the sharp rise in food prices has triggered social crises in some countries and regions from time to time. When food, oil and currency have become strategic weapons used by other countries to restrict other countries, agricultural production capacity and food security have objectively become the indispensable core international competitiveness of a country. In the process of transformation from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture and agricultural society to modern society, the development of agricultural attributes, the promotion of functions and the expansion of functions have been endowed with new functions such as ecological protection, environmental regulation, biological energy, sightseeing and leisure, cultural inheritance, international competition, etc. The strategic role of agriculture as the foundation of national survival, the foundation of national economy and the strength of international competition has become more prominent, and the basic position of agriculture in national economy has become more unshakable.

II. Agricultural development and food security strategy of a populous country must break through the traditional theory of comparative advantage of international division of labor

Grain is a basic public product, a weak industrial product and a multifunctional product; grain is a people-oriented resource, a strategic resource and a scarce resource; if we blindly believe in market mechanism and free competition, we will pay a heavy price. Because creating food shortages has a wider range of biological lethality than any weapon can match. If a country does not have the ability of food self-sufficiency, superstitious international division of labor comparative advantage theory, relying on a few developed countries monopolized by the world food market to adjust the domestic food demand, the domestic food production system will certainly be developed countries grain "nuclear weapons" heavy damage, in the key national interests game will inevitably be controlled by others, dependent on others. Under the background of international competition and economic globalization, the strategic construction of China's agricultural development and food security needs to break through the traditional segmented and isolated market analysis framework, examine it with a brand-new vision, and plan from a broader international and domestic development pattern. China cannot be satisfied with food security only by ensuring domestic food demand, thus turning a large agricultural country into a "grain producing country" and making the country's food security always in a passive position. It is not enough to rely solely on cheap labor, high energy consumption and environmental overdraft without cost to build the so-called "world factory", and the production of some low-end, low-margin products that are increasingly subject to trade disputes is actually far less important than the development of strategic industries such as food, which are more important than oil and currency in the world economic war. Instead of passively following fluctuations in supply and demand and prices in the world food market by increasing exports or reducing exports, we should actively adjust the world food market by alternately increasing exports and reducing exports, increasing imports and reducing imports, and dominate the pricing of the world food market. We should not be satisfied with the scale of grain production determined by the demand for living consumption, but should transform the surplus production capacity into bioenergy industry and enhance China's right to participate and speak in the field of bioenergy, which is conducive to China's long-term energy strategy and sustainable grain strategy. Therefore, whether agriculture can be upgraded to a strategic industry with "nuclear capability" to serve the country's global competition is the key to China's strategic initiative in agricultural development and food security.

3. China's food security strategy must be upgraded from a simple food security strategy to an overall national security strategy.

The national security of a big country cannot be limited to military and political aspects alone, nor can it focus solely on currency, energy and industry in terms of economic security. Judging from the situation after the world food crisis, a world economic war without smoke has been launched among different economies. Food has gone beyond the category of food in the game of economic globalization. It is no longer a simple trade product in the market, but a chip in the international economic game, a weapon in the world economic war and an important strategic trump card in global competition. From a strategic perspective, sustained food productivity is the ability to develop nuclear weapons in world economic warfare. With the dominant position in the world food market, we have the dominance and global competitiveness of the world economic system. On the one hand, the use of strong agricultural comprehensive productivity to form the advantages of the food industry, food aid, food trade and food blockade and other means, not only to obtain the initiative in international trade, but also in international politics and diplomacy in an active position. On the other hand, it has become a common phenomenon for some countries in the world to suppress other countries with food. In particular, the use of food weapons by developed agricultural countries such as the United States has turned developing countries from the main force of agricultural industry into the main force of agricultural products consumption, directly or indirectly causing some developing countries to rely increasingly on food imports and be controlled by others in international political, economic and cultural exchanges to realize their international hegemony. It is urgent to construct a strategic system to strengthen the basic position of agriculture in big countries and ensure national food security in order to enhance political influence, grasp the dominant power of world food supply and demand, influence the price trend of world food market, rise to the strategic advantage of the whole country, and strengthen political influence in international politics, especially geopolitics. Only in this way can it be possible to effectively restrict hegemonism and shoulder the international responsibility of big countries. Therefore, food security not only seriously affects economic security such as currency, energy and industry, but also relates to national security at the military and political levels. Food security must be incorporated into the strategic system of national security from the perspective of long-term national development and enhanced international competitiveness, and a brand-new national security strategy and global competition strategy for major powers must be established.

IV. The key to seizing the initiative in food security lies in enhancing domestic food security by improving competitiveness in world food markets.

Why does the United States use huge financial subsidies to export locally produced cheap food even when there is a large surplus of grain in agricultural harvests year after year, and at the same time maintain large areas of fallow land with huge financial subsidies? As long as high food production capacity is ensured, the United States alone controls the total supply and demand of today's world food market and dominates the direction of the world food market by reducing or increasing the amount of food exports. Thanks to the great contributions made by Yuan Longping and other agricultural scientists and the high attention paid to agricultural development at the national decision-making level, China's grain yield per mu has been greatly improved. However, despite repeated government orders to focus on grain production, Chinese agriculture at the peasant level has become "ration agriculture". For a long time, China's national food security strategy has been aimed at solving the basic supply problem, mostly belonging to the passive protection and defense strategy. Although this strategy has protected China's food security so far and enabled China to stand alone in the world food crisis, as a traditional agricultural and grain producing country in the world, it is only positioned as a "big country of rations" to ensure its own food supply, and basically has no say in the world agricultural market, especially in previous world food crises. Missed opportunities to share in the huge dividends of the world food market again and again. Therefore, the food security of the world's major agricultural countries is only positioned as a "big country with grain rations". It is urgent to change from passive food security to active competition in the international agricultural market, and from regional strategy focusing on agricultural development to international strategy participating in global competition. As a member of WTO, China's economy has been more and more integrated into the world economic system, the food market and food prices will inevitably be in line with international standards, food security strategy not only depends on the enhancement of domestic agricultural production capacity to grasp the initiative of the "grain bag", but also depends on the need to improve competitiveness in the world food market to strengthen domestic food security. Only by forming strong grain production capacity, low-cost production advantage, high-tech and information-based support capacity and perfect market regulation mechanism, and improving market control power, can we ensure that we are always in an active position in the changeable international grain market. As a large agricultural country with thousands of years of farming civilization, China's comprehensive grain production capacity has broad room for development. The key to the problem is to transform its strong grain production capacity into a strong competitive advantage in the international market, especially its ability to compete with Western developed countries such as the United States in the international grain market.

5. the ultimate guarantee of china's food security must be based on the premise that grain production increases in line with peasants 'income increases.

As a basic public product, grain has become the political consensus of public decision-making in China. However, the government has adopted various preferential agricultural policies, but the enthusiasm for grain production has not been well mobilized, which relates to the unity of grain production and farmers 'income. Today's farmers are no longer rural labor force in the traditional sense, but market subjects who compete fairly in the market economy. At the same time, in addition to fair and reasonable income expectations, the same input also has fair and reasonable development expectations. If the income from other inputs far exceeds the income from grain production, farmers will lose their enthusiasm for grain production. Therefore, the enthusiasm of farmers to grow grain ultimately depends on the continuous increase of grain income to stimulate, food producers can not become rich, food security as the most important national security strategy can not be ultimately guaranteed. Especially today, under the background of accelerating industrialization and urbanization, rural young and middle-aged labor force continues to work in cities,"hollow villages" continue to increase, cultivated land abandonment phenomenon is increasingly serious,"who will farm" has become a serious problem that national food security cannot avoid. Why should farmers sacrifice their interests to shoulder the national strategic responsibility of food security alone under the conditions of market economy? Compared with western developed countries such as the United States, China is letting those Chinese farmers who can only survive compete unequally with the finance departments of western developed countries such as the United States, which give high subsidies to agricultural products. In the long run, it is bound to force Chinese farmers to give up growing grain faster. A major national strategy to ensure food security in the world's most populous countries presupposes ensuring that farmers are able to reap comparative benefits from food production. We must unify "the government wants grain and farmers become rich". While implementing effective financial subsidy policies, we should use more market means to activate the motive force of farmers engaged in grain production, give play to the inductive role of price signals, promote the allocation of resource elements to rural areas, accelerate the process of agricultural modernization, and form a long-term mechanism to mobilize the enthusiasm of grain production. The motive force is the market mechanism, and the price signal is an effective way for the government to connect with the market. For grain producers, there is no motive force that activates their production more directly than the price signal. China has a large number of farmers and if it cannot subsidize farmers on a large scale like Europe and America, the income from grain cultivation should mainly depend on market prices, which are the foundation of farmers 'enthusiasm for grain cultivation. According to what principle should the minimum protective price of grain be determined in order to give play to the inductive effect of price signals on resource allocation? The determination of the minimum protective price of grain should depend on market factors such as the average price of social labor force, the price of agricultural means of production and its rising range, the average social profit obtained by technology and capital investment and the expansion range of goods in circulation. The key to the current minimum protective price of grain is that it fails to reflect the dynamic changes of market price factors.

VI. Concluding remarks

Agriculture is by no means a strategic industry that can drive China's rapid economic growth, but agricultural comprehensive production capacity determines the important position of China's global strategy. At present, China is faced with a passive situation in which the United States and other western developed countries dominate the world grain market. Either the West gradually erodes China's grain system at a very low cost until it is completely destroyed, or it establishes a strategic industry that supports the country's major security, thus rising to a strategic advantage with comprehensive international competitiveness.

(The author is an expert of Hunan Province's major decision-making consultation wisdom group, a researcher of Rural Development Research Center of Hunan Province Academy of Social Sciences, and president of Rural Development Research Institute of Hunan Province.)