Eat well and maintain food security

The Rome Declaration and Plan of Action adopted at the second World Food Summit in November 1996 stated as follows: "Food security can only be achieved when all people have access to adequate, safe and nutritious food at all times to meet the dietary needs and food preferences of an active and healthy life." According to the above definition, national food security includes the following basic connotations:

I. adequate and stable access to food

There are two ways for a country to obtain grain capacity, one is its own agricultural production, and the other is grain import. From the perspective of agricultural production, in order to obtain adequate and stable food supply, we must fundamentally establish a set of systems that can ensure the improvement of comprehensive grain production capacity. For example, the measures taken by our country mainly include improving the household contract system, strengthening science and technology to support agriculture, tamping agricultural infrastructure, increasing subsidies for farmers, constructing the market circulation system of agricultural products, and so on. From the perspective of grain import, an appropriate amount of grain import and stable grain import channels are important measures to ensure a country's food security.

Second, excellent grain quality and optimized grain structure

Food security is not only a quantitative issue, but also a quality and structural issue. The so-called grain quality means that from grain production to food processing, from grain circulation to final consumption, grain should have a variety of qualities to meet people's health needs. It requires that it be emphasized that the government implements effective supervision in all aspects and aspects of food production to ensure that people can safely eat all kinds of food. On the structural side, food security is a large agricultural concept, including not only agricultural food, but also animal husbandry and fisheries, not only major agricultural products, such as corn, soybeans, wheat, etc., but also some small agricultural products and economic products.

III. An efficient and orderly grain circulation system

How sufficient food can be distributed to consumers and producers at a faster speed and lower cost is a proper meaning of food security. The establishment and improvement of grain circulation system is an important mechanism to ensure food security. In terms of grain business entities, it is necessary to lower the threshold for entry into grain transactions and encourage economic entities of various forms of ownership to participate in grain management. In the structure of grain circulation market, it is necessary to cultivate grain markets, wholesale markets and futures markets with large quantity, large scale and complementary functions in order to respond sensitively to the grain needs of residents. so as to ensure that residents can obtain food at a lower cost and avoid substantial fluctuations in grain supply and demand. The purpose of establishing an efficient grain circulation system is to build an effective competition pattern of grain circulation market, straighten out grain circulation relations, reduce grain circulation and transaction costs, and ensure food security.

IV. Strong national macro-control capacity

The fundamental reason for emphasizing the macro-control function of the government lies in the special attributes of grain and some disadvantages of market regulation. On the one hand, grain is a kind of strategic material, which plays a very important role in maintaining national economic, political and social stability. Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said: "whoever controls oil controls all countries; whoever controls food controls all people." On the other hand, grain, as a necessity for living, has the obvious characteristics of small demand price elasticity and large supply price elasticity. From the point of view of demand, the demand side of grain is not sensitive to the fluctuation of grain price, and the rise or fall of grain price has little impact on the demand of grain. From the supply point of view, grain suppliers are sensitive to price changes, and the slight rise or fall of grain prices will lead to a sharp expansion or contraction of grain production. Therefore, when solving the problem of food security, we must rely on the regulation of both the market and the government, and when the market is powerless to solve the problem of food security, we must give full play to the role of the government. rely on non-market-oriented means to correct market failures and market defects.