Li Keqiang: China insists on achieving basic food self-sufficiency based on domestic conditions

Premier Li Keqiang of the State Council visited the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and delivered a speech on October 15. this is the first visit by a Chinese premier to the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 69 years since its establishment.

Li Keqiang said that with the acceleration of China's urbanization, it is estimated that 200 million people will settle in rural areas and cities and work nearby in the central and western regions in 2020, which requires China to implement innovation in the mode of agricultural production and on the basis of family-run agriculture. to promote innovation in various forms of agricultural management, at the same time, speed up the transfer of rural land management rights and encourage farmers to unite and cooperate.

He said that the Chinese government attaches great importance to agriculture and always insists on achieving basic self-sufficiency in grain at home.

Li Keqiang said that China has solved the problem of feeding nearly 20 per cent of the world's population by using 9 per cent of the world's arable land and 6.5 per cent of the world's fresh water. In the future, China will continue to make economical and efficient use of water resources, speed up ecological protection and construction, promote the sustainable use of agricultural resources, leave fertile land, clear water and blue sky for future generations, protect China's ecology, and care for and protect the earth.

In his speech, Li Keqiang shared China's experience in poverty reduction with the world. He also promised that China will strengthen cooperation with developing countries and share agricultural technology, agricultural equipment and agricultural development models with the world.

China is one of the largest grain producing and importing countries in the world, and its grain output and agricultural policies have a significant impact on the world. Zheng Fengtian, vice president of the Agricultural Development Institute of Renmin University of China, told the 21st Century Economic report that although China has achieved 10 consecutive increases in grain output, the food security crisis is always hanging over its head.

Han Changfu, Minister of Agriculture, once wrote the article "comprehensively implementing the National Food Security Strategy under the New situation", which comprehensively expounded China's food security strategy. In the article, Han Changfu put forward five major issues of China's agriculture:

First, the rigid growth of demand for agricultural products coexists with the tightening of hard constraints on resources. There are two factors affecting demand growth: one is population growth, and the other is consumption upgrading. At the same time, the increasing constraints on cultivated land and water resources, the increase in demand and the reduction of resources will keep the supply and demand of grain and other agricultural products in a tight balance for a long time.

Second, the total balance of supply and demand of agricultural products and structural shortage coexist.

Third, the rising cost of agricultural production and the decline of comparative efficiency coexist. In recent years, agricultural material prices, land rents, labor costs and other factors of production are rising, while from the perspective of planting income, the comparative benefit is on the low side and shows a downward trend. This will affect farmers' enthusiasm for production.

Fourth, the structural shortage of rural labor force and small-scale family operation coexist. With the transfer of a large number of rural labor force to non-agricultural industries, the problems of concurrent agriculture, rural hollowing out and the aging of farmers are becoming more and more serious.

Fifth, weak infrastructure and frequent natural disasters coexist.

It is for the above reasons that the current Chinese government attaches great importance to the issue of food security. The issue of food security was first raised in document No. 1 of 2014. The document puts forward the basic strategy of "ensuring basic self-sufficiency of grain and absolute safety of food rations" and the plan of "making more active use of international agricultural markets and agricultural resources to effectively regulate and supplement domestic food supply."

Li Guoxiang, a researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Development of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that China's food rations are rice and rice, plus corn is grain. The specific indicators quantified as "absolute safety of food rations and basic self-sufficiency of grain" are as follows: the area of rice should be generally stable at more than 450 million mu, the area of wheat at more than 340 million mu, and the planting area of corn in China at 545 million mu. The planting area of these three major crops should remain basically stable.

On the premise of maintaining food rations and grains, China's food security strategy requires good use of international resources. Li Guoxiang said that the use of international resources and markets has two meanings: one is to import agricultural products, which we have traditionally been doing, and the amount of imports has been gradually increasing in recent years, especially oil crops and cash crops such as soybeans and cotton. The second is to "import" agricultural production resources, that is, to encourage large domestic agricultural enterprises to go out and use international land, water and other sources of capital to produce agricultural products to supplement China.