Is there a problem with food security?

Basic facts

At present, China has a population of 1.4 billion, with 1.8 billion mu of arable land and 1 mu of land per capita. This is our basic national condition, and unless there is a large-scale war, it is possible to break the initial conditions.

Based on the national conditions, the total planting area of crops in China is 2.5 billion mu, which means that 700 million mu of arable land will be replanted every year. According to the full caliber calculation of agricultural product import data in 2015, the imported land area of our country is about 1 billion mu. It can be seen that at present, 1.4 billion people in China actually consume 3.5 billion mu of land for agricultural products, roughly double the area of 1.8 billion mu of arable land. The contradiction between domestic demand and domestic resources is naturally irreconcilable.

So, how to "ensure" food security? It is obvious that we cannot be blamed for the perfection of food security under the above-mentioned national conditions.

Another basic fact

For a long time, China has been a net exporter of agricultural products. It was not until China joined WTO at the end of 2001 that it gradually became a net importer of agricultural products. Around 2012, China overtook the United States to become the world's largest net importer of agricultural products.

Go back to the inflection point in 2001. In that year, China had a population of 1.3 billion, an area of 800 million mu of arable land and a total planting area of 2.3 billion mu-the domestic population and agricultural production resources were similar to those of today, but it was a net exporter of agricultural products. In this way, do Chinese people have to go hungry? No. There was no widespread famine in China in 2001. It can be seen that as a variable, the consumption demand for agricultural products is not always equated with "eating enough".

Over the past 15 years, from the net exporter of agricultural products to the largest net importer, the biggest change in China's food consumption lies in the continuous increase in per capita consumption and the increasing diversity of consumption structure. Two months ago, I went on a business trip to Wuwei City, Gansu Province, where I had dinner with local friends and ordered several seafood dishes, which was very telling.

The crisis View of Food Security

China has been saying goodbye to hunger for a long time; at the same time, Chinese consumer demand is rising, creating tension with limited domestic resources-this is the macro background in which we talk about food security.

Therefore, the relevant discussions are more likely to reflect a sense of crisis, especially at a time when the international situation is changing and unpredictable, to be vigilant and prepared. For example, when I went back to the long March last week, I didn't want to collapse and get stuck in traffic for 10 hours. if local farmers hadn't boiled corn and eggs for sale (expensive), a group of people would have starved. In a modern country, if this happens, the consequences are obviously much more serious.

For a long time, China has implemented food security policies to avoid famine, such as the national grain reserve system. Although food prices have been rising, no one has been hungry for decades, so that the social trend of thought has been divided, and some people even think that food security is a false proposition. Indeed, according to the theory of market economy, all commodity shortages are false propositions; but in practice, the probability of famine exists in specific situations, and once it happens, the consequences must be more than just a market economy problem.

Is there a problem with food security?

You can make two bold assumptions, or even bolder, and make three assumptions:

Hypothesis 1: in peacetime, major disasters on the American continent make it impossible to export agricultural products to China. At this time, the market gap will be filled to a certain extent by neighboring countries (such as Russia, Myanmar, etc.), the prices of agricultural products will rise to a certain extent, the level of meat consumption will also decline, but the overall health level of the people will hardly be affected, and social and economic life will basically proceed as usual. When the disaster is over, global agricultural production resumes and everything returns to normal.

Hypothesis 2: in a small-scale peripheral war, hostile countries adopt a certain trade embargo, or maritime transport lines are cut off, assuming that the war does not spread to the mainland and lasts only 2-3 years. In this case, China's food consumption level will return to 2001, and food distribution will still be carried out in the way of market economy. The most direct consequences may be skyrocketing food prices, difficulties in the livelihood of urban low-income groups, a large number of migrant workers returning home for farming, the disintegration of large-scale and intensive commodity agriculture, and the small-scale peasant economy model dominated by livelihood agriculture. Even so, based on the use of the necessary reserves, there will be no mass famine and widespread malnutrition, but activities such as gyms, diet foods, exercise APP and marathons will disappear. With the end of the local war, production and life will gradually return to normal.

Hypothesis 3: a large-scale all-out war. With the failure of market economic measures, food security has become a public product. Under such circumstances, the production and distribution of agricultural products need to be regulated by the government: on the one hand, expand grain imports from neighboring countries, and adjust domestic purchase and marketing policies to ensure national reserves; on the other hand, adopt the wartime distribution system to ration the corresponding food. That is, to return to the planned economy. China's grain output rose from 450 million tons in 2001 to 620 million tons in 2015. assuming that wartime production is reduced to 400 million tons, if the grain inventory exceeds 300 million tons, then the existing stocks can maintain consumption for six years as they did in 2001. or to cope with war demand of no more than six years.

On the whole, the current systemic risk of food security is relatively low. However, food security is by no means a false proposition. From the perspective of public policy, as long as there is probability, we should be prepared accordingly.

The role of market economy

At present, China is the largest net importer of agricultural products in the world, and the food nutrition level of our people is at the highest level of the yellow race. It is undeniable that this is due to the efficiency improvement brought about by the market economy-on the one hand, the rapid increase in labor productivity has brought about a rapid increase in income, and on the other hand, participation in the global division of agricultural production has led to a relative decline in the price of agricultural products. finally, it is possible to import 1 billion mu of arable land resources.

In peacetime, market economy plays a fundamental role in optimizing the allocation of resources. Excessive government intervention is often counterproductive. In China, some dogmatic policies have caused structural contradictions in agricultural production. For example, corn planting, according to recent market feedback, corn prices may fall below 7 hair per jin, down 1/3 from the temporary storage price of 1.11 yuan per jin in 2014. In this regard, there is still room for further optimization of China's food security strategy.

Is the "excess storage" of grain really good?