China seeks food self-sufficiency

MAI QUYEN

China is expanding its farmland as the war in Ukraine disrupts grain exports, sending global food prices to record highs.

Photo: Xinhua

In the 1990s, American scholar Lester Brown published an article in World Watch magazine titled “Who Will Feed China?”, expressing concern about the food shortage in the mainland. Beijing then launched a serious campaign to improve the country’s food self-sufficiency. In 1998, the situation changed when excessive reform measures increased agricultural production beyond what was needed, leading to a situation of oversupply. At this time, China considered a new policy of returning farmland to forests.

Since President Xi Jinping took office in 2013, the “farm to forest” policy has been given more importance as green development has been seen as one of China’s key strategies amid the global fight against climate change. But recently, the “Returning farmland to forest” policy that Beijing has promoted for the past 20 years seems to be changing as slogans such as “Returning forest to farmland” have become a trend. Clips of parks and forests being converted into farmland have also gone viral on domestic online platforms.

On May 11, Xi inspected a wheat field in Hebei Province (photo). The delegation included Politburo Standing Committee member Cai Qi, who is responsible for national food security. Through this inspection, analysts believe that the food issue is playing a very important role for Beijing. According to Nikkei, the target of increasing food production may have been decided in March, when Premier Li Keqiang submitted the government's work report to the annual session of the National People's Congress. In the report, Premier Li affirmed that the policy of ensuring agricultural land area will help increase domestic grain production capacity to 50 million tons. To achieve this goal, many new forests will have to be cleared for cultivation. China also needs a large number of farmers. This condition is also in line with Beijing's current policy of encouraging young people to start businesses in rural areas amid increasing employment pressure.

Demand falls on US, Ukraine

After joining the World Trade Organization in 2001, China has enjoyed rapid economic growth as it has accelerated its transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy. But with external factors such as the war in Ukraine and a US-led multinational coalition against China, mainland scholars say Beijing must act, considering food self-sufficiency as important as technological self-sufficiency.

It is known that before the war broke out, Ukraine was the world's largest exporter of sunflower seeds and China was a significant importer of this type of seed from Kiev. Ukraine also supplied more than 80% of China's total corn imports. Since 2021, China has begun to increase corn imports from the US following an agreement reached with the administration of former President Donald Trump to cool down the trade war. Currently, China's three largest corn importers are the US, Brazil and Ukraine.

In addition to corn, China relies on imports from the United States and Brazil for 85% of its total soybean needs. In addition to major grains, Beijing has also increased meat imports as people’s incomes improve and their diets begin to “westernize.” China’s pork imports are expected to rise nearly 4% this year from 2022 to 2.2 million tons due to strong consumer demand after COVID-19 restrictions end.

China insists it has a high enough level of food self-sufficiency, but Beijing is still heavily dependent on the United States for supplies. That is unlikely to change anytime soon, even if it accelerates the clearing of forests for farmland and increases grain production. It also raises questions about whether Beijing is prepared to ensure enough food if tensions over the Taiwan Strait flare up.

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