How can food security be ensured? The responsibility of local governments must be emphasized

The food issue is the foremost task of ensuring stability for the nation, and this has been true in all times and all countries. As the most populous country in the world today, China's food security is especially important. As early as 1994, the central government began implementing the “rice bag” provincial governor responsibility system, stipulating that the administrative heads of all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government are responsible for balancing food supply and demand in their regions and for the relative stability of grain prices. Since entering the new century, although China's grain production has achieved the tremendous result of eleven consecutive years of increase, the situation facing China's food security at present and in the future is becoming increasingly complex, and the challenges that must be addressed are growing in number. Proceeding from a strategic height, the Party Central Committee and the State Council have accelerated the revision and improvement of the provincial governor responsibility system for grain. On January 22, 2015, the State Council issued the "Several Opinions on Establishing and Improving the Provincial Governor Responsibility System for Food Security," and on November 12, 2015, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Measures for Assessing the Provincial Governor Responsibility System for Food Security." The spirit and content of these documents require government departments at all levels, industry actors and indeed the whole of society to study them conscientiously, understand them deeply and implement them.

It is necessary to fully recognize the complexity of the situation facing China's food security in the new period and the arduousness of addressing the challenges. Overall, in the new period, the complexity of the situation facing China's food security and the arduousness of addressing the challenges are mainly manifested in the following aspects:

First, China is currently in the middle and late stages of industrialization and the middle stage of urbanization, and the gap between industry and agriculture and between urban and rural areas is very large. Influenced by factors such as comparative returns and employment opportunities, the basic factors required for grain production and agricultural development, such as capital, land and labor, will still be in a state of net outflow, and the problems of who will invest, who will farm the land and who will grow grain will become increasingly prominent.

Second, China is accelerating the building of a pattern of comprehensive opening-up, and the country's small farmers, who account for 46% of the world's total smallholders, will bear increasing pressure from external international competition. International experience tells us that small-scale subsistence agriculture will show a continuously declining trend in competitiveness under an open system, which means that in the future China's grain producers and those connected to the industry will inevitably face increasing international pressure.

Third, the global climate is warming, extreme weather is becoming increasingly frequent, the basic capacity for grain production and the capacity for disaster prevention and reduction are relatively weak, and ecological resources and the environment are facing unprecedented pressure. At present, most of China's grain fields are still low- and medium-yield fields, the effective irrigation rate is only about 55%, arable land is continuously decreasing, water resources are becoming more strained, the utilization rates of chemical fertilizers and pesticides are very low, and the resource pressure and ecological pressure facing grain production are increasing day by day.

Fourth, since 2008, the global financial crisis caused by the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis is still fermenting deeply, and the prices of bulk commodities such as grain are showing a rapid and sustained downward trend, causing China's grain sector to currently display the characteristics of “three highs and one low,” namely “high output, high imports, high inventories and lower prices.” This has not only increased the difficulty of government regulation but also planted the seeds for the next period of grain tightness.

Facing an increasingly complex situation and more and more challenges, in order to ensure China's food security in the new period, it is necessary to raise the management capacity and macroeconomic regulation level of governments at all levels as soon as possible. The issuance by the General Office of the State Council of the measures for assessing the provincial governor responsibility system for food security can be said to come at exactly the right time and is of great significance.

It is necessary to actively give play to the important role of the government's “visible hand” in ensuring food security in the new period. Since the 18th National Congress, the central leadership has proposed that the market should play a decisive role in allocating resources. On this basis, some people have explicitly proposed that China should open its doors wide and import large quantities of grain; some believe that developing agriculture and producing grain are not profitable, and that from the perspective of economic development, grain and agriculture should no longer be valued so highly; and some local leaders believe that food security is not a matter for them to consider, and that as long as the economy develops and there is money, it is very cost-effective to buy grain on the market, and so on and so forth.

Little do they realize that the food security issue is by no means something that the market can completely solve through resource allocation, and that many food security problems are precisely brought about by market failure. In short, food security has a strong public, social and political character. Precisely because of its public character, food security cannot be achieved by market entities alone; precisely because of its social character, food security attracts such attention; and precisely because of its political character, as soon as China imports a little more, voices about the "China food threat" immediately appear internationally. In fact, while the central leadership proposed at the 18th National Congress that the market should play a decisive role in resource allocation, it also clearly required that the government's service and regulatory roles be given full play. Therefore, under the new circumstances of the new period, in order to actively and fully give play to the important role of the government's “visible hand” in ensuring food security, the General Office of the State Council promptly issued the measures for assessing the provincial governor responsibility system for food security.

It is necessary to deeply understand the spirit and requirements of the measures for assessing China's provincial governor responsibility system for food security in the new period. In recent years, as domestic grain output has increased year after year, some places have begun to relax grain production, neglect grain circulation and rely excessively on the central government, and their sense of responsibility for consciously safeguarding national food security needs to be further strengthened. All regions and all departments must fully recognize the extreme importance and complexity of ensuring food security, further enhance their sense of the overall situation and their sense of responsibility, place ensuring food security in a prominent position in economic and social development, treat it as a basic task of safeguarding people's livelihood, and grasp it unremittingly and unwaveringly. In order to accelerate the building of the national food security guarantee system and further clarify the responsibility of provincial-level governments for safeguarding national food security, the General Office of the State Council has formulated in the assessment measures a complete assessment mechanism, quantified assessment indicators and corresponding reward and punishment measures. This marks that China's food security guarantee work has entered a new stage and is of great significance for achieving the national food security strategic goal of “basic self-sufficiency in grains and absolute security of staple foods” under the complex circumstances of the new period.