Potato steamed buns have arrived - is there really not enough food to eat?

As a vegetable with broad popular appeal, the potato has upgraded itself with a new way to be eaten. Recently, potato steamed buns have invaded major supermarkets in Beijing, and the potato's future path of advancement also includes bread, flower rolls, cakes and bean buns.

At the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Agriculture proposed the “potato as staple food” strategy, making it another staple food alongside rice, wheat and corn, and even predicted that by 2020, more than 50% of potatoes would be eaten as a staple food rather than a side dish.

Indeed, as a side dish, the potato is somewhat underused. Compared with the three major staples of wheat, rice and corn, potatoes keep longer——when ground into flour, they can be stored at room temperature for 15 years. For China, which faces water shortages and poor arable land quality, growing potatoes also saves water and fertilizer.

In fact, the United Nations long ago designated the potato as the “world's fourth-largest food crop” and entrusted it with a major role: “Once a food crisis occurs, only the potato can save humanity.”

But is there really not enough food to eat?

China mainly imports food because it is cheaper abroad

A while ago, the news of “people and livestock living under the same roof, eating meat 3 times a year” once again triggered collective concern: how many people in China still do not have enough to eat, and is China's food really sufficient? Even though China is a major agricultural country whose grain output has long ranked among the world's highest, to feed one-sixth of the world's population with less than 10% of the world's arable land, food crises tied to livelihoods always periodically grab the headlines.

What is most often cited is the continually rising volume of food imports——in 2014, China's total food imports exceeded 100 million tons. Also complained about in passing is the money spent on food imports——from 2001 to 2013, China's imports of agricultural products increased from more than 10 billion US dollars to more than 100 billion, a tenfold increase in 10 years. Ever-rising numbers always make worry-prone people fear that China's food supply is about to become insufficient again.

A careful analysis of the types of agricultural products China imports shows that 70% are used to import soybeans, while grains account for only about 3% of total agricultural imports. Moreover, the main reason for large-scale imports is price, especially for sugar, cotton and rice, which are affected by domestic and foreign price differences, not by insufficient production.

According to data from the United States Department of Agriculture, in 2013-2014, China's sugar and cotton stocks accounted for 18.7% and 60.9% of world stocks, respectively. Part of the rice imports are also due to price. For example, Hubei indica rice, according to UN Food and Agriculture Organization data, cost 625 US dollars per ton in 2012; by comparison, Vietnam's most expensive exported rice variety cost 598 US dollars per ton, both far below China's domestic prices.

Rice exports have become an important source of income for Vietnam

Although at this stage China can be self-sufficient in food, do not forget that our country has a huge population base, and with an annual increase of several million people, there are very high demands on increasing grain output.

Sure enough, Americans have also begun worrying about Chinese people's stomachs. The US Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute and the United States Department of Agriculture said that due to population growth, environmental degradation and other factors, by 2020 China's shortage of important agricultural products will be equivalent to the output of 1.05 billion mu of cultivated land sown area, equivalent to half of China's existing cultivated land area.

However, China is much more optimistic about this. According to the "China Agricultural Outlook Report (2015-2024)," by 2024, China's rice, wheat and corn output will reach 580 million tons, with total consumption projected at 600 million tons. A moderate increase in imports will be enough to achieve a balance between supply and demand, thereby safeguarding the security of China's future food supply.

Food is insufficient because the portion used for eating is less than half of production

Of course, it is not only Chinese people who care about this topic; the food crisis is a major issue for people all over the world. In 2009, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization released the "State of Food Insecurity" report, pointing out that the number of hungry people in the world had reached 1.02 billion, the highest level in history. This does not even include those suffering from vitamin deficiencies, nutritional deficiencies and other forms of malnutrition. The total number of people troubled by food security may be close to 3 billion, one out of every two people worldwide.

As soon as the report appeared, UN Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Jacques Diouf launched a 24-hour hunger strike, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon later joined in, in order to attract sufficient attention.

So how much food does it actually take to let one person eat their fill? After investigation by the World Bank Development Research Group, to maintain basic subsistence, the minimum average daily calorie intake per person ranges from 1793 to 2677. Calculated at the minimum of 1793 calories, 500 grams of rice or wheat per day, that is, 1 jin of grain, is needed to meet the need to “eat one's fill.” If calculated according to the United Nations minimum standard of 2100 calories, more grain is needed.

According to UN statistics, food production in 2014 was 2.5 billion tons. If all this food were used for eating, with the world's 7.3 billion people, each person could get nearly 2 jin per day on average.

Of course, as living standards improve, more meat, eggs and various side foods appear on people's dining tables, which means more grain is consumed. According to statistics, producing one kilogram of pork requires three kilograms of grain, one kilogram of chicken requires two kilograms, and one kilogram of beef requires seven kilograms.