Food security: no immediate worries, but long-term challenges cannot be ignored

“China's grain harvest has already been bumper for 11 consecutive years. Jiangsu's grain output last year also reached 68.9 billion jin, ranking fifth in the country, and it was also a high-yield year in recent years.” Speaking about the reasons for China's consecutive bumper grain harvests, Xu Ming, a deputy to the National People's Congress and vice governor of Jiangsu Province, said that on the one hand there is the bumper harvest, and on the other hand there is the attention paid by the state and party committees and governments at all levels to the issue of food security.

He told reporters that over the past two years, grain reserves have also continued to increase. Taking Jiangsu as an example, originally Jiangsu was to have grain reserves reach 7.3 billion jin by the end of the “12th Five-Year Plan”. By the end of last year, this reserve task had basically been completed. According to the saying “three months for production areas, six months for sales areas”, that is, production areas keep three months' worth of grain and main sales areas keep six months' worth, Jiangsu has already achieved this.

⟦NL> But he pointed out that although there is no immediate worry about grain, there are long-term concerns. The long-term concerns are mainly reflected in three aspects: first, arable land is still decreasing. With the continuous advancement of industrialization and urbanization, and the increase in construction land, arable land is constantly decreasing. Although we have the measure of dynamic balance of occupied and supplemented land, in the process of this balance what often happens is that superior land is occupied and inferior land is supplemented, nearby land is occupied and distant land is supplemented, paddy fields are occupied and dry fields are supplemented, and so on. It is still very difficult to achieve a balance of equal quantity and equal quality. In the long run, the protection of arable land is very important; second, there is the issue of the multiple cropping index. Taking Jiangsu as an example, Jiangsu has two crops of rice and wheat, one season of rice and one season of wheat. The average yield of rice is above 1,000 jin per unit area, and the average yield of wheat is above 600 jin per unit area. The abundance index is very high, and with two seasons planted and two seasons harvested each year, the abundance index is relatively high in the world. However, because crops are a process of cultivating life and cannot increase without limit, this output is already close to a relatively high production level in the world, and it is unrealistic to keep increasing output; third, the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides is still relatively high. Because of the single-minded pursuit of output, our use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides is more than double the world average. The agricultural pollution brought about by this, and even the residues of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, are prominent problems.

What difficulties exist in achieving food security in China? What practical and feasible suggestions are there? Deputy Xu Ming stressed that, first, arable land must be protected. Land is the mother of agriculture, and protecting agricultural production capacity is key. Does China still have 1.8 billion mu of arable land? Can it be preserved? Deputy Xu Ming replied that it is more than 1.8 billion. There is still 1.8 billion mu of arable land. At present, our country is advancing the “designation of permanent basic farmland”, and legislation is needed to protect arable land. The whole country has made arrangements for this work, and Jiangsu Province is advancing it.