Food is the first necessity of the people: a scientific view of food should be established

Editor's note: "Food is the first necessity of the people." Food has always held an irreplaceable foundational position in the entire national economy. On the occasion of the 34th World Food Day on October 16, we have selected and compiled a set of articles, starting from the view of food to the situation and strategies of food imports as well as food security safeguard measures, to commemorate this day together with our readers, so as to enhance sustained attention to the topic of food security.

The view of food is people's overall stance, perspective and viewpoint on food. At the individual level, it is a person's overall cognition of the matter of food; at the national level, it is the theoretical guiding foundation for how a country handles food affairs. At present, along with the new situation in global political and economic development and the new circumstances in international and domestic food production and circulation, comprehensively examining the food issue, correctly handling food affairs, and effectively safeguarding national food security all depend on one premise and foundation, namely establishing a scientific view of food. In my humble opinion, the scientific view of food mainly covers the following four aspects.

First, a people-oriented view of food must be established. The right to subsistence is the most basic and primary human right, and the right to obtain the food necessary to sustain life is the premise and foundation for realizing the right to subsistence. Therefore, to look at the food issue, one must first link it to people's most basic human right, namely the right to subsistence; only in this way can one find the correct stance and starting point for observing the matter. From this stance, it is not hard to find the most fundamental cause of the historical dramas that played out again and again in Chinese and foreign history, in which famine caused ordinary people to rise up in rebellion and the ruling class's regime to collapse. After all, the first thing a person must defend is their own right to subsistence. Therefore, some scholars have pointed out that food possesses both the basic human rights demand and the commercial demand, the former being its social attribute and the latter its economic attribute. Its social attribute occupies the primary position, while its economic attribute occupies the secondary position (Ding Shengjun, *Guarding Food for Thirty Years*, pp. 155-157, China Agriculture Press, Beijing, 2011). The reason the food issue is elevated to the height of the national strategic level is precisely because it is linked to people's most basic right to subsistence. Therefore, governments of all countries place the food issue in a fairly prominent position, and the food issue is also a hot topic discussed by heads of state at some important international conferences around the world. Precisely because of this, the seemingly simple food issue is sometimes closely linked to political power and politics. For a country with a large population, even more sufficient attention should be paid to this.

Speaking of the people-oriented attribute of food, we can also examine its specific influence and role from a global perspective. For example, in the food crisis and food wars that have been hotly discussed in recent years, in the view of some scholars and media, food has become a weapon, a tool, and a means for some Western developed countries and multinational corporations to control backward regions, especially countries and regions with tight food supply. The most frequently cited line is Kissinger's famous saying: If you control oil, you control all nations; if you control food, you control all people. Therefore, by establishing a people-oriented view of food, we can also gain a more comprehensive and profound understanding of some deep-seated issues in the evolution of food and international political and economic development.

Second, a holistic view of food must be established. That is, we must comprehensively consider the food issue from the angle of overall interconnectedness, find the internal influences and operating patterns of each related party, build a panoramic vision of the food issue, prevent one-sidedness in looking at problems, and think about and solve problems through the interconnections among various elements. As far as our current reality is concerned, the focus should be on grasping the following pairs of relationships. The first is production and circulation. For a long time, we have given sufficient attention to food production, including a series of policies introduced in recent years to encourage and support the development of food production, which have also achieved obvious results. However, regarding another important link in the food issue, namely circulation, our attention has not been sufficient. After food is produced, there is still much work to be done to ensure that people's living needs are met in the circulation link. Otherwise, if only the production link is emphasized while the circulation link cannot keep up, the food issue still cannot be solved. The second is output and production capacity. The output issue is self-evident; without sufficient output as a premise, food security is like cooking without rice. Output addresses the current problem, while production capacity plans for the long-term problem, so we must plan for both the present and the long term. The central government has already given sufficient attention to the issue of production capacity construction and has responded to it at both the theoretical and practical levels. The latest national food security strategy clearly proposes to "ensure production capacity"; in practice, in recent years, the "National Plan for an Additional 100 Billion Jin of Grain Production Capacity (2009-2020)" and the "National Overall Plan for High-Standard Farmland Construction" have been successively issued and implemented. On the issue of production capacity, there is also an ecological security consideration, namely that the path to achieving sustained food growth must fully take into account land, water, environmental carrying capacity and other aspects, and necessary fallowing and overall land use planning must all be given overall consideration. The third is quantity and quality. The quantity issue is self-evident; for a large country with a population of more than 1.3 billion, without a certain quantity of food as a guarantee, the difficulties faced can be imagined. While emphasizing quantity, quality must likewise not be neglected. At present, as far as the public is concerned, what draws greater attention is quality, because three meals a day all involve food. Speaking of this, we can return to the people-oriented attribute of food: having enough to eat is the premise, and eating safely and eating nutritiously are also indispensable. Therefore, the quality issue of food naturally rises to a very important position. Society is developing, the times are progressing, and life is improving; the most basic manifestation lies in the quantity and quality of food intake by the human body. The fourth is the relationship between the government and the market. This is the methodology for solving the food issue at the overall level. While giving play to the role of the market in allocating food resources, we should improve and give full play to the government's macro-control, and ensure the realization of the basic goals of food macro-control, namely ensuring a basic balance between food supply and demand and basic price stability. That is, we must both prevent "low grain prices harming farmers," ensuring that the foundation of national food security does not waver, and prevent "high rice prices harming the people," safeguarding the overall situation of sustained and healthy economic and social development (Cheng Guoqiang, *China's Food Regulation: Goals, Mechanisms and Policies*, p. 112, China Development Press, Beijing, 2012). In addition, relationships such as those between the central and local governments, between the international and the domestic, and between rural and urban areas are all important relationships that require our holistic consideration when solving the food issue.

Third, a developmental view of food must be established. The times are constantly developing, and our cognition of food also needs to keep pace with the times and be constantly adjusted and updated, that is, we must establish a developmental view of food. First, people's consumer demand for food is changing. Due to the continuous development of society and the gradual improvement of living standards, people's consumer demand for food is constantly improving, for example, from emphasizing quantity to emphasizing quality, and from the past desire to eat one's fill to wanting to eat more nutritiously and more safely, with higher and newer consumption requirements put forward in terms of variety, structure, patterns, nutrition and other aspects. Second, the functional attributes of food itself are also constantly changing with the times. On the basis of the original single food attribute, functional attributes such as bioenergy, financial products and ecological regulation have been added, and its connotation and functions are constantly expanding. This evolution of food's functional attributes is all developed around people. From this point of view, we return again to the people-oriented attribute of food as its most fundamental attribute. Therefore, as diverse functional attributes of food, from the perspective of the ultimate goal, they all emerged to meet people's diverse consumer demands. Third, the developmental view of food also requires us to highlight scientificity and contemporaneity in solving the food issue. Based on what has been said above, the developmental view of food requires us, when examining and solving the food issue, to take the initiative to change and adjust from concepts to institutions and measures. Overall, in terms of concepts, we must view the food issue from the perspective of overall interconnectedness and dynamic evolution; in terms of institutions, we must gradually advance the modernization process of the food security governance system and governance capacity; in terms of measures, we must accelerate the modernization process of the food circulation industry, and the entire process of food from production to circulation, from the field to the table, must be integrated into the modernization process. In particular, we must pay attention to the important role of science and technology in this, fully give play to the leading role of informatization in industrial revitalization, and do a good job in the major article of "support by science and technology."

Fourth, an open view of food must be established. That is, we must view and handle the food issue with a global vision, a rational mindset and open thinking.

First, a global vision must be established. First, correctly understand the trend of globalization and its connection with the food issue. The trend of globalization is irreversible, and on how to solve food security we likewise need a global vision; rather than participating passively, it is better to integrate actively. Moreover, from the history of the development of China's food crops, exchanges between China and foreign countries have also been the norm, and many food crops were introduced from abroad, so we must overcome a self-closed mentality. Second, align with the international community on food-related concepts. It is necessary to distinguish food security from grain security and ration security. The new national food security strategy clearly proposes ensuring basic self-sufficiency in grain and absolute security of rations, which helps clarify confusion and also facilitates alignment with international standards. Third, view hype about the food issue rationally. Because of the sensitivity of the food issue itself, food security often also becomes a focus of international attention and a hot spot of media hype. Especially in years when extreme weather and other natural disasters cause global food production reductions, food touches the hearts of hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Second, there must be a rational mindset. On this point, two immature mindsets must be overcome: one is trying to take on everything alone and keep oneself aloof; the other is relying on others and entrusting one's fate to others. Especially for a large country with a large population, both mindsets have their drawbacks. The former will restrict one's optimized selection of certain means and methods for solving the food issue. For example, as far as China is concerned, in recent years, the surge in our country's imports of soybeans and oils and fats is an indisputable fact. According to preliminary statistics, our country's external dependence on oils and fats has reached 70%. China imported 62.4 million tons of oilseeds and 9.05 million tons of oils and fats in 2012. If calculated according to domestic per-unit yield and oil extraction rate, the whole country would need to increase its cultivated land area by about 740 million mu to make up for these imports. This is unrealistic given the tight domestic cultivated land area (Tu Changming, "Importing Edible Oil Equals Importing Land and Water," *Global Times*, May 28, 2013, page 15). As for the latter, it is even less advisable. On the food issue, fixating on relying on others is ultimately unreliable, and in the end what is constrained is not only food. The correct mindset should be: confidence and clarity, responsibility and dedication. Confidence means believing that China can mainly rely on its own strength to solve the food issue; clarity means fully recognizing the pressure, difficulties and challenges our country faces in solving the food issue, making rational analyses, adopting scientific measures, basing ourselves on the domestic, taking ourselves as the mainstay, and rationally using both international and domestic resources and both markets. Responsibility means that China should base itself on mainly relying on itself to solve the food issue; for a large country with a population of more than 1.3 billion, this is a government's responsibility and obligation to its own people. Dedication means that China's solving its own food issue well is itself a contribution to the world; at the same time, when addressing its own food security, China gives support and assistance within its capacity to developing countries, especially countries and regions with tight food supply, and this is also a contribution to these countries and to the world. For example, our country's support in the fields of food and agriculture in Africa is good evidence of this.

Third, there must be open thinking. The first is to be good at making good use of both international and domestic markets and both types of resources. We should allocate food resources on the basis of selecting the best from a global perspective, and rationally participate in and utilize the global market division of labor. China's use of the global market to allocate food resources is a reasonable and scientific means. The second is to handle well the relationship between "bringing in" and "going out." With large multinational food groups, cooperation can be carried out, especially on varieties with large year-round demand, to ensure stable import channels. We should not constantly worry that once foreign capital comes in it will control our autonomy in the food sector; of course, necessary protective measures are also indispensable. At the same time, we should also encourage and support qualified food enterprises to "go out," use global resources to carry out food production, processing, circulation and trade, and improve the outward orientation and risk resistance of our country's food industry. The third is to grasp well the relationship between the primary and the auxiliary. The primary is "basing ourselves on the domestic and taking ourselves as the mainstay," while the auxiliary refers to "moderate imports." Mainly relying on ourselves to solve the food issue, the international market can only be an auxiliary means.