Food security requires making good use of two markets
On the morning of the 24th, the “Foundation of a Great Nation——China's Rural Development Golden Autumn Report” hosted by China National Radio's China Rural Voice was held at China Agricultural University. Xu Xiaoqing, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council and former director of the Rural Economy Research Department, said that our country's total population and demand are increasing, and these changes will lead us to think about the issue of food security. There are three ways to guarantee food security: the first is production, the second is reserves and circulation, and the third is making good use of two types of resources and two markets.
The problems our country faces in food security
Xu Xiaoqing said that the first problem our country faces in food security is a clear increase in consumer demand: first, there is an increase of several million people each year, which is rigid demand; second, as the economy grows, people's income levels are rising, and the structure of food consumption is changing. For example, from 1990 to 2011, over more than 20 years, artificially farmed aquatic products increased by more than 5 times, pork output doubled, and including food vegetable oil, from 2 kg per capita to 20 kg now; third, in the current process of urbanization, the population that was originally in rural areas and the labor force in the primary industry are declining substantially. According to current statistics, the original 269 million farmers in agricultural labor have changed from producers into consumers.
Second, our country's cultivated land is scarce. China is a country with unbalanced agricultural resources, lacking both land and water. Our cultivated land area accounts for less than 13% of the total land area; of our 9.6 million square kilometers, the cultivable land accounts for less than 13%. In the United States it accounts for 28% to 29%, and in France and Europe's major energy countries it also accounts for 30%, including our neighboring country India, where cultivated land accounts for 40%. So our cultivated land is extremely precious. As the economy grows, the occupation of cultivated land is also very serious. Our country's current per capita water resources are 30% of the world average, so the current situation should be said to be very severe.
In addition, we need to use large amounts of chemical fertilizer. Statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture in 2012 showed that the average fertilizer use per mu was 32 kg, which is much higher than the world average. This means that our 1.8 billion mu of cultivated land uses 18 million tons of chemical fertilizer in one year, accounting for 40% of the world's total chemical fertilizer consumption. On the one hand, it gives us output; on the other hand, it has an impact on our environment. Chemical fertilizers, pesticides and unavoidable plastic film all have an impact on our environment. Safety comes from the environment, from the quality of water and soil. These problems are all challenges to our guarantee of food security.
In addition, our country's current level of infrastructure is still insufficient. Water conservancy facilities, soil management, soil use and infrastructure in all aspects, as well as our agricultural technology, such as the transformation of results and technological research and development, need to be strengthened.
Our country's measures for guaranteeing food security
Xu Xiaoqing said that the 2014 Central Economic Work Conference proposed the national food security strategy of “taking ourselves as the mainstay, basing ourselves on the domestic market, ensuring production capacity, moderate imports, and technological support.” Among this, “we must ensure basic self-sufficiency in grains and absolute security of staple food” means that we must guarantee the absolute security of wheat and basically rely on ourselves. However, relying entirely on existing cultivated land, that is, an annual sown area of 2.3 billion mu, cannot meet the demand of all our citizens for agricultural products, so we must rely on the international market. This includes the going global strategy. Therefore, the central government proposed ensuring “basic self-sufficiency in grains and absolute security of staple food.”
Second, we must firmly protect cultivated land, because cultivated land is our country's scarce resource. The current problem of indiscriminate occupation of cultivated land is very serious, and all these require further legal and policy efforts to guarantee.
In addition, it is necessary to mobilize two kinds of enthusiasm: one is the enthusiasm of grain-growing farmers, and the other is the enthusiasm of cadres in major grain-producing areas to grasp grain production. Neither of these two kinds of enthusiasm can be missing.
Again, it is necessary to do a good job in grain regulation and reserve work. In grain circulation and reserve work, various wholesale markets have also made large investments.
Fifth, it is necessary to be good at making use of two markets and two types of resources. For example, corn is a high-yield crop, so making good use of international resources and the international market is an important strategic measure for the state in guaranteeing food security.
Finally, Xu Xiaoqing mentioned that we should save food. We should tell citizens to eat scientifically and eat healthily, and to save food and save meals in the consumption stage. Because what everyone eats is either grain or food transformed from grain. According to figures obtained at a previous food impact and safety seminar co-hosted with France, “we eat too much.” Diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high blood lipids are now very widespread. Therefore, our researchers and media need to make more efforts to tell citizens how to eat healthily and how much is enough. So, in advocating food conservation, in addition to the production and circulation environment, a very important item is the consumption stage.