China food security: Beijing tells farmers to stick to grain amid global uncertainty

Name: China can expect bumper 2020 harvest despite bad weather and floods, officials say
Uploaded: 2020-11-18T12:15:16.000Z
Duration: 2 min 12 s
Description: China can expect bumper 2020 harvest despite bad weather and floods, officials say

The State Council has issued a new guideline restricting the planting of non-grain crops to ensure food security

Concerns about China’s grain supply have grown this year, despite government assurances there is no problem

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Beijing has elevated grain security to become a strategic goal over the next 15 years. Photo: Xinhua

Orange Wang

Published: 8:15pm, 18 Nov 2020Updated: 8:15pm, 18 Nov 2020

The Chinese government has issued an unusual guideline telling the country’s farmers not to scale back planting of wheat, rice and corn, in the latest sign that Beijing is taking no chances to ensure security of grain supply.

The use of arable land for non-grain crops had to be scrutinised and restricted because China must “stabilise domestic grain output to cope with uncertainties stemming from the global situation”, according to the notice published by the State Council, China’s cabinet, on Tuesday.

The guideline marked a noticeable departure from China’s long-standing policy of encouraging diversification in arable land use, especially a push to sow “economic crops” such as cotton and tobacco, or grow vegetables and dig fish ponds to boost growth.

But in the face of what it perceives to be an increasingly hostile world, the government has in recent months been emphasising the importance of grain security.

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China can expect bumper 2020 harvest despite bad weather and floods, officials say

Grain imports have surged this year and President Xi Jinping has promoted a campaign to cut food waste, although China’s agriculture ministry said domestic grain output was expected to hit another record high in 2020.

Fears over grain supply can stir bitter memories in China. China’s former helmsman Mao Zedong rolled out an agriculture policy called “taking grain as the key line” in 1958 that sought absolute grain supply security amid international isolation, but the policy exacerbated famine and poverty in the countryside.

A key reform under Deng Xiaoping, who came into power in 1978, was granting arable land to rural households and allowing farmers to decide what to grow.