China food security: country faces ‘grain supply gap of 130 million tonnes by 2025’ as rural workforce dwindles
- China is expected to face a grain supply gap of about 130 million tonnes by the end of 2025, according to the China Academy of Social Sciences
- China’s looming supply shortage is a result of the increasing urbanisation and an ageing rural workforce
China will face a domestic grain supply gap of about 130 million tonnes by the end of 2025, pointing to growing reliance on imports to feed the world’s most populous country, according to a new report from a government think tank.
China’s domestic supply of three staple grains – wheat, rice and corn – is expected to fall short of demand by 25 million tonnes by the end of 2025, meaning there will be a rising dependence on imports, the Rural Development Institute at the China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) found.
While it noted China had established a national grain security system and that overall supply was sufficient at the moment, it said “there are also problems of structural imbalance between supply and demand”.
Darin Friedrichs, a Shanghai-based commodity analyst at StoneX, said one of the government’s top concerns was the ability to feed a population of 1.4 billion, which relied on domestic production and imports.
“But there are no signs yet of a stockpile shortage – summer grain output stood at 142.8 million tonnes this year, up 1.21 million tonnes from a year earlier, official data shows,” he said.
While there are no indications of wheat and rice shortages, there is evidence of insufficient supply in corn.