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China’s food security at core of Beijing’s new five-year rural-revitalisation plan
- Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs says China must ‘speed up innovations’ in the seed industry to help feed the nation’s 1.4 billion people
- Natural disasters, geopolitical disputes and global food-trade disruptions amid the pandemic have forced Beijing to reassess its approach to food security
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China is placing greater emphasis on food security and self-reliance to feed its 1.4 billion people, according to its annual blueprint for rural policies amid the pandemic, with an emphasis on utilising new agricultural technologies.
The new plan puts a comprehensive revitalisation of the countryside at the heart of the national agricultural strategy in the next five years.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party and the State Council, the nation’s cabinet, published their first joint policy statement of the year on Sunday, and it requires all provincial authorities across the country to maintain stable grain-planting acreage and to increase yields to improve the supply of wheat, corn, rice, cotton, edible oils, sugar and meat during the 14th five-year plan period that runs from 2021-25.
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The statement, known as the central government’s “No 1 document”, has been devoted to rural issues since 2003.
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However, unlike in previous years, this year’s plan establishes a series of numerical targets for food production, including reaching an annual grain output of more than 650 million tonnes and creating 100 million mu (6.67 million hectares) of high-quality arable land that can guarantee bumper harvests despite natural disasters.
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