China food security: Beijing puts local cadres in cross hairs to ensure they reap what China needs to sow
- Provincial governors and party secretaries must ‘shoulder the responsibility of food security’, according to high-ranking agricultural officials
- Geopolitical upheavals, including pressure from Washington and implications of the Ukraine war, are testing China’s ability to feed its people at a level not seen in decades
China is imposing stringent performance evaluations on local government officials to hold them accountable for protecting farmland and ensuring sufficient grain production, as the nation ramps up efforts to strengthen food security, agricultural officials said on Thursday.
Cadres at provincial-level governments are at risk of failing their appraisals if they do not meet quotas on farmland size, grain output and crop structure. The warning was issued as the world’s largest agricultural importer has become increasingly hard-pressed to improve self-sufficiency amid heightened geopolitical tensions, according to statements made at a State Council press conference.
The policy, the first of the kind to apply to provincial governors and party secretaries, was in response to “President Xi Jinping’s repeated calls for local governments and party committees to shoulder the political responsibility of food security”, said Lu Jingbo, deputy director of the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration.
“For now, food might be the second-biggest concern after [computer] chips for China, in terms of being controlled by the US,” said Zheng Fengtian, a professor with Renmin University’s School of Agricultural and Rural Development.