China food security: with new law, can Beijing reverse loss of arable land, or will policies go to seed at grass-roots level?

Grain demand is rising across China, and internal and external pressures have emboldened leaders to take fresh measures

But critics say rehashing existing policies could fail to address the root of the problem: productivity

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Farmers work a wheat field earlier this month in east China’s Jiangsu province. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 7:00pm, 27 Jun 2023Updated: 7:02pm, 27 Jun 2023

Chinese lawmakers are deliberating a food-security law to improve the nation’s ability to avert risks in a critical area that leadership has been attaching increasing importance to amid global uncertainties.

The draft law, which was submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress for its first reading on Monday, covers food-related issues that have been high on Beijing’s agenda in recent years, including farmland protection and grain production, party mouthpiece Xinhua said.

China is facing various challenges in guaranteeing food security, including rising grain demand and inadequate and low-quality arable land, and the new legislation is expected to help solve these issues, the agency said, citing a discussion by the committee at Monday’s session.

The move followed President Xi Jinping’s repeated emphasis on food security in the past couple of years, calling it a “national security issue of extreme importance” at a national conference in December.

Beijing aims to achieve self-sufficiency by putting an emphasis on domestic supply amid heightened relations with the United States and its allies, which are China’s major agricultural suppliers, and because of the fallout from the Ukraine war.