China food security: grain reigns supreme as higher yields sought from limited land

China has set out to boost grain yields in an action plan listing essential tasks for country’s drive to ensure food security
Last year’s output was a national record, but authorities want improvement as arable land stagnates and gap widens with West in seed development

China food security

Sylvia Ma

Published: 2:40pm, 12 Apr 2024

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As it pursues a stable food supply in an increasingly fraught global environment, China has laid out plans to increase its grain yield and spur the advancement of its seed industry – essential to guaranteeing the nutritional needs of its people and bringing the country closer to agricultural parity with the advanced economies of the West.

An action plan released by the State Council, China’s cabinet, outlined a goal to boost national grain yields by more than 50 million tonnes by 2030 and raise the yield per mu to 420kg – an 8 per cent increase on the 390kg logged last year. A mu is a unit of measurement commonly used in China, with 15 mu equivalent to one hectare and roughly six mu equalling one acre.

It also set a target for total sown grain areas of about 1.75 billion mu (288.3 million acres), and 1.45 billion mu for the sown area of cereals. Both are slightly lower than the 1.78 billion mu and 1.5 billion mu respectively recorded in 2023.

07:58

Why is the Chinese government so concerned about food security?

“With tightening constraints on China’s natural resources and growing demand driven by upgrades of resident food structures, the tight balance between grain supply and demand will persist in the long term,” an official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s top economic planner, told state news agency Xinhua on Monday.

The official said the current gap was likely to widen further in the future, making crop output all the more important.

With regular extreme weather events and a global food market susceptible to volatile geopolitical shifts, Beijing has placed greater emphasis on food security, with President Xi Jinping labelling it a “national priority”.

China vows to boost crop yields, Xi calls for investment in ‘lifeblood’ land

China has undertaken a full-bore effort to diversify its imports and boost domestic output to reduce overreliance on grains which are primarily grown overseas, such as soybeans and corn – both of which were prioritised in the plan.

The document also dedicated space to innovation in seeds – deemed the “chips” of agriculture by Chinese leaders in an explicit linkage with the country’s race to be a global player in tech – an area acknowledged as a weak link and high on the agenda during the central rural work conference in December.

Other major projects, such as water conservation, construction of high-standard farmland, agricultural mechanisation and disaster prevention, were all said to be in the works in 720 counties the action plan named as crucial to grain production.

“China’s arable land is limited, with little potential for further expansion. So efforts should be focused on improving yield per unit area,” said Li Guoxiang, a researcher at the rural development institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Li said the target of 420kg per mu was “not hard to attain”, as it is not high by global standards and corn and soybean yields still hold untapped potential.

He attributed the difficulty of boosting yields to the weakness of domestically developed seeds and a lack of scientific management in current smallholder farming, recommending hybrid techniques such as water-fertiliser integration and digitalised farming to resolve some of these issues.

01:53

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Paul Teng, a food security expert with the Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies at Nanyang Technological University, said while Asia faces an ever-present threat of food insecurity, a “silver lining” could be found through novel farming methods such as digital agriculture, biotechnology, precision fermentation and urban agrotechnology.

“While large exporters like the United States, Canada and Argentina have adopted biotechnology crops, Asian countries have been slow in taking up this technology, often because of scientifically dubious reasons,” he said in a commentary on Thursday.

But a sea change may be in the offing, he added, as China has made clear its intention to lead the way in growing more genetically modified crops.

It’s crucial to foster diverse non-agricultural industries in rural areas [to keep] the rural labour force in the countryside

Ma Wenfeng

Ma Wenfeng, a senior analyst with the Beijing Orient Agribusiness consultancy, said the gap between China’s per-unit grain yield and that of developed regions worldwide “continues to widen”, despite the country’s attempts to keep pace.

He suggested the application of biofertilisers to expand the scope of organic farming and augment output.

“In addition to technological advancements, it’s also crucial to foster diverse non-agricultural industries in rural areas [to keep] the rural labour force in the countryside,” he said.

He pointed out rural areas were grappling with population outflows and ageing, resulting in a labour shortage for advanced agricultural productivity, which would undermine efforts to increase grain output and ensure food security.