Coronavirus crisis a chance for China ‘to refocus on food security’
- Researcher says this is a time for the country to reverse course and get back to the land
Wu Hui, who teaches at Loudi Vocational School in Hunan province in southern China, has warned in some of his online research papers that China should adopt policies to encourage its rural population to stay in the countryside and continue farming.
“China’s food security has hinged on imports from overseas and [the situation] is unsustainable,” Wu wrote in one paper, saying his assessment was based on field studies. “One day, we will fall apart just like Venezuela.
“When I visited my home village in Hunan last month, my neighbours said they would still not want to farm even if I offered them three times the market price for their rice,” Wu said. “Almost all of them said they wanted to return to their old jobs in the city [now the epidemic is waning].”
Wu said just three people in his extended family of 66 people continued to grow vegetables.