In China, a saying goes that after
getting up in the morning you need seven things for your
livelihood: firewood, rice, edible oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and
tea. Rice, referring here to grain, is the most important necessity
for life. Without it people cannot survive. But the past half year
has witnessed an escalation in grain prices, which triggered a
price hike in edible oil, vegetables, meat and other farm produces.
This led to the price of grain dominating conversations around
dinner tables and boardrooms.
About 10 years ago, an American expert
wrote an article on the arduous task of solving the food problem
for China’s huge population. This article set off a stream of
debates on grain security.
Between the 1960s and 1970s, when
China was an out-and-out agricultural country, Chairman Mao Zedong
put forward the slogan of “taking grain production as priority.”
Since China’s introduction of the reform and opening-up policy at
the end of the 1970s, the country has seen swift development of
secondary and tertiary industries. Mao’s slogan was replaced by
“developing the agricultural sector for stability and developing
industry for wealth.” Under this situation, the enthusiasm of
Chinese farmers for growing grain tapered off, and many turned to
other ways of making a living with quicker financial returns than
farming. As a result, since 1999, China’s grain output has dropped
consistently, with a total reduction of 60 million tons.
Furthermore, economic development has increased grain demand. This
led to the demand for grain outweighing supply. A solution to this
problem is to import grain from other countries, which, of course,
benefits grain exporters like the United States and Canada. But the
Chinese people should be clearly aware that solving the problem of
food for 1.3 billion people is their own responsibility, no matter
how cheap grain is on the world market.
China solved its food problem years
ago, but of late, shrinking farmland, particularly the grain-sowing
land, caused by the requisition of farmland for industrial
development, plus the plan to return 5.8 million hectares of
farmland to forests and grassland in west China within 10 years,
has affected the grain growing process. In addition, the already
huge population is still increasing year on year, which adds to the
demand of grain. Still, China’s agricultural sector is plagued by
the high cost of production and weak resistance against natural
disasters, such as drought, flood and insects. In many regions,
grain production is still heavily dependent on the weather.
In short, China’s grain security is a
big issue, which should not be neglected. The more the economy
develops and the more the market is opened, the more attention
should be given to this issue.
(Beijing Review October 16, 2004)
