Strategy for Ensuring China’s Food Security through Planting Industry in the New Era

Abstract

The planting industry is crucial in ensuring food security in China. The development of the planting industry has underpinned the country’s historic transition from merely achieving food sufficiency to enjoying high-quality diets, consequently promoting the gradual improvement of dietary quality among residents. In the new era, the development of the Chinese planting industry faces challenges from internal and external risk factors, such as resource environment pressure, extreme climate impacts, and unstable international geopolitical situations. This study predicts the food supply and demand situations in 2035 and 2050. Results show that net imports of grain in China will mainly focus on soybeans and corn, while the self-sufficiency rate of rapeseed and sugar will continue to decline, the self-sufficient rate of peanuts and fruits will rise after declining first, and the vegetables will be more than self-sufficient. Thus, this study provides an overview and summary of the challenges faced by China’s planting industry regarding food security and proposes strategic ideas and policy recommendations for ensuring food security in the new era. These recommendations include improving the planting industry’s production capacity and structure, promoting low-carbon production and the efficient use of resources , optimizing residents’ consumption structure and health concepts, encouraging agricultural technology innovation and equipment development, and innovating new business entities. Major projects regarding technology innovation, quality improvement, ecological protection, and protein substitution are also proposed. Furthermore, we suggest adhering to the overall strategy of “ensuring basic selfsufficiency of grain and absolute security of staple food”, clarifying the industry development priorities by regions, improving the agricultural infrastructure and technology shortcomings, and perfecting the strategic system for responding to major crises, thereby enhancing the level of agricultural development and effectively ensuring food security in China.

Keywords

• planting industry
• food security strategy
• supply and demand forecast
• ensuring grain supply