Transformation Strategy of China’s Food System at the New Development Stage

Abstract

China’s food system is transforming from providing adequate and safe food to supplying nutritious and healthy food as the country develops into a new stage of comprehensive modernization. To be green and low-carbon has become the global consensus regarding food system transformation, and China plans to transform its food system to be inclusive and sharing. Currently, China’s food system faces multiple challenges such as the coexistence of overnutrition and nutritional deficiency, contradiction between supply assurance and carbon reduction, lack of tolerance for small-scale farmers and vulnerable groups of consumers, and weak resilience in production stability and supply controllability. Against the background of a declining population and an increasing urbanization rate, the structure of China’s food system needs to be further optimized and develops toward “nutrition and health, green and low carbon, inclusiveness and sharing, and safety and resilience”. Future efforts should focus on (1) adjusting the production system to enrich food supply, (2) strengthening scientific and technological innovation by prioritizing the development of win-win technologies, (3) improving relevant policies to increase investment in the transformation, (4) optimizing existing systems and mechanisms to build an efficient and inclusive food chain, and (5) promoting low-carbon consumption concepts and behaviors. Furthermore, we propose the following suggestions: (1) initiating nutrition-related legislation at the national level, (2) establishing a national reserve for food system transformation technologies, (3) launching a national science and technology project for food system transformation and upgrading, and (4) launching a national nutrition and health campaign.

Keywords

• transformation of food system
• nutrition and health
• green and low-carbon
• inclusive and sharing
• safety and resilience