The amount of grain imported by China is increasing year by year. (Image credit: Hale/Adobe Stock)
[Look at China News on December 26, 2022](See comprehensive report by Chinese reporter Li Zhengxin) The Central Rural Work Conference was held in Beijing from December 23rd to 24th. However, it can be seen from customs data that the amount of grain imported by China is increasing year by year.
The Central Rural Work Conference was held in Beijing on December 23-24, with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang chairing the meeting, according to Chinese state media Xinhua. General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping attended the meeting and delivered a speech. Members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Li Qiang, Wang Huning, Han Zheng, Cai Qi and Ding Xuexiang attended the meeting.
Xi Jinping said, “We must anchor the goal of building a strong agricultural country…promote the ‘three rural’ work and strengthen the top-level design.”
Xi Jinping also proposed, “It is necessary to implement a new round of 100 billion jin grain production capacity increase action, and formulate an implementation plan as soon as possible.”
Sannong refers to agriculture, rural areas, and peasant issues. In order to let the outside world think that it attaches great importance to Sannong, the No. 1 document issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China at the beginning of each year involves the scope of Sannong.
In addition, Xi Jinping proposed to implement a new round of 100 billion jin grain production capacity improvement plan. This is not the first time the Beijing authorities have proposed an action to increase grain production capacity by 100 billion jin. In 2009, the authorities had issued the “National Plan for Adding 100 Billion Catties of Grain Production Capacity (2009-2020)”.
However, in the eyes of experts, there are problems with the plan.
On December 26, according to the official media “Beijing News”, Diao Xianmin, a researcher at the Institute of Crop Science of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the chief scientist of the national millet industry system, said, “Our country has little land and a lot of people, and the per capita arable land area is not high. At the same time, our country It is still a major food-importing country, with more than 160 million tons of food imported in 2021.” The demand for food in the future will also increase accordingly, and the alarm bells should still be ringing for food security.
In addition, “the output of major producing areas and staple food crops is also approaching the limit.” Diao Xianmin said, “For example, in land use, in the main production areas such as North China and Northeast my country, it is really difficult to continue to increase production due to long-term overloaded use of land. Another example is crops. The utilization and development of bulk crops, whether it is breeding or cultivation technology, has already been at the stage of development. at an extremely high level.”
According to data released by the General Administration of Customs of China, from January to December 2021, China imported 164.539 million tons of grain, an increase of 25.273 million tons or 18.1% year-on-year.
Grain is classified by variety, mainly including grains, beans, and potatoes. Rice, wheat, and corn are three types of grains, and rice and wheat are the main food materials of the common people, commonly known as “rations”.
Data show that as of November 2021, China’s imports of corn, sorghum, barley, wheat, rice and other grains have already exceeded the annual imports of 2020. The imports of corn, sorghum, barley, wheat and rice were 27.02 million tons, 8.71 million tons, 11.46 million tons, 8.83 million tons and 4.38 million tons respectively. This import data is 239%, 181%, 142%, 104%, and 150% of the import volume in 2020, respectively.
The data shows that China’s grain imports from January to October 2022 were 122.33 million tons, a decrease of 15.63 million tons compared to the same period in 2021, a year-on-year decrease of 11.3%;
This shows that in the case of a high base last year, a sharp rise in grain prices and a sharp appreciation of the US dollar this year, China’s total grain imports have relatively decreased.
Since China joined the WTO (World Trade Organization), the scale of China’s agricultural trade has continued to expand over the past 20 years. Since 2004, China’s foreign trade of agricultural products has changed from a previous net exporter to a net importer. Especially after 2009, the trade deficit (imports are greater than exports) has continued to expand.
At the “Tsinghua Sannong Forum 2022” held on January 8 this year, the research team of Du Ying, vice chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, announced the research results. Using different methods to calculate the change of China’s food self-sufficiency rate, the calculation results are basically consistent. In the past 20 years, China’s food self-sufficiency rate has dropped from about 100% to the current level of about 76%.
Food self-sufficiency rate is an important indicator of national food security.
Du Ying’s team calculated that China’s total food self-sufficiency rate may further drop from the current 76% to about 65% by 2035.
Source: Watch China
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