Achieving food security in China: past three decades and beyond

With a huge population but limited agricultural resources, China’s food security has been an important issue, not only for China but also for the rest of the world. Should China experience a major food shortage, its large amount of food imports could generate enormous ripple effects on world food prices and thus food availability to people of poorer countries that rely heavily on food imports. Thanks to the economic reforms that started in the late 1970s, China’s food availability has been significantly improved. For the first time in the recent history, majority of the Chinese people now have plenty food to eat. As such, it is imperative to examine China’s food security practice over the past three decades and such a study can generate experiences and lessons valuable for China and also for other developing countries in their efforts to achieve national food security. This paper, using a normative food security framework, reviews and assesses China’s food security practice in the past three decades, identifies weak areas that may undermine its food security, and proposes approaches that can further improve its food security in the future