The annual "No. 1 Document" of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China is all about agricultural issues, but this year's "No. 1 Document" mentions "food security" six times, and it also mentions "promoting the introduction of a food security law." Scholars believe that Chinese high-level officials believe that the problem of "food security" is becoming more and more serious, so the frequency of emphasizing food security has increased accordingly.
The "No. 1 Central Document" of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on agriculture, rural areas, and farmers' work was released on Monday night. The document titled "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Doing a Good Job in the Key Work of Comprehensively Promoting Rural Revitalization in 2023" emphasizes that all efforts should be made to do a good job in food production. Ensure that the national grain output remains above 1.3 trillion catties, continue to increase the minimum purchase price of wheat, and stabilize rice subsidies.
Su Enpei, a Yunnan scholar who pays close attention to China’s food issues, said in an interview with this station on Tuesday (14th) that China needs to import a large amount of food from abroad every year because China’s arable land is small, the output is unstable, and the cost of farmers’ growing grain is high. was suppressed very low. He said: "The place I live in is a rural area. One is that the output is not stable, because it is all produced by small farmers. In addition, a lot of farmland has been encroached on, and there are very few people who grow food now, because farmers earn money by farming the land. For less money, one year of planting can earn hundreds of yuan per mu of land, and the cost of pesticides and fertilizers is very high. At present, there are no real policies to benefit the people."
This annual document guiding rural work consists of nine parts, including: Grasp the stable production and supply of grain and important agricultural products; Quality development, broadening the channels for farmers to increase their income and becoming rich, solidly promoting the construction of a livable, suitable and beautiful countryside, improving the rural governance system led by the entire party organization of the Communist Party of China, strengthening policy guarantees and system and mechanism innovation.
China is pushing for the introduction of the "Food Security Guarantee Law"
However, "food security" is mentioned 6 times in the document. For example, "resolutely ensure food security", "strengthen the foundation of food security in an all-round way", "promote the introduction of the food security law", and "focus on ensuring the demand for food security credit funds", etc. In the "No. 1 Central Document" in 2020, "food security" was mentioned only 2 times, 4 times in 2021, 5 times in 2022, and increased to 6 times this year.
Mr. Pan, a scholar on Chinese rural issues, said that in the face of the technological blockade of the West, China is also guarding against the food blockade that may appear at any time, trying to build an agricultural country and solve the food problem. He said to this station: "It is better to build an agricultural country. There is food to eat, food in hand, and no panic. Now your rural revitalization is difficult. After poverty alleviation is over, it will be rural revitalization and beautiful rural construction. It turns out that the poverty alleviation units give money and Technology and manpower, now that the poverty alleviation units have basically been withdrawn, it is useless for you to just shout slogans."
Promoting increased food production lacks policies that benefit the people
Mr. Pan believes that apart from increasing the purchase price of crops, there are no more policies to increase farmers' enthusiasm for farming. He said that farmers can't make money from growing grain: "The added value is very low, so farmers are unwilling to grow grain. They transfer the land (transfer the right to use it) and collect a rent at the end of the year. This is more cost-effective than growing grain by themselves."
According to China's official report, last year China's grain increased by 10.52 million mu compared with the previous year, with an output of 1.3 trillion catties, an increase of 7.4 billion catties. According to China Customs statistics, 146.872 million tons of grain were imported last year. Imports accounted for 21.4% of the total domestic grain output.