Transforming Chinese Food Systems for Both Human and Planetary Health

Abstract

Over the past four decades, China’s food security and nutritional status have improved significantly, as witnessed in the elimination of hunger and poverty, increased diversity of diets, and reduction in child stunting. However, Chinese food systems will face even greater challenges in the future. These include constraints of natural resources, climate change, and multiple challenges of malnutrition, food safety, and external shocks from a volatile international market. Fortunately, the Chinese government has made important commitments in the “Fourteenth Five-year Plan” on food and nutrition security, health, the environment and climate change, including achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. The purpose of this chapter is to review major achievements and their enabling factors, future challenges and government strategies, as well as our recommendations for transforming Chinese food systems in regard to both human and planetary health. This chapter will help to bring voices of emerging economies like China in setting the global food system agenda, providing useful insights on the transformation of its own food systems, as well as those in other countries.

1 Introduction

Enormous successes have been achieved with regard to food throughout the world in the past, but future challenges are massive. Food systems embrace the entire range of actors and their interlinked value-adding activities in the production, aggregation, processing, distribution, consumption, and disposal (loss or waste) of food products that originate from agriculture (incl. livestock), forestry, fisheries, and food industries, and the broader economic, societal, and natural environments in which they are embedded (von Braun et al. 2021; Fan et al. 2021). They also generate massive externalities, and are a cause of many economic, social and health crises, including the triple burden of malnutrition (undernourishment or hunger, micronutrient deficiencies or hidden hunger, overweight and obesity), food safety scares and zoonotic pandemics such as the ongoing COVID-19. Thus, urgent actions are needed to transform the current food systems to be nutrition- and health-driven, productive and efficient (thus improving affordability), environmentally sustainable and climate-smart, resilient and inclusive.

Despite rapid ascension in global food production, consumption, trade and investment, the voices of emerging economies are largely absent in setting the global food systems agenda. This will hinder the transformation of their own food systems, as well as the global system. Taking China as an example, the country’s food systems have experienced substantial transformation for the past four decades, but still face many challenges that threaten both human health and environmental sustainability. Fortunately, the government has recently made several important commitments in regard to food and nutrition security, health, the environment and climate change, including achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. This provides a unique opportunity, as well as responsibility, to reshape food systems in order to achieve these national goals.

This chapter aims to review major achievements, enabling factors, and challenges, and to propose a pathway for Chinese food systems to achieve both human and planetary health. Chinese experience, and the lessons learned therein, have global implications, not only because of its size, but also because of its strategy to strengthen the south-south cooperation in order to enhance global food security, climate mitigation, resilience to unexpected crises, and protection of the world’s natural resources.

2 Evolution of Food and Nutrition Security in China

Impressive progress in China’s growth in agricultural productivity and the subsequent growth in agricultural production has enabled the country to feed nearly 20% of the world’s population using only 8% of the world’s arable land and 5% of global fresh water (Lu et al. 2015; Huang et al. 2020). During the period 1978–2020, China’s agricultural output (in real terms) has grown at the rate of 4.6% a year (more than 60% driven by total factor productivity growth), much higher than the 0.9% of annual population growth for the same period of time. In the meantime, the structure of agricultural production has shifted towards high-value and high-protein products (NBSC 2020). The farm economy is now highly commercialized and the output value of high-value commodities (including vegetables, fruits, livestock and fish) has, on average, accounted for around 70% of agricultural output value (Huang and Shi 2021).

With increased food supply, China has substantially increased the capacity of food supply for its growing and wealthier population. Over the past three decades, the prevalence of global hunger has been on the decline, among which two-thirds of the people who escaped hunger globally live in China (FAO 2020). Between 1990 and 2020, the prevalence of undernutrition in China dropped from 22.9% to below 2.5% (FAO stops reporting when the rate is below 2.5%, thus the hunger rate in China is much lower than 2.5%), and the daily calorie intake per capita increased from 2,814 kal/day in 2000 to 3,197 kal/day in 2017 (Table 1). The food consumption pattern has also become more diversified, with the proportion of high-protein and high-energy products having increased substantially. Data from national household consumption surveys shows that the overall intake of staple foods (in particular, grains) decreased by approximately one-third over the past three decades, and the daily consumption of vegetables, fruits and meat per capita were more than doubled in 2018 compared to 1997 (Zhao et al. 2018). The prevalence of stunting and underweight in China are well below the average for developing countries, and undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies have declined sharply (Figs. 1 and 2). The overall mortality from cardiovascular diseases, all types of cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and type-2 diabetes has declined from 18.5% in 2015 to 16.5% in 2020.

Table 1 Calorie supply per capita and per day (kilocalories), 2000–2017

Fig. 1

Percentage of undernourished population in China, 2001–2019. (Source: The World Bank 2020)

Fig. 2

Nutrition Statistics of Children under 5 years old in China, 1992–2020. (Source: 1992, 2002, 2012 and 2020 China Nutrition and Health Surveys)

The agricultural market has been gradually reformed domestically and internationally, helping to increase the allocative efficiency of the food value chain (Huang and Rozelle 1996; De Brauw et al. 2004). Domestically, marketization reforms started with the so-called nonstrategic products (such as vegetables and fruits) in the mid-1980s, gradually moving to animal products (fish and meat) and then to crops such as sugarcane, edible oils, cotton and grains (Sicular 1988; Rozelle et al. 2000; Rozelle and Swinnen 2004; Huang and Rozelle 2006). Internationally, China reduced the average import tariff for all agricultural products from 42.2% in 1992 to 12% in 2004, making China one of the freest agricultural trading nations in the world. Equally, remarkable growth also occurred in the upstream and downstream sectors of agriculture. While agriculture only accounted for 6.7% GDP and 25% employment in 2019, the food system in China (including agriculture, agribusiness, food processing, packaging, transportation, wholesale and retail trade, food services, finance and insurance, advertising and input supplies) accounted for 23% of GDP and more than 30% of total employment (Fan et al. 2021). Recent trends toward greater concentration of agricultural inputs and food distribution, the increasing role of E-commerce and logistic technologies, and the growing importance of food safety, quality, and other technical requirements have all resulted in dramatic changes in Chinese agri-food systems (Chen et al. 2019; Fan and Swinnen 2020). With the rapid expansion of Internet access and the steady process of logistics infrastructure construction, China is now leading the world in E-commerce and has shown the resilience of its food system in coping with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

China has facilitated rural structural transformation and off-farm employment, substantially contributing to poverty reduction and increasing equal accessibility to food. Where off-farm employment was once rare, today, a majority of rural household income is earned off-farm. The share of rural labor off-farm employment had increased from 9.3% in 1978 to 84.4% in 2018 (Li et al. 2021). Agriculture employed 71% of labor in 1978 (Rozelle et al. 1999). By 2019, the share of employment in agriculture had fallen to 25% (NBSC 2020). At the same time, the number of people in rural China living in extreme poverty fell from 250 million in 1978 down to zero in 2020 (NBS various years). According to the current nationwide poverty threshold—RMB 2300 a day in 2010 prices, or slightly more than $2 a day in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms—the number of rural poor decreased by 98.99 million over the past decade, and all of the remaining 832 poor counties (128 thousand villages) have moved out of poverty (NBS various years). China has become the first developing country to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target one decade ahead of schedule.

Green development and resilience have been integrated into agricultural development strategy. In terms of resource management, China is one of a few large countries to make substantial public investment in irrigation, flood control and land improvement (Wang et al. 2019). The area of irrigated agricultural land increased from 45 million hectares in 1978 to 68.7 million hectares in 2019 (NBSC 2020). Today, more than half of China’s cultivated land is irrigated. Investment in low- to mid-quality land has also helped to improve soil quality and raise agricultural production capacity. In response to environmental degradation and climate change, the government has initiated the first national program to protect natural resources in 2016, and thereafter implemented a series of directories and regulations to tackle environmental degradation and restore the agroecosystem. In 2021, the newly issued regulation towards low carbon and “dual cycle” rural development highlighted measures for controlling livestock waste, agricultural plastics, and the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides. With these efforts, the use of fertilizers and pesticides has substantially declined since the mid-2010s (Figs. 3 and 4). These indicate that China is on the way to developing a greener and more resilient food system in the face of limited environmental resources and climate change.

Fig. 3

Total use of fertilizers and its composition change in China: 1984–2019. (Source: China rural statistical yearbook, various years)

Fig. 4

Total pesticide use and its intensity: 1990–2019. (Source: China rural statistical yearbook, various years)

3 Enabling Factors Driving Chinese Food System Transformation

Numerous studies have analyzed the factors contributing to China’s agricultural growth and food system transformation. These include sequencing policy and investment priorities, embracing technological progress and innovation, integrating food and nutrition security into poverty reduction programs, protecting natural resources and the environment, building resilience against risks and shocks, and promoting ICT and E-commerce.

3.1 Sequential Choice of Policy and Investment Initiatives

Sequentially choosing and prioritizing policy instruments to meet the stage-by-stage development goal is key to achieving successful food system transformation. The household responsibility system (HRS), implemented during the period 1978–84, was regarded as the starting point of China’s agricultural and food system transformation. The reform dismantled the people’s communes and contracted cultivated land to individual households, largely on the basis of the number of people and/or laborers in the household. These triggered strong growth in both agricultural output and productivity, and thus substantially increased the food supply (Fan 1991; Lin 1992; Huang and Rozelle 1996; McMillan et al. 1989; Jin et al. 2002; Sheng et al. 2020).

Reforms in land policy have also paved the way for market reforms implemented since the mid-1980s (Huang et al. 2004; Huang and Rozelle 2006), the agricultural trade reforms of the 1990s (Anderson et al. 2004; Huang et al. 2007), and institutional reforms in labor and financial markets (particularly the gradual relaxation of the household registration system, or hukou).

Prioritizing investment initiatives is also critical. China invested substantially in rural public infrastructure even before the institutional and market reforms that began in the late 1970s, but mainly focused on production- and transportation-related infrastructures. Since the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, investments in rural areas have been further boosted as part of the financial stimulus package. As a result, China has become one of a few large countries with substantial increases in public investment in water (irrigation and flood) control and land improvement (Wang et al. 2019). Massive investment has also been made in rural roads and wholesale markets, fostering market integration and linking hundreds of millions of small farms with retailers and consumers. Highway mileage increased from 890,000 km in 1978 to 10 million km in 2020 (NBS various years), and nearly every village has access to a public paved road. Empirical evidence shows that government spending on rural roads has a very high impact on agricultural transformation, off-farm employment and poverty reduction (Zhang et al. 2004, 2019).

3.2 Agricultural R&D and Innovation

China has invested significantly in agricultural R&D and developed a strong technology innovation system (Hu and Huang 2011; Babu et al. 2015). In 2015, public expenditure on agricultural R&D was estimated to reach more than RMB 26 billion yuan (roughly USD$4.1 billion), overtaking the public spending of the US and ranking as number one in the world (Chai et al. 2019). This system has generated a wide range of innovative technologies used by millions of small and large farms in crop, livestock and fishery production, as well as in agricultural inputs and farm machines.

China has also developed a comprehensive agricultural extension system, despite the twisting path to reform of the past. The system covers all townships across the country, and the extension staff work closely with farmers. While the role of the private sector in providing extension services has been rising in recent years, maintaining a strong public extension system is crucial to agricultural production dominated by small farms.

The increased public agricultural R&D investment and the development of an agricultural extension system have been translated directly into productivity gains. China was one of the first developing countries to develop and extend the “green revolution” technology in rice in the 1960s (Stone 1988). Technological changes in wheat, maize, cash crops and animal production have also been impressive since the 1990s (Jin et al. 2010). Empirical studies show that the average annual growth rate of TFP in the grain sector increased by about 3% before the mid-2000s (Fan 1997; Jin et al. 2008). TFP growth rates for cash crops and livestock and the whole agricultural sector were even higher, exceeding 3.5% per year after 1992 (Sheng et al. 2020). Rapid agricultural productivity growth has enabled the country to save its limited land and water resources. Since the mid-1990s, China’s agricultural productivity growth has turned towards relying on innovations from plant biotechnology. The wide cultivation with” Bt cotton” is an example of successful uses of genetic modification technology in the developing world—a technological change that has benefited millions of farmers (Huang et al. 2002). Meanwhile, the recent emerging technologies (e.g., ICT, big data technology, etc.) are also changing the path of innovations in the country’s agriculture.

3.3 Poverty Reduction Schemes and National Nutrition Programs

The success in poverty reduction (and hunger) in China is not only the result of sustaining rapid economic growth, but also the result of the implementation of large-scale, long-lasting, government-led poverty alleviation strategies. Targeting poverty alleviation policies and development-oriented poverty alleviation programs (Liu et al. 2017; Fan and Cho 2021; Cheng et al. 2021) have both contributed to the success. First, continued reforms and opening-up policies reduced poverty through economic development (Wang et al. 2008; Yan 2016). Second, development-oriented poverty alleviation policies are an important part of China’s anti-poverty strategies. China improved the living conditions of poor areas by implementing preferential development policies, to enable these areas to obtain special development opportunities and to partially offset the constraints associated with poor natural conditions. Development programs in infrastructure and public services were offered to poor areas, helping them improve the development environment (Yan 2016). Rapid poverty reduction directly contributed to an increase in the accessibility of food for a large proportion of the population, thereby reducing hunger in a historic record.

A number of nutrition intervention programs and policies have been implemented to improve national nutrition, in which dynamic government guidance (reflecting the changing status) has played an important role. Examples include the Children Nutrition Monitoring and Improvement Project from 1990 to 1995, the Soybean Action Plan of 1996, the Chinese Nutrition Improvement Action Plan of 1997, the School Milk Project of 2000, the Chinese Fortification Project of 2004, the Nutrition Improvement Program for Rural Compulsory Education Students since 2012, and Nutrition Improvement Projects in Poverty Regions (YYB for Children under 2 years old) in place since 2012, among others. In contrast to the nutrition policies of the 1990s, which emphasized the abundance and availability of food, nutrition policies during the past ten years have placed increasing importance on balanced diets and food safety. The recurring themes of recent policies involve providing recommended nutrient intake and targeted agricultural development based on population and nutritional requirements.

3.4 Environment and Resource Management Practices

China’s experience of policy practice in tackling environmental challenges, climate change and rural sustainable development has progressed in two ways: through economic encouragement and persuasion. Economic encouragement has been more widely used, compared to the persuasive approach. Through government subsidies, farmers are given the incentive to adopt more environment-friendly production technologies, which, in turn, play an important role in alleviating the overuse of fertilizers and chemicals and the recycling of wastes from livestock.

Taking irrigation water as an example, the government has traditionally focused on the supply side and relied on building reservoirs to meet the growing water demand (Xie et al. 2009; Wang et al. 2016a). Over time, it has become clear that catching up with the expanding water demand is a difficult task. The government started to advocate irrigation technologies to reduce irrigation withdrawal in the early 1990s (Lohmar et al. 2003; Wang et al. 2020). Another example is Water User Associations, which began replacing village collective management of surface irrigation in the mid-1990s. This approach had been adopted by most provinces by early 2001, but with mixed results. It is associations utlilizing water-saving incentives that have achieved more efficient irrigation (Wang et al. 2005, 2016b). Research also reveals a great policy scope for expanding irrigation technologies to generate real water saving in rural areas.

In addition to water preservation, land protection and soil quality improvement have also received more attention. Since the 18th National Congress, the red line for 1.8 billion mu (15 mu = 1 hectare) of arable land has been drawn to ensure agricultural production with adequate land resource. Meanwhile, the national Soil-Testing and Fertilizer Recommendation Program in 2005 and the Zero Increase Action Plan in 2015, initiated by the Ministry of Agriculture, have played a crucial role in holding back the increase in massive fertilizer inputs and nutrient losses, while increasing food production (Jiao et al. 2018). Consequently, agricultural chemical use (i.e., fertilizer and pesticides) has recently fallen (Figs. 3 and 4).

3.5 Strategies for Strengthening Food System Resilience Under COVID-19

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food systems exposed the vulnerabilities of the supply chain throughout the world in 2020, although the extent of disruption varies widely, globally and in Asia. In response to this pandemic shock, food systems in China have been proven relatively resilient when compared with other regions. The Chinese experience has been widely acknowledged globally and is believed to have played an important role in fighting the pandemic. These experiences include (1) early actions taken to make sure that the whole supply chain worked smoothly through the green channel; (2) the well-organized and prompt response of governments; (3) the collaboration of multi-stakeholders (government, scientists, agricultural technicians, private companies, NGOs, O2O platform etc.); and (4) collaboration and joint-response between rural and urban areas.

3.6 Reducing the Food Loss and Waste as a National Strategy

Developing a national vision and strategy for reducing food loss and waste allows China to take the lead in achieving the UN SDGs for halving food loss and waste. In 2010, the State Grain Administration issued “Recommendations to Combat Food Waste,” which include raising public awareness on reducing food waste, enhancing food purchase and storage, accelerating food logistic infrastructure development, improving the standard of food products, developing and disseminating new technologies for food waste reduction, and encouraging food processing businesses to combat food waste through the trusted grain and (edible) oil program. One well-known example is the “Clean Your Plate” initiative, promoted through advertising campaigns to raise public awareness on reducing food waste. More recently, China issued the Anti-Food Waste Law, and became the first country to enact anti-food waste activities in the developing world.

3.7 The ICT Revolution and E-Commerce Application

The recent development of rural E-commerce has added fuel to food system transformation, providing a new approach to help smallholder farmers overcome barriers to markets (Hamad et al. 2018; Jamaluddin 2013; Li et al. 2020a, b; Ma et al. 2020; Okoli et al. 2010; Rahayu and Day 2017; Yu and Cui 2019). Rural online retail sales in 2019 reached 1.7 trillion yuan, accounting for 16.1% of the total retail sales, and the growth rate was 19.1%, 2.6% higher than that of the total retail sales. In terms of agricultural products, online retail sales reached 397.5 billion yuan in 2019 (China’s Ministry of Commerce 2020). Studies have shown that ICT and rural E-commerce have generated positive externalities for food system transformation, including in regional governance (Liu 2017), social development and women’s empowerment (Oreglia and Srinivasan 2016; Xu 2016; Yu and Cui 2019), employment (Qi et al. 2019), and household income (Cho and Tobias 2010; Zapata et al. 2016). The successful expansion of rural E-commerce in China and its potential for economic development and poverty alleviation has drawn a great deal of international attention. The World Bank applauded the development of Taobao villages in China as an instrument for poverty reduction and shared prosperity (World Bank 2016).

4 Challenges Facing Chinese Food Systems

Despite impressive achievements, Chinese food systems are facing a set of emerging challenges. They include declining productivity growth, the multiple burden of malnutrition, particularly micronutrient deficiency and overweight/obesity, natural resource degradation, continued rural-urban and regional inequality and increased food imports.

4.1 Declining Agricultural Productivity Growth and the Dominance of Smallholder Farms

While exhibiting rapid growth in the past, agricultural TFP slowed down in recent years. In addition, rising wages and rural labor shortages have caused the Chinese agricultural and food sector to lose competitiveness and profitability (Liu et al. 2018; Sheng et al. 2020). Between 2000 and 2018, the average relative comparative advantage index for feed grains, oil crops and meats (other than poultry) declined from 2.0 to around 0.8 (Rao et al. 2020).

Although ongoing land reforms, such as township land right transfers and “San-Quan-Fen-Zhi,” have facilitated land consolidation throughout the country since the mid-2000s (Huang and Ding 2016; Yi et al. 2019), small farms continue to dominate agricultural production. How to increase the agricultural productivity of small farms is still essential for national food security and the income equality of rural households (Sheng et al. 2019).

4.2 The Triple Burden of Malnutrition

The number of undernourished people has declined to almost zero, but it is a challenging task to tackle unbalanced diet and “hidden hunger” for better health. The deficiency of micronutrients such as vitamin A, iron, zinc, and calcium is still prevalent in both urban and rural areas, especially households with lower economic status (Yang et al. 2010). An estimated 21–34% of school-age children were classified as anemic in poorer western provinces, whereas the anemia rate among school-age children at the national level is estimated to be 6.1% (State Council 2020). Based on the World Bank (2016) estimate, micronutrient deficiency in China is expected to cause an annual loss of 0.2–0.4% of GDP, or US$2.5–5.0 billion per year.

Overweight and obesity rates are increasing—resulting from the excessive intake of fat, calories, and sugar, as well as physical inactivity. The prevalence of adult overweight and obesity in China jumped from 20.4% in 2000 to 34.3% in 2020 among males and from 21.1% to 30.1% among females (Fig. 5). Similarly, the estimated prevalence of overweight and obesity among children under the age of five increased from 5.3% to 6.8% between 1990 and 2020 (NBSC 2020).

Fig. 5

Percentage of obesity and overweight in total population, 2002–2016. (Source: WHO 2020)

An increasingly overweight and obese population brings with it a plethora of adverse health and economic consequences. The prevalence of adult diabetes—a chronic disease highly associated with diet—increased from 1% to more than 11.9% between 1980 and 2020 (NHFPC 2020). Hypertension, diabetes, and other cardiovascular diseases cost China nearly 4% of its GDP, and this figure is expected to double by 2025 if no preventative actions are taken (Popkin 2008).

4.3 Resource Scarcity and Degradation and Climate Change

A rapidly urbanizing and richer society puts pressure on increasingly scarce resources, including land, water and raw materials. In addition to the limited amount of land, land quality is equally worrisome. Nearly 70% of cultivated land in China is classified as low- or medium-fertility land (Jiao et al. 2018; Luan et al. 2020). Water resource constraints are severe as well. In 2019, China’s per capita water resource was only 22% of the global average. In particular, the North China Plain’s shallow water table has dropped from 0–3 meters below the surface in 1950 to a depth of 65 meters in recent years (Li et al. 2013; Zhao et al. 2019; Wang et al. 2019).

China is also vulnerable to climate-related risks (Cui 2018; Fang et al. 2018; Rosenzweig et al. 2020). China has been among the most disaster-prone countries in the world (Nie et al. 2010; Li et al. 2014), as agro-meteorological disasters alone affect 50 million hectares and 400 million people, and result in a loss of RMB 2000 billion (about 3% of GDP) annually (CNARCC 2011). Climate change will continue to intensify and the occurrence of extreme weather events and natural disasters associated with climate change will continue to increase (Wang et al. 2020; Rosenzweig et al. 2020).

4.4 Remaining Rural-Urban and Regional Inequality

While governments’ focus on the agricultural and rural issues has shifted from “poverty reduction” to “rural revitalization,” rising rural-urban inequality continues to pose a policy challenge.

The most notable income disparities in China are between urban and rural areas and between coastal and inland regions. The relative ratio of urban to rural residents’ per capita disposable income increased from 2.4 in 1978 to 3.0 in 2010. Although it declined in recent years, the ratio was still as high as 2.66 in 2019 (NBSC 2020). In addition to the coastal to inland gap in GDP per capita (Luo and Zhu 2008), the recent decade witnessed a widening gap in GDP per capita between Northern and Southern regions. In 2013, the gap in GDP per capita growth between Southern and Northern provinces was 0.3, but it increased to 1.9% in 2017 (Rozelle and Hell 2020).

Inequality in China is also reflected in wealth distribution, social protection, public service delivery, nutrition, and access to jobs and social programs across and within regions, especially between rural and urban areas. Increasing farmers’ incomes at a faster rate will be one of the key policy goals for achieving smooth food system transformation.

4.5 Increasing Food Imports and Uncertainty in Global Markets

China’s agricultural trade with the rest of the world has grown rapidly. From 1978 to 2018, China’s agricultural trade increased from $5.45 billion to $216.8 billion, with an average annual growth rate of 10% (Rao et al. 2020). At the same time, trade deficit has continued to increase (Fig. 6). China has been running an agricultural trade deficit since 2003, and it has surged to $57.3 billion in 2018 (Uncomtrade 2020). The country imported 100 million tons of soybeans and 11.3 million tons of maize in 2020.

Fig. 6

China’s agricultural import and export (million US$), 1993–2020 Source: National Bureau of Statistics and China Customs

While increasing trade has improved China’s food security greatly, it may also bring uncertainty and risks, as seen during the China-USA trade disputes. Meanwhile, the persistent COVID-19 pandemic imposes additional uncertainty on international agricultural trade.

5 Future Strategies and Policies

5.1 New Vision Towards Better Food Systems

To facilitate food system transformation, China has recently released the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan (2021–2025) and “National Food and Nutrition Guideline toward 2035” under the National Strategy of Rural Revitalization. There are two important shifts:

• National development aims to establish “a well-off society in an all-round way” through the Rural Revitalization Strategy.

• Agriculture and rural development shifts its focus towards developing more efficient, green, inclusive and sustainable food systems.

5.2 National Food Policies Towards 2035

The following four major national food policies have been initiated to ensure successful food system transformations.

• To ensure food security as the bottom line by enforcing the strategies of “Store Grains (food) in Land” (or imposing red lines on cultivated land area and improving land productivity) and “Store Grains (food) in Technology” (or raising production capacity through technological innovation). By introducing the “Food Security Law,” China is actively working to stabilize land areas to ensure grain production of 650 million tons (roughly equal to the 2018 level) by 2025.

• To facilitate the transformation of agricultural production and food consumption in safe, green and sustainable directions by developing ambitious action plans for achieving peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.

• To make an overall plan for increasing the resilience of agricultural and food systems, reducing the negative impact of external shocks such as natural disasters, climate change, plant and animal diseases (i.e., COVID-19), market uncertainties, etc.

• To develop new technologies (e.g., biotechnology and ICT) that increase agricultural productivity, developing digital agriculture and extending the value chain of agricultural and food products.

5.3 Recommendations: Strengthening Institutions, Policies and Investment Using a Food Systems Approach

• Given that there are a wide range of issues and multiple dimensions of food systems from production to consumption, the government should consider establishing a new leading group to coordinate policies and investments in food systems at the national and local levels. With this leading group, the following efforts by the government and their efficiencies will be further improved:

  • Governance capacity to develop more healthy, efficient, green, inclusive and sustainable food systems in general, and addressing issues of small farm modernization, food safety, and scarcity of land and water in particular;

  • Efforts to improve management of the emergency food supply in response to external shocks;

  • Efforts to raise awareness of healthy diets and combat food loss and waste along the value chain.

• Enhance productivity of whole food systems through a more innovative science and technology system.

  • Increase and prioritize agricultural R&D investments in breeding technologies for crops, livestock and fish, and in agricultural inputs (including farming machinery, fertilizers and chemicals, irrigation, processing, storage, etc.);

  • Provide more incentives for the private sector to participate and encourage public-private partnership in agricultural R&D and extension activities.

• Further increase investment in restoring natural resources (e.g., land and water) and enhancing their productivity, as well as in the sustainable use of agricultural and food infrastructure (e.g., irrigation, transportation, etc.), and reduce the costs related to transportation, marketing and food consumption;

• Promote institutional reforms to facilitate land consolidation, help small farms that are moving up or those that are being abandoned, expand the machinery custom service, and develop more effective farmer cooperatives.

• Build a modern circulation system for agricultural products to improve inclusiveness, efficiency, nutrition, and food safety from “seed to fork.” In addition to investment, this requires further reforming agricultural markets, stabilizing food prices, expanding and enhancing the agricultural insurance system to mitigate natural and market risks, establishing the integrative protection system against pests and animal diseases, making full use of E-commerce to extend the value chain from sustainable production in the fields to consumption, and mainstreaming healthy and sustainable diets into the national development strategy.

• Promote green food system transformation and sustainable development to create a balance between agricultural growth and sustainable development.

  • Invest in climate-smart agricultural technology and the subsequent adoption of sustainable agricultural practices;

  • Enforce agro-environmental legislation and regulations to strengthen natural resource management and, in particular, to hold the red line of cultivating land for sustainable food production.

• Improve the social protection system. Major efforts should be made to enhance the current social protection system in rural areas and less developed regions.

• Strengthen international cooperation to improve food security in China, as well as in the world.

  • Diversify agricultural imports from various countries and enhance trade along the Belt and Road countries;

  • Enhance partnership with CGIAR to use science to transform Chinese and global food systems for achieving both human and planetary health;

  • Participate in global governance around the agricultural and food trade;

  • Increase investment in and share the development experience and agricultural technologies with other developing countries through South-South cooperation.