April 17, 2009

With limited farming resources but a large and richer population, China may soon struggle with food security and its self-sufficiency may also be at risk.

 

China is mostly self-sufficient in key crops such as rice, wheat and corn. But its agricultural trade balance has moved from the small surplus of the 1990s to a large deficit as it has become the world's largest soy importer, only partially offset by exports of other farm products.

 

Even as China weathered through last year's food crisis better than others, the country still has to face the headache of feeding its 1.3 billion people with limited fertile land, scarce water and the threat of climate change.

 

Given China's size, the problems if left unaddressed, may severely affect world agricultural markets as the country will have to import large amounts of food products, tightening supplies and driving up prices.

 

Fan Shenggen, an expert at the Washington-based International Institute for Food Policy Research and professor at Nanjing Agricultural University, said China had learnt to pay more attention to food security following the food crisis that emerged in 2007.

 

China aims to remain self-sufficient in wheat, corn and rice until at least 2020, when it hopes to produce 540 million tonnes of grains per year, up from last year's 470 million tonnes. To achieve that goal, China has increased its agricultural budget by 27 percent in 2007, another 38 percent last year and a further 20 percent this year, boosting spending on agricultural research, infrastructure and farmers' subsidies. 

 

However, experts said in the short-term, water scarcity, lack of fertile land and slowing agricultural productivity growth will be China's obstacles.

 

China has acute water shortages in its breadbasket north, and environmental activist Ma Jun said water shortages and temperature increases in North China have already damaged corn and what production.

 

In recent decades, Chinese farmers have made extensive use of groundwater and millions of wells have been drilled. But overuse has led to the water table falling sharply and water pollution caused by factories has becoming a pressing problem.

 

The expansion of industries and cities has also taken away fertile land that could have been used for farming, forcing the government to impose restrictions on farmland development.

 

Despite the challenges, Fan remains optimistic that there will be returns from China's large investment in agriculture. He cited previous successes such as the development of "super rice", which increased production per hectare sharply compared with conventional rice using the same amount of water.

 

Other experts are less optimistic though, saying past successes do not guarantee that China will be able to overcome present challenges.