September 9, 2004

China's Grains Safety Hinges On Regulating Feed Grains Consumption
 

An eFeedLink Exclusive Report
 

Feed grains, not food grains, will impose the most pressure on China's grain safety in the future. This was the view of experts and also the focus of the Second International Symposium of the 6th Chinese Grassland Society held in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia recently.

Experts pointed out that the supply-demand equilibrium of grains in China is now gradually moving away from the traditional status quo. According to official statistics, the average per capita grain consumption in Chinese rural regions was 233 kg, while that of urban dwellers fell from 160 kg in 1978 to 78 kg in 2002. In other words, the amount of grains consumed by a whole rural village is about comparable to that of three urban cities.

China's grain consumption did not seen an increase over the last twenty years; the fall in grain consumption has been correspondingly accompanied by a rise in the production of meat, eggs and dairy products. The slight difference between the increase in the consumption of animal products and the fall in grain consumption signifies a shift in the food structure in China.

The average Chinese consumed 394 kg of grains in 1984, bringing the total grain consumption in the year to 400 million tons. Of the 400 million tons, about 120 million tons were used in animal feed and 280 million tons in direct human consumption. Following twenty years of development, China's grain consumption has risen by about 100 million tons. China's demand for grains now totaled nearly 506 million tons a year, of which 300 million tons are for human consumption, and more than 200 million tons for animal feed production.

By 2020, China's population is expected to reach 1.6 billion. With the spread of urbanization over the next 15 years, China's rural population will continue to fall, along with an increase in its urban population. This increase, in turn, will help to sufficiently moderate the drop in urban grain consumption. As such, human consumption of grains is not likely to rise, and as the food structure in China is gradually undergoing changes, the use of grains for animal feed production will likely to increase to about 400 million tons by 2020.

The growing pressure of feed grains on China's grain safety is a result of China's long-term emphasis on "grains as food for both man and hogs". China has chosen to focus on hog farming, and has now become the world's leading hog producer with 460 million live hogs on its farms.

Feed grains account for 35% of the overall grain production in China, or more than 37.33 million hectares of the cultivated cropland. To alleviate the pressure from feed grains, experts suggested graminivorous livestock should be raised in bigger quantity in future to substitute the grain-fed livestock. This implementation of grassland agricultural structure will help to facilitate China's continuous shift into the modern agricultural system.