As the most populous country in the world, China has successfully delivered millions of people from hunger and is helping other countries achieve food security.<\/p>\n
In a latest move to this end, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced on Wednesday [15 Oct 2014] that China will donate 50 million U.S. dollars to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in the coming five years.<\/p>\n
On the eve of World Food Day, Li made the remarks in Rome in a speech at the headquarters of the FAO, the first intergovernmental organization the premier has visited among all UN agencies since he took office.<\/p>\n
As the biggest developing country, China will always be an active force in maintaining food security and ready to work with other countries to create a hunger-free and poverty-free world with sustained development, said Li.<\/p>\n
“I trust this visit will mark and unveil a new chapter for the FAO and China collaboration in the noble fight against hunger at national, regional and global levels,” said Percy Misika, the FAO’s representative in China.<\/p>\n
ACHIEVEMENTS AT HOME<\/strong><\/p>\n Chinese people, including President Xi Jinping and the premier himself, suffered a long period of undernourishment several decades ago.<\/p>\n Sweeping rural reform ended communal farming in 1978 and the “household contract responsibility system” came in its place.<\/p>\n Urban land is owned by the state and rural land is under collective ownership. Under the system, rights to the majority of collectively-owned farmland were split and allocated to farmers.<\/p>\n Grain production has picked up since then.<\/p>\n China saw a bumper harvest for the 10th consecutive year in 2013 and summer grain output hit a record high of 136.6 million tonnes in 2014.<\/p>\n According to FAO data, grain production in China has increased by 1.04 tonnes per hectare in the past decade.<\/p>\n The country has used 9 percent of global arable land and 6.5 percent of fresh water resources to produce one-fourth of the world’s grain and fed nearly one-fifth of the world’s population.<\/p>\n In his speech, the premier attributed the vitality in Chinese agriculture in the past three decades to the reform and opening-up policy, technology innovation and favorable policies.<\/p>\n “The Chinese government attaches great significance to agriculture and we keep working to achieve self-sufficiency in food,” said Li.<\/p>\n GLOBAL CONTRIBUTION<\/strong><\/p>\n From 1990-92 to 2012-14, 209 million people have been lifted from chronic undernourishment globally, according to the FAO.<\/p>\n “China alone has reduced the number of undernourished people by 138 million in this period, a massive and unmatched contribution to global food security, with the rest of the world contributing a mere 71 million reduction,” said Misika.<\/p>\n Cheng Guoqiang, a researcher with the Development Research Center under China’s State Council, said the achievements in China mean a great contribution to the global mission of hunger and poverty reduction.<\/p>\n In addition, China’s bumper harvests and abundant stockpiles are key factors helping drive down international cereal prices and are conducive to the stability of the international food market, according to Misika.<\/p>\n China is willing to share agricultural technologies, equipment and ideas behind developing agriculture with all other countries, said the premier.<\/p>\n “China is a major contributor rather than being a threat to global food security,” stressed Misika.<\/p>\n BUMPY ROAD AHEAD<\/strong><\/p>\n China has a population of 1.3 billion people and the number is on the rise. The FAO estimates that China’s demand for food will be 700 million tonnes by 2020.<\/p>\n Although the country has set a red line that its cultivated land area should not fall below 120 million hectares, pressure on arable land protection is still great, mainly due to rapid urbanization.<\/p>\n In Misika’s view, the high level of food waste, especially table food waste, could pose a threat to China’s sustained food security if not addressed soon.<\/p>\n The environmental sustainability of the food production and consumption system is another challenge to the food security of future generations, warned the FAO representative.<\/p>\n Cheng said, most seriously, farmers’ willingness to grow crops is rapidly waning as returns from the land are much smaller than working in cities.<\/p>\n In a situation far removed from the land split of 1978, China is now encouraging a consolidation of land in the hope of boosting economies of scale and incentivizing farmers.<\/p>\n To that end, China’s central authorities have vowed to support the transfer and mortgage of land-use rights in order to faciliate large-scale farming.<\/p>\n As a result, China now has about 870,000 “family farms,” each with an average area of 13 hectares. More than one million farming cooperatives have been established across the country.<\/p>\n “These organizations are an important force pushing ahead China’s agricultural modernization,” said Li.<\/p>\n Cheng suggested that China should put more effort into agricultural technology, which is key to improve productivity, since the arable land is quite limited.<\/p>\n A string of pro-agriculture policies are already in place, including farmer training, minimum grain purchase prices and protection of cultivated land area.<\/p>\n “These measures put China in a good position to ensuring food security for its people,” said Misika.<\/p>\n