Understanding China’s Agricultural Track Record and Food Security

This chapter provides a retrospective summary of the key issues in China’s agriculture and food security as discussed in this work. In recent years, several countries have reached the upper-middle-income category, possessing purchasing power comparable to that of China. With these latecomers playing an increasingly significant role in the international food market, potential supply and demand imbalances could pose looming food insecurity risks for both China and the global community. Domestically, the issue of rural welfare has diminished as a concern for maintaining farmer’s incentives to produce sufficient grain for food self-sufficiency, following the government’s shift towards sourcing food supplies from the international commodity market. Despite this, the disparity in income between urban and rural Chinese has persisted. While the Chinese government has announced its aim to achieve “common prosperity,” the reality remains starkly different. The aftermath of the post-1979 food economy reforms has been a widened rural-urban income gap, with rural per capita income significantly lower than that in urban areas. Thus, the food sector continues to be a significant yet challenging aspect of the Chinese economy.