How serious is the grain problem in China

Introduction: affected by the national and even world food harvest in 2004, food prices began to fall after the national day But the national development and Reform Commission predicts that there will still be a grain gap of 50 billion jin in 2004 In the autumn of 2004, China's grain harvest ushered in a big harvest, and the driving force of grain price rise sharply decreased According to the national development and Reform Commission, in addition to the factor of grain harvest, the current price comparison between purchase and sale is relatively reasonable In the four years from 1999 to 2003, the ratio between the purchase price of raw grain and the retail price of finished grain market was roughly between 1:1.8 and 1:2.1 At present, the purchase and sale price ratio of all kinds of grain is in the above price range Because the retail price and purchase price of grain market keep the same changing trend, the reasonable price comparison between purchase and sale will restrict the increase of grain price Another factor that affects the price is the international market price According to the report of the Overseas Agricultural Bureau of the U.S Department of agriculture, in 2004, due to the return to normal level of grain per unit area in the main international food producing areas, the total grain output of the EU, Ukraine, Russia, China and India is expected to increase by 86 million tons compared with the same period last year, and the global grain output is expected to be 1.942 billion tons, an increase of 105.5 million tons (5.7%) compared with that in 2003 "At present, the price of domestic food is 5 to 10 cents higher than that of international food Restricted by the international market, there is no room for the price of food to continue to rise Therefore, the price of meat, poultry, eggs and milk based on food will also tend to be stable." Zhao Xiaoping, director of the price department of the national development and Reform Commission, said However, the fall in food prices does not mean that the balance of production and demand has been achieved throughout the year According to the price detection center of the national development and Reform Commission, even if the grain output this year reaches the target of 910 billion jin, there will still be a gap of about 50 billion jin of grain in 2004 according to the grain demand of about 960 billion jin How to solve the food shortage of 50 billion jin? China's food security is once again of concern Academia calls for attention to food security At the end of November 2003, China's food prices rose Who will feed China? 》Brown, the author of the paper, interviewed some non-governmental environmental protection organizations in China He said that the sudden rise in China's food prices may be a precursor to the world food crisis, which is caused by the global warming and the lack of water resources in the world's major grain producing countries In 1994, brown published "who will feed China? 》This paper puts forward the so-called "food crisis theory" of China, which has attracted wide attention In his alarmist article, Brown said: from 1990 to 2030, China's total grain demand continued to rise, while its output was decreasing There will be a gap of 207 million tons to 369 million tons, which is equivalent to 1-2 times of the global total export of 200 million tons of grain Such a large-scale purchase of grain is bound to cause a substantial increase in the world's grain price, resulting in the third world's low-income countries China's food crisis has an impact on the world through international trade, resulting in a global ecological crisis, and then causing world economic collapse and political turmoil, destroying the natural ecosystem on which human beings depend for survival and endangering the survival rights of future generations "Grain production has been reduced for several years in a row, the state reserves and stocks have been reduced, and the farmers' grain reserves have been reduced Coupled with the excessive expansion of grain consumption demand, grain will turn from structural shortage to strategic shortage, which has once again sounded an alarm for China's food security problem." Li Siheng, a researcher with the State Food Administration, thinks At the 2004 CPPCC National Committee meeting, Yuan Longping, the father of hybrid rice, called for attention to China's food security and put forward four suggestions: to adhere to the food security strategy of self-reliance; to give full play to the role of science and technology in food security; to ensure a certain grain planting area; to protect and improve farmers' enthusiasm for grain production There is no need to worry about food security Economists are much more optimistic than scientists "Just after the liberation in 1949, 450 million people in the country were not enough to eat; now, we can solve the problem of 1.3 billion people eating." When it comes to food security, Mao Yushi, an economist and President of Beijing Tianze Economic Research Institute, is very excited, "what causes fear? It's those who specialize in food In my opinion, there is no food crisis in China! " So, will the decrease of sown area and total grain yield bring crisis? According to the natural resources comprehensive investigation committee of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, this does not mean that China cannot support 1.3 billion people: "according to the current agricultural level, the maximum possible production capacity of China's grain is 830 million tons, and the population's bearing capacity is 1.66 billion based on the per capita consumption level of 500 kg." Nor is the food gap a problem Mei Fangquan, agricultural documentation and information center of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, estimated that by 2030, China's total grain demand will probably reach about 702 million tons At that time, China's total grain output will reach 690 million tons, and the gap is not very large In terms of food reserves, the minimum amount of internationally accepted food security reserves is the national food consumption in three months According to the food and Agriculture Organization of the world, grain stocks must reach 17% - 18% of consumption, of which turnover reserves account for 12% and reserve reserves account for 5% - 6% According to China's specific national conditions, it is more appropriate to have grain stocks of about 125 million tons, and the five-month safe ration is 162.5 million tons It is understood that at the end of 2003, China's state-owned grain inventory reached 180 million tons Farmers save 506kg of grain per capita and 389 million tons of grain in China A total of 569 million tons of grain will be stored by the state treasury and farmers If the annual consumption of grain is 490 million tons, the level of grain inventory at the end of 2003 exceeds the consumption, the level of grain security in recent years is still relatively good "The problem of food security is not as big as some people think." Lu Feng, an economist at the China Economic Research Center of Peking University, believes that "the solution to food security is to let the market play a role." "Why is there no crisis in food? First of all, and most importantly, as long as the market is there, we will not worry about not being able to buy food Secondly, it has been proved that the global food problem is not a lack of supply, but a surplus of production It's expected to be the same in the future " Mao Yushi also agreed with Lu Feng Mr Mao even said in more extreme terms: as long as the store is open, you can buy food anytime and anywhere As long as people have money, they can always buy what they want at a reasonable price Individual food security depends on the market, so does national food security In the past half century, although the population has doubled and half, the per capita consumption has increased by 17%, the number of people who grow food has decreased by about two-thirds, while the price of food has decreased by half compared with other commodities Mao Yushi stressed that the total amount of grain produced every year in the world is about 2 billion tons, which can be used by 6 billion people The annual volume of international grain trade is 240 million tons If China imports 20 million tons, less than one tenth of the world trade volume, it will not shake the international grain market at all The United States alone exports 80 million tons of grain every year Data: China's cold world sneezes China's grain production has been declining since it set a record in 1998, which makes traders of grain futures confident in the prospect of selling grain to the world's most populous country But as in many areas of the Chinese economy, whether this Chinese dream - the prospect of making huge profits from the huge demand for food - will become a reality is far from clear Most traders believe that over time, China will buy at least some kinds of grain, especially wheat, from the international market But predicting long-term demand is a big challenge for industry experts "We believe that this is the beginning of a medium - and long-term import program," said David Johnson, manager of the Australian wheat authority in Melbourne "The real question is the quantity involved and how that will affect prices It's a multi million dollar issue " China's wheat production has been declining year by year since 1997 According to the U.S Department of agriculture, China's wheat production in 2003-04 was 86 million tons, 30 million tons less than the consumption of 104.5 million tons According to the production forecast given by the production area, the production of 2004-05 sales year will be further reduced Wheat accounts for about 20% of China's grain production Although the gap between production and consumption is widening, wheat imports stabilized at around 1 million tons per year between 1997 and 2003, as the government used a large amount of wheat reserves accumulated in the mid-1990s This policy has now changed, and China is expected to import 8.5 million tons of wheat this year, mainly from the United States, Canada, Australia and France Analysts in the wheat market, such as Johnson, had predicted that China would soon become a big importer But many industry experts now believe they underestimate the size of China's wheat reserves (a state secret) "A lot of people forget about reserves and wait for the expected demand to come true." Johnson said Earlier this year, it was clear that China would be a big buyer in the international market for the first time in 10 years China's re emergence as an importer coincides with the world's second highest wheat production in history.