Understanding China’s Agricultural Track Record and Food Security

Jane Du

Chapter Chapter 5 in Farmland, Farming and Food in the National Economy of China, 1947 – 2020, 2024, pp 125-138 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract 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.

Keywords: Food (in)security; Dietary transition; Income transition; Semi-vegetarian diet; Animal protein-based diet; International commodity market; Fodder grain; Import dependence; Middle-income countries; Green Revolution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palscp:978-3-031-70027-9_5

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9783031700279

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-70027-9_5

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Studies in Economic History from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().