My first article on China (30 years ago?) addressed the question of whether China could produce enough food to feed its large population. The fields I visited were very poor and highly contaminated with industrial pollution. I was shocked by the primitive wood water wheel pump, a noria ناعورة, like pictured on Pharaonic tombs, and the state of the crops. In Yunnan, I saw people tending one miserable plant of corn in the depression of a stone and saw the use of black industrial waste as fertilizer. I took pictures and told the magistrates I met, like the vice major of Tientsin. People told me that the local rice was bitter and they sold it and consumed rice from other provinces.
Reading today's paper, I see that the issue remained with China's fast development, and China apparently had given up on the quest for self-sufficiency. Their strategy is the importation of foodstuffs on a massive scale.
"Lin said the Chinese leadership’s emphasis on diversifying food sources, along with consumer demand for diverse and upgraded diets, has also contributed to increased imports.
Under President Xi Jinping’s “all-encompassing approach to food” strategy, the State Council, China’s cabinet, in September rolled out a road map to broaden food production beyond traditional farmlands and crops, aiming to establish a diversified food-supply system by 2027 to increase self-reliance."
P.S.: I am not criticizing Chinese authorities, they are trying hard and are sincere. China is very large but has little arable land. The solution may be privatizing the land and allowing big commercial farms to "devore" the small ones. Politically it is totally unfeasible.
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