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"How about the prices of rice in your city?" This has been a
theme of interest among local netizens when they converse in cyber
forums, as price of rice, one of the principal stable food for the
people in China, has been somewhat on rise since last year.
It reminds some Chinese scholars and government officials of a
warning some 10 years ago by an American scholar named Lester
Brown, who voiced his doubts about China's capability of feeding
its own vast population.
Premier Wen Jiabao said in his government work report to the
current parliament session last Friday that the Chinese government
will exert itself for the protection of cropland acreage, halt the
illegal use of farmland, and urge farmers to produce more grains,
in an effort to secure the country's grain production.
Some famous Chinese researchers and people attending the current
second sessions of the 10th National People's Congress (NPC) and
the National Committee of the 10th Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conference (CPPCC) have responded to Premier Wen's
remarks by calling for instituting a grain emergency mechanism,
improving macro-control on grain production, and rectifying and
improving grain circulation on domestic markets.
Yuan Longping, one of the prestigious Chinese agronomists famed
for his success in breeding hybrid paddy and a member of the CPPCC
National Committee, set China's alert line at the annual grain
output of 485 million tons, but the figure reached merely 430
million tons last year.
Li Siheng, an established researcher with the State Cereals
Administration, warned that China's grain supply might fall short
strategically owing to years of lower yields, reduced state grain
reserves and less grain stored by individual farmers. The country's
grain output has been hovering around 450 million tons for the past
four consecutive years, he recalled.
The 2003 was taken as a turning point for China's grain
security, as per-capita grain output in the year was reduced to
below the 350 kilogram-mark, the lowest per-capita yearly average
for the past decade.
In China, grain supply had been insufficient in the 1980s, when
Chinese farmers were encouraged by their government to increase
grain production through market-oriented reforms. In 1998, the
country's grain output topped a record high of over 500 million
tons. The government has announced proudly that China, with the
total national acreage of its cropland constituting only seven
percent of the world's total, is capable of feeding the world's
largest population, or 22 percent of the world's total.
The related saturated grain supply resulted in a drop in grain
prices, which dampened to grain farmers' enthusiasm and local
governments in some areas downsized the farmland acreage to reduce
grain output to some extent. Meanwhile, with the expansion of
extensive infrastructure construction and urban development and the
rise of industrial and high-tech parks, grain crop acreage
decreased by a big margin in the country.
Nevertheless, it is far from a grain crisis, noted Han Jun, an
official of the Development Research Center under the State
Council, who said the grain supply had maintained a balance between
supply and demand. China had witnessed bumper grain harvests from
1995 to 1998, leaving a combined reserve of as high as 500 million
tons, equal to an average annual output in grain stocks at present.
It has thus laid a solid basis for the country' s grain security,
he noted.
Zhang Baowen, vice minister of agriculture, said the Chinese
government is working very hard to increase the country's grain
output to 460 million tons, with an increase of 60 kilograms per
hectare for 2005, and a range of preferential policies will be
issued to encourage grain growers.
Currently, the government departments concerned are working on
the amendments of the relevant laws and regulations on land use, in
a bid to protect cultivated land well and strictly, said Chen
Xiwen, deputy director of the Office of the Leading Group on
Financial Affairs of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central
Committee.
Meanwhile, the NPC Standing Committee has begun revising the Law
on Land Management.
(China Daily March 8, 2004)
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