Illustration: Chen Xia/Global Times

The seventh session of the 14th National People’s Congress Standing Committee on Friday passed the Food Security Law. The new legislation will take effect on June 1, 2024.

At a time when the global food supply chain has been facing serious challenges, the law, which is aimed at ensuring the supply of grain and related products, is of great and far-reaching significance to improving national food security, strengthening risk prevention and emergency management, as well as laying the foundation of the Chinese economic resilience.

Attaching growing importance to food security in recent years, China has adhered to the principle of self-sufficiency based on domestic grain production, guaranteed production capacity, moderate food imports and technological support. This is because for a country that has over 1.4 billion people, food security is among the country's most fundamental interests, which is not only crucial to economic development and social stability, but is also an important basis for national security.

It is precisely because food security has always been regarded as a national top priority that China’s overall situation concerning food supply has remained stable, with continuous grain harvest, sufficient food stock and abundant market supply. For instance, China's grain output rose 1.3 percent year-on-year to a record high of 695.41 million tons in 2023, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed. This is the ninth consecutive year for China to register a grain harvest of over 650 million tons.

China’s ability to feed one-fifth of the world’s population with only nine percent of the world's arable land is not only a solid foundation for the Chinese economy to withstand challenges and difficulties, but also a major contribution to world economic development.

Nevertheless, China's grain supply and demand is still characterized by a "tight balance." And with a growing grain demand, China also faces multifaceted challenges, including limited and low-quality arable land, increasing difficulty in securing stable and higher grain output, extreme weather, and uncertainties in global food supply market.

In particular, since the Russia-Ukraine conflict, extreme weather, and other factors have disrupted the global food supply chain and international cooperation mechanism concerning food supply, food insecurity and malnutrition in the world are on the rise. According to the Global Report on Food Crises issued by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), around 258 million people in 58 countries and territories faced acute food insecurity at crisis or worse levels in 2022, up from 193 million people in 53 countries and territories in 2021. This is the highest number in the seven-year history of the report. Meanwhile, the severity of acute food insecurity increased to 22.7 percent, from 21.3 percent in 2021, underscoring a deteriorating trend in global acute food insecurity.

It is against this backdrop that China must continue to enhance its ability to ensure food security and deal with the uncertainties of the external environment by stabilizing and securing domestic grain supplies.

In addition to recognizing the importance of protecting arable land, it is also essential for China to pay attention to the detailed procedures throughout the food supply chains for ensuring food security. For instance, reducing grain loss and waste is an important way to ensure food security. According to the FAO, global loss of food from production to retail accounts for about 14 percent of the world’s food production every year. This is also why the food security law contains a chapter dedicated to food conservation, laying down requirements for reducing food waste throughout various processes, ranging from grain production to consumption. 

Additionally, China has already become the world’s largest importer of soybeans and corn, and one of the largest markets for other agricultural commodities. How we build a safe and stable food trade network to avert potential risks is also an important aspect concerning our food security.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn