Society

UN hails China's food policies

By Qin Jize and He Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-12-24 08:11

BEIJING - China has made "remarkable progress" in growing sufficient food to feed its population, while making great contribution to the world's poverty eradication, a UN official said on Thursday.

The nation shifted from a food aid recipient to an international food donor in 2005, a sign of its "significant success" in coordinating and helping small-scale farmers boost productivity, said Olivier De Schutter, the UN Human Rights Council's Special Rapporteur on the right to food.

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During his nine-day stay, De Schutter met with governmental officials of various ministries, field trips to East China's Shandong province and interactions with professionals and NGOs.

"The most impressive endeavor is that China has been able to feed itself within a few decades -- and that is one fifth of the world population," De Schutter said.

He noted that China has achieved a grain self-sufficiency rate of at least 95 percent, and that its grain reserves are estimated to be more than the double the 17 percent safety level recommended by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

These achievements have not come easy, De Schutter said, due to the fact China's 1.3 billion population accounts for only 8.5 percent of the world's arable land and 6.5 percent of water reserves.

But the remarkable progress of agricultural production by 200 million small-scale farmers with an average holding of 0.65 hectares has cast light to the world that small-scale farming works, he said.

And none of these efforts could be possible without corresponding economic reforms such as the introduction of the Household Contract System in Agriculture since 1978, De Schutter said, which has infused a strong impetus to farmers' motivation.

Commenting on skyrocketing food prices in recent years, De Schutter believes international speculation factors were far from the only cause of the problem - but more a reflection of "the fragility of the agricultural system".

Emerging problems such as climate change and natural disasters have posed new threats to the food system, reshaping its structure into one that is prone to volatility and vulnerability.

But by applying grain reserves, De Schutter noted, China has overhauled the operation that has made its food system less dependent of the global market, which is another valuable lesson that the world can learn from.

China's current food reserves are equivalent to 40 percent of its annual food consumption, which are shared among the central government, local governments and the enterprises.

According to De Schutter, this serves as an efficient tool to stabilize prices and limit volatility in the face of external factors.

"If the prices are too low for farmers to make a decent income, the state can buy and build up the reserves. But when the prices are too high, they release the stocks to diminish the pressure," De Schutter said.