After spending the past decade and more than $200 billion acquiring mines and oilfields from Australia to Argentina, China's attention is turning to food.

The world's most populous nation is confronting a harsh reality: For every additional bushel of wheat or pound of beef the world produces, China will need almost half of that to keep its citizens fed.

In acknowledgment that it can't produce enough grain and meat domestically, mainland Chinese and Hong Kong-listed firms spent $12.3 billion abroad on takeovers and investments in food, drink or agriculture last year, the most in at least a decade, data compiled by Bloomberg show.