The Road to Food Self-sufficiency.docVIP

The Road to Food Self-sufficiency 　　CHINAS grain production ac-counts for a fourth of theworlds total output,and itsDoulation for a fifth, saidChen Xiwen,deputy head of the CentralRural Work Leading Group,when dis-cussing how China succeeds at self-suffi-ciency with respect to basic agriculturalproducts.China is a responsible countrythat is making significant contributionsto global food security. 　　Food has always been an issue of toppriority in China.In the last 11 years,the rate of self-sufficiency has hoveredaround 95 percent.In 2010,after goodharvests for seven years in a row,Chinasgrain output reached a record 540 mil-lion tons and grain reserves swelled tonearly 2o0 million tons. 　　According to the Food and Agricultur-al Organization (FAO) and World HealthOrganization (WHO),the subsistencelevel standard refers to 0.36 ton of grainper capita in a year.Since 1983,Chinahas achieved per capita levels plus or mi-nus 10 percent of 0.38 ton,which meanswith a population of 1.3 billion,the na-tion produces 50o million tons of grain,twice the world grain trade volume. 　　 　　Grain Self-sufficiency 　　 　　　China has achieved self-sufficiency ingrains,including wheat,rice and maize,and according to Chen,China is work-ing toward the goal of increasing itsproduction capacity by 50 million tons.The 12th Five-year Plan sets an annualoutput target of 54o million tons.Grainproduction in fact has surpassed this,butdue to climate and other elements outputcannot be considered stable. 　　Northeast China is recognized world-wide as a high-quality soybean produc-tion area.However,the country hasreduced acreage devoted to soybean inorder to guarantee grain production.Soybeans are valued as an oil crop andbean dregs as good animal feed.Chinesepeople consume about 25 million tonsof the vegetable oil every year.Customsstatistics show that China imported 54.8million tons of soybeans in 2010,whichis 60 percent of the world total trade vol-ume in soy and 75 percent of the domes-tic d