Multidimensional deconstruction and workable solutions for addressing China's food security issues: From the perspective of sustainable diets

Abstract

Ensuring China’s food security is crucial for global sustainable development. Here, we analyzed the evolution of grain structure and cultivated land required for Chinese dietary structure, assessed the level of food self-sufficiency in China based on the comparison of the existing cultivated land and the cultivated land required for food, and predicted China's future food self-sufficiency rate across various scenarios. The results showed that China has achieved "basic self-sufficiency in grain and absolute security in rations". The supply structure has evolved from relying solely on rations to a combination of rations and feed grains. The evolution of Chinese diet from 1987 to 2021 has led to the demand for feed grains reaching twice that of rations. The cultivated land needed to support Chinese diet expanded from 99.44Mha to 159.66Mha, surpassing the current cultivated land in China. If current trends continue, China’s cultivated land will not be sufficient to feed Chinese by 2035. Fortunately, we estimated that adjusting the Chinese dietary structure to sustainable diets that are culturally acceptable and affordable could enable China to achieve food self-sufficiency without imports by 2035. Therefore, we argue that China's food security issue primarily stems from an imbalance between supply and demand, driven by a misalignment between production strategies and consumption patterns. Moving forward, we advocate the efforts should be made to address food security issues through protection of cultivated land, proper imports and promotion of sustainable diets, holding the rice bowl of the Chinese people in their own hands firmly, which is a great contribution to the world.