Food security is a matter of great concern to the nation, and ensuring adequate food supply to over 1.4 billion Chinese people has always been the government’s top priority. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China over 70 years ago, the development of grain production capacity has always been the focus of the state’s efforts in agriculture and rural areas. On 9 percent of the world’s arable land, China produces nearly a quarter of the world’s grain and feeds nearly a fifth of the population on Earth, having successfully achieved basic self-sufficiency in grain through its own efforts and embarked on its own path to achieving food security with Chinese characteristics. ¹ As we enter a new stage of development, embark on a new journey of building China into a modern socialist country, and base ourselves on the overall strategic situation of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and profound changes in the world unseen in a century, the primary task of the rural revitalization strategy and of our efforts to build an agricultural powerhouse is to ensure the country’s food security, which is the bedrock of stability for the economy, society, and the overall situation in the course of China’s modernization. There are two facts that we cannot ignore, however. First, as resource and environmental constraints on China’s agriculture tighten and as local governments’ focus on grain production and farmers’ motivation to grow grain weaken, we face multiple grave challenges in maintaining and increasing grain output.² Second, postharvest grain losses and food waste are very common and considerable, further straining grain production and supply, agricultural resources, and the environment.³ Therefore, there is a pressing need to systematically plan the entire production chain from grain production, distribution, and processing to consumption and to make simultaneous efforts to increase grain output and reduce losses, so as to comprehensively consolidate the foundation of—and to firmly hold the initiative in—food security. These are major practical issues that urgently need to be studied.

The development of grain production is fundamental to the country’s food security and has always attracted the attention of all sectors of society. As the 1996 white paper The Grain Issue in China has explicitly stated, “The basic principle for solving the problem of grain supply and demand in China is to rely on domestic resources and basically achieve self-sufficiency in grain. China endeavors to increase its grain production so that its self-sufficiency rate of grain under normal conditions will be above 95 percent.”⁴ Over the past few decades, China has systematically fostered the development of domestic grain production by protecting arable land resources, increasing agricultural input, stepping up the construction of irrigation projects, and upgrading equipment. Scholars have made extensive and in-depth studies on issues related to China’s grain production, especially farmland protection and nongrain use of farmland,⁵,⁶  the construction of high-standard farmland and agricultural infrastructure,⁷,⁸ labor migration and agricultural mechanization,⁹,¹⁰  the development of new types of business entities, ¹¹ rural land transfer ¹²,¹³  and commercial services for agriculture,¹⁴,¹⁵  and how minimum purchase prices for grain and agricultural subsidy policies and reforms¹⁶,¹⁷  have affected the planting areas or yields of grain crops. On the basis of their research, they have offered policy suggestions for improving factors of production and optimizing allocation, for improving the conditions of grain production and strengthening the foundation of production capacity, and for improving the support and protection system.

Saving food and reducing losses and waste are effective means both to alleviate the pressure on agricultural resources and the environment and to help balance food supply and demand. A time-honored tradition, saving food has been practiced for thousands of years. In the 1990s, the Chinese government already pointed out that cutting down on grain losses has the potential to help China achieve basic self-sufficiency in grain through its own efforts: “If losses at all stages are reduced to within a reasonable range, it will be possible to save at least 20 million tons of grain every year.”⁴ Although concrete measures were taken to reduce grain losses, in reality, postharvest grain loss and food waste remain severe. In particular, with incomes having increased significantly, the problem of food waste has become particularly prominent. Excessive losses and waste have strained the balance between China’s food supply and demand along with its agricultural resources and the environment. Since the 18th Party Congress, saving food and reducing the large amount of waste in food production, distribution, processing, and consumption has been given high priority. The Anti–Food Waste Law and the Anti–Food Waste Work Plan were promulgated in 2021, providing basic guidelines for making further progress in conserving food, reducing losses, and curbing restaurant food waste. For three years from 2021 to 2023, the No. 1 central documents explicitly stated that it is necessary to wage a thorough campaign to save food and systematically reduce grain losses throughout production, distribution, processing, storage, and consumption. Although scholars have long paid attention to such issues, it is only in the past 5 to 10 years that we have begun to see systematic studies, which estimate losses and waste both at specific stages—food production,¹⁸ storage,¹⁹ distribution,²⁰ consumption²¹,²²—and across the whole production chain²³ before formulating systems and strategies for tackling them.

The 2022 Central Rural Work Conference noted that “to ensure food security, efforts must be made to both increase production and reduce losses,”²⁴ thus treating both aspects as equally important to safeguarding food security, informed by a holistic view of the grain production chain and supply chain. This represents a major move and an effective way to ensure China’s food security at the new stage of development. Adhering to the call for simultaneous efforts at increasing production and reducing losses, therefore, this article systemically analyzes the realities and challenges facing efforts on these two fronts in grain production and consumption, looking at issues such as agricultural resources and environment, local governments’ motivation to focus on grain production and producers’ motivation to grow grain, losses in the grain production and supply chains, and food waste. It then offers targeted policy recommendations for combined efforts both to maintain and increase grain production and to save food and curb losses, to support policymaking on building a more advanced, efficient, and sustainable system for ensuring China’s food security and on improving the coordinated governance of food security in the whole production chain.

1 Maintaining and increasing China’s grain production in the new stage of development: Realities and challenges

Comprehensive building of production capacity, scientific and technological progress, and institutional reforms have provided an inexhaustible driving force for China’s grain production. China’s grain output rapidly jumped from 113 million tons in 1949 to 305 million tons in 1978 and to 687 million tons in 2022, and it has held steady at more than 650 million tons for eight consecutive years (Figure 1), which has laid a solid foundation for China’s economic development, social stability, and national security. In the new stage of development—and in the face of the complex and ever-changing domestic and international environments amid changes unseen in a century—maintaining and increasing domestic grain production is fundamental to securing China’s rice bowl and safeguarding food security. China is currently facing, and will continue to face, more and more difficulties in maintaining and increasing grain output, with increasingly severe challenges mainly found in the following areas.

1.1  Tightening resource and environmental constraints on agriculture

The scarcity of farmland resources is steadily increasing, with a decline both in the quantity and in the quality of arable land. Industrialization and urbanization have encroached on arable land, and afforestation efforts and the development of ecological civilization have led to the conversion of farmland into forests, grassland, and wetland, with illegal uses further adding to the continuous decrease in the amount of arable land. According to data from the second and third national land surveys, China’s total arable land fell from 135 million hm² (2.031 billion mu) in 2009 to 128 million hm² (1.918 billion mu) in 2019—down by 7.52 million hm² (113 million mu) in 10 years—and per capita arable land dropped from 0.101 hm² (1.52 mu) to 0.091 hm² (1.36 mu). This trend will remain difficult to reverse for a long time to come. Currently, repeated efforts have failed to stop the illegal use of arable land on the pretexts of building a beautiful and harmonious countryside that is livable and business-friendly, ecological conservation and improvement in the rural living conditions, structural adjustment in agriculture, and the integrated development of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries. Some local governments have not fully implemented the policy of compensating for farmland diverted to other uses, with issues such as more diversion than compensation and inadequate compensation.

Figure 1 China’s increasing grain output and yield

1. The overall quality of China’s cultivated land is not high as it comprises mostly medium- and low-yield fields. According to the 2019 Report on the National Arable Land Quality Grade Situation, the average grade of China’s arable land is 4.76 (equivalent to medium quality); over two-thirds of the country’s arable land is medium and low-yield fields, and 22 percent consists of land of grades 7 to 10, which has relatively poor basic soil fertility and faces pronounced obstacles to production. As data from the third national land survey show, rain-irrigated land accounts for 50.3 percent of China’s arable land, while paddy land accounts for only 24.6 percent; land with a slope of more than 6 degrees makes up 22.8 percent, and 9.4 percent has a slope of more than 15 degrees; land in annual single-cropping areas constitutes 47.9 percent. The quality, structure, and regional distribution of arable land are therefore not conducive to maintaining and increasing domestic grain production.

2. The desertification, acidification, salinization, and degradation of arable land have worsened. Farmland acidification in the south, salinization in the north, and the degradation of black soil in the northeast are becoming prominent problems, involving an area of 44 million hm² (about 660 million mu), or over a third of China’s arable land.² Lying in the heart of the black soil regions in the northeast, Heilongjiang and Jilin, despite growing only one crop a year, respectively accounted for 11.5 percent and 5.9 percent of China’s grain output with 12.4 percent and 4.9 percent of its grain-sown area in 2021, making a huge contribution to China’s food security. However, the black soil there has also been seriously degraded. The White Paper on the Protection of Black Soil in Northeast China (2020) points out that the black soil layer in the black soil regions has thinned by 30 to 50 percent, measuring less than 20 cm thick in some areas. Due to overcultivation and soil erosion, moreover, it continues to decrease by 1 to 2 mm per year.

3. Soil erosion, excessive application of chemical inputs, and continuous high-intensity use of arable land have led to a steady decline in its quality. Erosion is particularly serious in the Loess Plateau, rocky desertification regions in the southwest, and black soil regions in the northeast, especially on arable land with a slope of over 6 degrees. The average fertilizer use intensity for China’s three major food crops (rice, wheat, and corn) in 2020 was 382 kg/hm², higher than international safety standards. According to calculations by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, China’s fertilizer use efficiency and pesticide use efficiency increased to 40.2 percent and 40.6 percent respectively in 2020, but residue rates remained high. The use of agricultural plastics has continued to rise, but the recovery rate is low, with an increasing amount of plastic residues in soil. Nonpoint source pollution, moreover, has caused soil compaction, decline in organic matter, deterioration of physical and chemical properties, and contamination of the water environment. In addition, long-term high-intensity overuse of arable land for agricultural—especially food—production has had a negative impact on the preservation of soil fertility, sustainability, and efforts to maintain and increase grain output.

4. In compensating for arable land diverted to other uses, there are still cases in which superior land is replaced with inferior land and paddy land with rain-irrigated land, and regulation has become more difficult. From 2009 to 2019, China’s construction land increased by approximately 8.5 million hm² (128 million mu). Farmland diverted to nonagricultural development must be compensated for. When the Ministry of Natural Resources randomly selected 6,203 compensatory farmland projects across the country for on-site inspection in 2018, however, it found that 10 percent of them had problems such as false representation, insufficient quantity, or inadequate quality. In some regions, furthermore, the compensatory lands were remotely located, difficult to cultivate, or built to low standards, with poor production conditions, insufficiently improved soil, or a lack of ongoing maintenance.

At the same time, many regions have proceeded with agricultural supply-side reforms and structural adjustments to better meet the needs for a better life and to promote high-quality agricultural development, which has led to a growing tendency to divert arable land to nongrain or nonagricultural use in some regions. In the eastern region, a large amount of industrial and commercial capital has flowed into the agricultural sector to develop modern agricultural industries through the transfer of farmland use rights, establishment of production centers, and cooperation in production and marketing with cooperatives or family farms. This has promoted the industrialization of agriculture and the integrated development of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries in rural areas, satisfying people’s needs for a better life, but it has also contributed to a tendency toward nongrain use. For example, the proportion of grain-sown area to total sown area dropped from 55.8 percent in 2015 to 50.0 percent in 2021 in Zhejiang and from 52.4 percent to 49.2 percent in Guangdong. The southwest region has also seen a relatively clear tendency toward nongrain use as great efforts have been made in recent years to develop high-efficiency specialty agriculture such as the cultivation of tea, herbs for traditional Chinese medicine, fruits, and flowers in a bid to eliminate rural poverty and consolidate the progress in poverty alleviation. Grain-sown area as a percentage of total cropland in Guizhou steadily dropped from 62.2 percent in 2010 to 51.4 percent in 2021, a decrease of 10.8 percent; Yunnan saw a fall from 66.4 percent to 59.4 percent, while in Guangxi and Chongqing the proportions dropped from 51.9 percent and 66.8 percent to 45.7 percent and 59.1 percent respectively (Table 1).

The shortage of water resources, mismatch between water and soil resources, and inadequate farmland irrigation facilities pose considerable challenges to China’s ability to protect grain production from the impacts of disasters. China has a scarcity of water resources, and their spatial distribution is extremely uneven. Generally speaking, the south is endowed with relatively abundant water resources but is lacking in soil resources, while the reverse is true in the north, which puts rigid limitations on the production of grain crops that require high levels of both types of resources. Data from the third national land survey show that 65 percent of China’s arable land is located in areas with less than 800 mm of annual precipitation, and that 15.8 percent is located in areas that receive less than 400 mm of annual precipitation. Although 60 percent of China’s arable land lies in the north, only 19 percent of China’s water resources are to be found there. Water shortages impose a serious constraint on agriculture in the North China Plain and Northeast Plain, both key grain-producing regions. Similarly, Inner Mongolia accounts for 9 percent of the country’s total arable land, and its grain-sown area and grain output respectively made up 5.3 percent and 5.6 percent of the national totals in 2021, but it received only 378 mm of average precipitation that year: water shortages and environmental and ecological constraints represent the biggest obstacles to maintaining and increasing grain output there. In Henan and Hebei, both important grain-producing provinces, insufficient water resources necessitated the extraction of a large amount of groundwater to support grain production, and overextraction has resulted in a huge groundwater cone of depression, which poses new challenges to efforts to sustainably maintain and increase grain production in this region.

Droughts and floods are the main causes of reduction in China’s grain and agricultural output. Global climate change will further increase the frequency of extreme weather events such as droughts, heavy rains, floods, typhoons, heat waves, and cold waves. Meanwhile, China’s agricultural infrastructure is still weak. There is much focus on the construction of farmland irrigation facilities but not enough on their management, and much more attention is paid to key projects than to supporting facilities in the fields. The construction standards are not high, and there are prominent bottlenecks in the last mile. Frequent natural disasters have become a major risk and practical challenge that we must grapple with in grain production.

Table 1  Proportion of grain-sown area to total sown area in China (%)

1.2     Increasing difficulty in achieving new breakthroughs in agricultural science and technology

Agricultural science and technology have played an indispensable role in the sustained stability and growth of China’s grain output. Data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs show that the contribution rate of technology to China’s agricultural development steadily increased from 52 percent in 2010 to 61 percent in 2021. In particular, the coverage rate of improved seed varieties has remained above 95 percent, and the rate of mechanization of crop planting and harvesting has reached 72 percent. It is increasingly difficult, however, to further improve the quality and per unit yield of improved varieties and the mechanization rate.

Breakthroughs in cereal breeding and the popularization of high-quality improved varieties have driven a significant increase in grain yields in China. The average yield of rice increased from 3.98 t/hm² in 1978 to 6.27 t/hm² in 2000 and then to 7.08 t/hm² in 2022; wheat saw an increase from 1.85 t/hm² in 1978 to 3.74 t/hm² in 2000 and then to 6.44 t/hm² in 2022, and corn from 2.80 t/hm² to 4.60 t/hm² and then to 6.44 t/hm². Since 2010, however, the rate of increase has noticeably slowed down (Figure 1). China’s research in wheat and rice breeding is generally world leading,²⁵ and its average wheat and rice yields per unit area rank among the top globally—respectively 65 percent and 54 percent higher than the 2020 global averages. Although they are still some distance from the world’s highest yield of about 10 t/hm², the double-cropping yield (i.e., the sum of early season rice and late season rice yields) from China’s high-yielding hybrid rice trials has reached 24 t/hm², and any further improvement will probably require major technological breakthroughs. China’s average corn yield is only 12 percent higher than the global average and still trailing far behind those of the United States and Canada. In 2019 and 2020, for example, the average yield of corn in the United States exceeded 10 t/hm², while yields in Canada and Argentina topped 9.2 t/hm² and 7.5 t/hm² respectively, which suggests significant room for improvement for China’s corn yield. However, in China, it is primarily the state that invests in innovation in breeding technology, with universities and research institutes playing a leading role in research and development, in which investment and participation by the private sector are sorely lacking. It is difficult to effectively pay equal attention to attributes such as high yield and high quality, multiple resistances and wide adaptability, and suitability for special or particular uses. Innovations that represent major breakthroughs are rare, and innovations in the seed industry are still not fully aligned with the diverse needs in production or with crop management techniques, with an urgent need to improve the commercialization of cultivars already developed and to promote commercial crop breeding. There is unfair competition between public R&D institutions and private breeding companies, inadequate protection of intellectual property rights in the seed industry, and a market inured to substandard and counterfeit seeds,²⁵ all of which have discouraged breeding companies from R&D and growers from using their products.

Agricultural mechanization plays an important role in reducing costs, increasing efficiency, and scaling up operations. The total power of agricultural machinery nationwide reached 1.08 billion kW in 2021. The number of tractors and supporting implements continues to grow, and there is extensive use of smart agricultural machinery equipped with technologies such as 5G and 3S. Overall, however, there are still problems such as weak innovation capacity in agricultural machinery, low R&D commercialization rate, and a structure in need of optimization. Moreover, both overcapacity and gaps in offerings exist side by side, agricultural machinery is not well integrated with actual agronomic practices, and the construction of infrastructure for the operation of machinery has failed to keep pace. There is, for example, a lack of machinery suitable for operating in hilly and mountainous areas making farming difficult. In 2021, the mechanization rates of the planting and harvesting of wheat, corn, and rice in China reached 97 percent, 90 percent, and 86 percent respectively, but the rates were uneven across different regions and varied greatly from one stage to another. There remain clear weaknesses in grain production in the vast hilly and mountainous areas. Further progress depends on the development and commercialization of agricultural machinery suited to local realities and on efforts and investment in making farmland more suitable for mechanized farming.

1.3     Waning motivation of local governments to focus on grain production and of producers to grow grain

Major agricultural and grain-producing provinces also tend to be economically weak and financially struggling. Heilongjiang, the province with the highest grain output, produced 11.5 percent of China’s grain in 2021 but accounted for only 1.3 percent of the country’s GDP, and its per capita GDP—standing at 47,266 yuan—equated to merely 58.4 percent of the national average. Revenue in the province’s general public budget was 130 billion yuan, constituting only 1.2 percent of the total revenue of local governments, and Heilongjiang residents had a per capita disposable income of 27,159 yuan, equivalent to 77.3 percent of the national average. Similarly, Henan produced 9.6 percent of the country’s grain, but its per capita GDP was only 73.4 percent of the national average. Revenue in its general public budget made up 3.9 percent of the total local government revenue, and residents there had a disposable income equivalent to 76.3 percent of the national average.

The grain industry is a strategic sector fundamental to national security, but it also faces numerous unfavorable conditions, such as low comparative returns, relatively limited contribution to economic growth and employment, and twofold risks—those in the natural world and those in the market. Therefore, it is necessary for governments at all levels to keep investing in and offering more support for grain production, which places a huge burden on the coffers of economically and financially weak provinces.² Some grain policies are poorly conceived. For example, local governments are required to provide matching funds for the construction of some projects and for agricultural insurance subsidies, in addition to stepping up special audits and performance appraisals. As a result, the more local governments pay attention to grain and try to build up grain production capacity, the heavier the burdens they have to carry, which has greatly diminished local governments’ motivation to focus on grain. This has become a serious risk and challenge for maintaining and increasing output in major grain-producing regions.

As the cost of grain production in China has continued to rise while grain prices have largely stood still, the returns from grain production are steadily declining, even to the point where producing grain no longer has a comparative advantage, which dampens producers’ motivation to grow grain crops. According to the Compilation of National Data on the Costs and Returns of Agricultural Products, the average net profit from rice, wheat, and corn farming had been negative for four consecutive years from 2016 to 2019 before rising to a mere 707 yuan/hm² in 2020, with the average cash income varying from 7,200 to 9,300 yuan/hm² (Table 2). On the other hand, over the same period, the average cash income from two oilseed crops (peanuts and rapeseed) ranged from 10,000 to 14,000 yuan/hm², and the cash income from beets hovered around 15,000 yuan/hm²; vegetables and apples were even more profitable. To a certain extent, this has encouraged producers to switch to cash crops. In particular, with an influx of new types of business entities, the promotion of large-scale operations, and the development of high-efficiency specialty agriculture, the trend toward nongrain use of arable land has become increasingly prominent in some regions.

Future challenges lie in three areas. First, it is difficult to reverse the upward trend in land costs, land transfer prices, and the costs of agricultural labor and farming equipment and materials, which will continue to drive the rising costs of grain production. Second, it is difficult to ensure profits for grain growers by continuously or significantly increasing grain prices. Actual experience from 2012 to 2016 shows a closer connection between international and domestic grain prices in an economy opening up. If China’s minimum grain purchase prices are set too high, a cycle of increased domestic output, increased purchase and storage, increased stocks, and increased imports will ensue, which will plunge the grain processing and food manufacturing industries into trouble and may generate negative externalities and uncertainties. Third, measures to support grain production lack specificity and effectiveness and face the constraints of WTO rules. The scope for China to provide amber box agricultural support is restricted by the de minimis limit; that is, product-specific amber box support cannot exceed 8.5 percent of a given product’s value of production, and non-product-specific support cannot exceed 8.5 percent of the total agricultural value of production. In 2019, the WTO ruled that China’s amber box subsidies for rice and wheat violated the commitments it made when it joined the organization, which has spurred the reform of the minimum grain purchase price policy. Overall, however, this policy is still at high risk of breaking WTO rules and is liable to challenges by WTO members. The nonexempt amber box subsidies are relatively low and provide limited impetus to grain production, while financial constraints prevent a substantial expansion of the scope of green box subsidies. A transition from amber box to green box subsidies entails issues such as a decline in the specificity and effectiveness of policies.

Table 2  Economic returns of major crops (yuan/hm²)

2 Saving food and reducing losses in the new stage of development: Realities and challenges

There is, in China, a staggering amount of postharvest grain loss and food waste—both widespread, strategically important issues that urgently need to be solved as they not only exacerbate the pressure to maintain grain-sown area and grain supply, but also amount to a waste of China’s limited agricultural resources, unproductive carbon emissions, and a strain on the environment to no purpose. Research shows that about 460 million tons of food in a broad sense—or 22.7 percent of the total amount produced—is lost or wasted across China’s entire food supply chain.²⁴ This highlights the necessity, importance, and urgency of conserving food and reducing losses.

2.1     Losses at pre-consumption stages

Preconsumption losses comprise grain lost at every stage of the production chain such as production, distribution, storage, and processing. Although estimates of grain losses at different stages vary greatly, they all clearly show that the quantity is large at each stage of the grain production and supply chains and that much of the loss can be avoided. According to data from the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration, over 35 million tons of grain is lost in storage, transportation, and processing every year in China, with a total loss rate of about 12 percent in the whole grain production chain.

Losses at the production stage include grain saved for seeds, natural disaster losses, and harvest losses. According to the cereal supply and demand balance sheet released by China National Grain and Oils Information Center, seed use accounts for consistently small proportions of the total consumption of rice, wheat, and corn, thus representing an insignificant source of waste. Natural disasters such as droughts and floods, occurring increasingly frequently, have hit crops hard in China and caused considerable losses. In 2020 and 2021, for example, 19.96 million hm² and 11.74 million hm² of crops, respectively, were affected by natural disasters, with 2.71 million hm² and 1.63 million hm²—or 13.6 percent and 13.9 percent of the affected areas—yielding less than 20 percent of their usual outputs. The damage was worse in 2020: Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Hubei, Liaoning, Anhui, Yunnan, and Jilin all saw over 1.2 million hm² of crops affected, and most of these provinces are important grain-producing regions. In 2021, 1.59 million hm² of crops were affected in Henan and 1.26 million hm² in Inner Mongolia, both major grain-producing provinces. Assuming that grain accounts for 70 percent of the total sown area and that the average grain yield is 5.8 t/hm², areas with less than 20 percent of their usual harvests alone lost 11 million tons of grain output in 2020 and 6.62 million tons in 2021, and the numbers will be significantly larger if all affected areas are considered. The loss rate during the harvest is affected by factors such as grain varieties, land conditions, consequences of disasters, harvest timing, machinery and equipment, and operator proficiency. For example, grain lodging resulting from adverse weather conditions, poor threshing, transportation from the field, and grain cleaning all result in losses. Recent research suggests that about 3 percent of grain is lost during the harvest in China.

At the storage stage, the loss rate varies according to storage providers, storage facilities, and storage methods. Losses may be caused by, for instance, evaporation of water, pests and rodents, and mold and rot. The storage loss rate at state-owned grain enterprises is about 1 percent, and at China Grain Reserves Corporation (Sinograin) and its directly affiliated warehouses, it is as low as 0.1 to 0.5 percent. Private companies, with poorer storage conditions, have a loss rate of over 5 percent, while 8 to 10 percent of the grain stored by farmers themselves is lost.²⁶ According to data from the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration, China produced 683 million tons of grain in 2021, of which enterprises with a direct statistical reporting obligation [i.e., those above a designated size] purchased about 400 million tons. Small and medium-sized enterprises and farmers, then, stored the remaining roughly 283 million tons, and their storage losses would be 14.15 million tons at a 5 percent rate and 22.64 million tons at an 8 percent rate. Meanwhile, those 400 million tons purchased by enterprises above a designated size would—assuming the average loss rate was 0.5 percent—shrink by 2 million tons. Importantly, as grain stocks increase and as stored grain spoils, a considerable proportion of grain becomes animal feed or leaves the food chain after having been stocked for a long time and declined in quality. Destocking corn by turning it into ethanol fuel, for example, is also a disguised form of waste and loss of resources.

Losses at the distribution stage may arise from screening, negligence, spillage, barge transshipment, mechanical damage, sample taking, and mold and spoilage during the sealed transportation of high-moisture grain for long periods. It has been estimated that 480 million tons of commodity grain enter the transportation stage in China every year, of which 530,000 tons are lost by grain merchants and processors, and about 550,000 tons are lost in road, rail, and waterway transportation; that is, losses at the distribution stage (excluding changes in the amount of impurities before transportation) total 1.08 million tons, significantly lower than rough estimates made without defining transportation losses.

The overprocessing of grain is also an important cause of loss and waste. As living standards improve, consumers increasingly prefer refined staple foods such as polished rice and white flour, and the overprocessing of grain has come to be a prominent trend in response to this demand. In the Chinese market, over 90 percent of the rice is polished rice and more than 70 percent of the flour is fine flour, with the market shares of highly refined products such as wheat core flour and snow white flour on the rise. The milling yields of moderately milled japonica and indica rice in China are about 70 percent and 68 percent respectively, which drop to about 65 percent and 63 percent after further milling and polishing. The flour yield of moderately milled wheat is about 75 percent, while after refining it falls to only about 70 percent—a loss of 5 percent. Over 6.5 million tons of grain is lost every year at the processing stage alone.²⁷

2.2     Plate waste

There is a staggering amount of plate waste in commercial restaurants, dining halls, and homes. According to the 2018 Report on Food Waste in China’s Urban Restaurants, Chinese cities waste 17 to 18 million tons of food a year (excluding household food waste), equivalent to 3 percent of the country’s total grain output.

1) Commercial restaurants. As income and the standard of living improve, an ever largerever-larger proportion of consumers dine out, and food waste associated with dining out is becoming increasingly serious. Business meals, event banquets, official receptions, and gatherings of  friends and family are the main occasions on which  food waste occurs. In particular, at banquets held in large mid- to high-end restaurants, people tend to think about their own image and try to impress others when ordering dishes, preferring more to less. During such meals, moreover , large amounts of alcohol and other beverages are consumed, which reduces the amount of food eaten and thus leads to even more waste. A study has shown that about 11.7 percent of the food at China’s urban restaurants is wasted; on average, about 23 g of staple foods is wasted per person per meal, and rice and noodles account for significant proportions of the total waste, at 14 percent²⁸ percent respectively. A special research report by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress notes that more than 40 percent of the food at urban and rural wedding banquets is wasted, and the food waste rates are 30 percent at event banquets such as birth celebrations, 30 to 40 percent at business meals, and about 40 ²⁹ at meals with friends. ³⁰

1. Dining halls. Food waste in university dining halls is particularly prominent, which is related to the habits, attitudes, ways of thinking, and other characteristics of contemporary university students.³¹ According to statistics from Hainan Province, 12.86 percent of the total food in university dining halls, or an average of 67 g of food per person per meal, is wasted, with flour products and rice products being the most wasted foods. A study of 29 colleges and universities in 29 provinces (cities, districts) shows that an average of 61 g of food is left over per person per meal—a rate of 12.13 percent.³²

2. Food waste results from overpurchasing due to bad planning or to the declining share of income spent on food, from the disposal of improperly stored or expired food, from cooking too much food, and from improper cooking, in all of which family size, family composition, household finances, and demographic characteristics are important factors.³³ It is estimated that Chinese households waste 7.63 to 10.86 kg of food per capita every year, and annual household food waste totals 10.56 million to 15.02 million tons.²¹ Restaurant and household food waste together amount to 27 to 33 million tons a year. In addition, overeating is essentially a kind of invisible waste, which also causes obesity, diseases, and other physical and mental health problems.

3 Policy recommendations for simultaneous efforts to increase grain production and reduce losses

Food underpins the future of a nation and the well-being of its people, and food security is a prerequisite for national security. Taking into account the current global, national, agricultural, and grain situations and basing ourselves on the overall strategic situation of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and profound changes in the world unseen in a century, it is imperative to lay a robust foundation for—and firmly hold the initiative in—national food security. To this end, we must place equal emphasis on increasing inflows and reducing outflows—that is, making concrete, simultaneous efforts both to maintain and increase grain production and to conserve food and reduce losses.

3.1 Thoroughly implement the strategy of sustainable farmland use and comprehensively strengthen the foundation of grain production capacity

The foundation of grain production lies in arable land, its lifeblood lies in irrigation, the way forward lies in science and technology, and its driving force lies in policies. We must make vigorous efforts in each and every one of these key points. Implementing the strategies of sustainable farmland use and innovative application of agricultural technology is crucial to maintaining and increasing domestic grain output. The most important task is to continue to consolidate the foundation of grain production capacity, build up the capability to safeguard domestic grain supply, and ensure that food can be produced and supplied whenever needed. Arable land is vital to grain production, and it is of fundamental importance to thoroughly carry out the strategy of sustainable farmland use.

First, it is necessary to take tough measures that have teeth to make sure that all local party committees and governments fully carry out their responsibility to protect arable land, the performance of which will be rigorously reviewed and those in charge will be held accountable for a lifetime, so that we can firmly prevent China’s total arable land from falling below the red line of 1.8 billion mu. China has formulated the most stringent policy for protecting arable land, and the key is to implement it without compromise, tackle both symptoms and root causes, and strengthen the deterrent effect of institutional mechanisms and strict law enforcement. At the present stage, it is especially important to strictly prevent illegal use of arable land in the name of rural revitalization and afforestation, to strengthen the regulation of how arable land diverted to other uses is compensated for, and to resolutely prevent cases where more land is diverted than compensated for, where superior land is replaced with inferior land, and where paddy land is replaced with rain-irrigated land, so as to truly ensure no decline or as little decline as possible in the quantity of arable land and no decline—if not an improvement—in its quality.

Second, it is necessary to preserve and enhance the fertility of arable land and to use high-standard farmland with high and stable yields and guaranteed harvests even in droughts or floods as a mainstay in efforts to maintain and increase grain output. To this end, we must continue to increase financial support for agriculture, launch a new drive to increase grain production capacity by 50 million tons, and build up comprehensive grain production capacity. We must step up the improvement of medium- and low-yield fields; work tirelessly to construct and upgrade high-standard farmland; make integrated efforts to promote water-efficient irrigation, protect and improve the quality of arable land, and upgrade high-standard farmland; actively transform and upgrade existing high-standard farmland in functional areas for grain production and agricultural belts for national food security; remedy shortcomings in soil improvement and farmland irrigation and drainage; and enhance the ability both to achieve stable and high yields and to maintain yields despite disasters. It is important to combine utilization with preservation, to strengthen the protection and restoration of black soil in the northeast and erosion control of hillside farmland in hilly and mountainous areas, to make comprehensive efforts to restore acidified and salinized farmland, and to carry out soil and water conservation in key regions. We must systematically promote environmentally friendly grain production, reduce the use of chemical inputs, apply fertilizers in a scientific, precise, and green manner, and step up efforts to improve the soil environmental governance. For arable land that has been overused for a long time, it is important to practice crop rotation and fallowing to better ensure sustainable use.

Third, it is necessary to strengthen control over the use of arable land and clarify what it can be used for and the order of priority. We must strictly control the conversion of arable land into forest land, garden land, and other types of agricultural land. We must strictly enforce the rules that restrict the use of high-standard farmland to, in principle, grain production only and the use of permanent basic farmland primarily for grain production. We must strengthen monitoring and regulation to resolutely stop nonagricultural use of arable land and effectively discourage nongrain use. In overall planning, we must reconcile the competition for land between the development of high-efficiency specialty agriculture and grain production.

Fourth, it is necessary to step up the construction of farmland irrigation projects and supporting facilities to reduce the mismatch between water resources and arable land. We must construct and modernize major water projects, large and medium irrigation districts, water diversion, collection, and storage projects, and field irrigation projects to a high standard and in a manner that takes into account local conditions, so as to gradually form a farmland drainage and irrigation system that pays simultaneous attention to large, medium, small, and micro components and that coordinates construction, management and use, thus eliminating the bottlenecks in the last mile and ensuring efficient irrigation during droughts and drainage during floods. In areas where water resources are scarce, we must actively develop efficient water-saving agriculture and dry farming to improve the efficiency of water use.

3.2     Thoroughly implement the strategy of innovative application of agricultural technology to increase farmland productivity

Agricultural science and technology represent the way forward for maintaining and increasing grain output, and we must thoroughly implement the strategy of innovative application of technology to increase farmland productivity. Seeds are the “microchips” of the grain industry. We must win the fight for germplasm security and strive to turn the seed industry around. Only by holding Chinese seeds firmly in our own hands can we secure China’s rice bowl and safeguard food security at the source. To this end, we must first focus on building up the national germplasm resources bank, step up the collection, protection, and utilization of grain crop germplasm, and seek out outstanding germplasm and high-quality genetic resources. Second, we must develop platforms that facilitate major innovations in seed technology for staple crops, initiate collaborative research on core technologies related to germplasm, eliminate bottlenecks, enhance the capacity for independent and original innovation, and step up the development of excellent varieties with breakthroughs in attributes such as high yield and high quality, high water efficiency and drought tolerance, multiple resistances and wide adaptability, suitability for mechanized farming and for use as animal feed, and suitability for special or particular uses, so as to achieve independent control over the germplasm of staple crops. Third, we must actively carry out cutting-edge research that serves the public interest, especially on the genetic basis of breeding and molecular breeding technology, and steadily advance the industrial application of biotechnological breeding. Fourth, we must strengthen commercial crop breeding, the protection of intellectual property rights, and synergy between enterprises, universities, and research institutes. We must encourage more players to participate in the breeding sector and enhance the regulation of the seed industry.

Modern agricultural machinery underpins our efforts to improve the efficiency of grain production and promote professional and large-scale operations. First, we must strengthen the research, development, and manufacturing of smart agricultural machinery; further the integration of 3S technology, artificial intelligence, and Internet of Things into agricultural machinery and equipment; and step up integrated application in water-efficient irrigation, soil testing and fertilization recommendation, planting and harvesting with machinery equipped with satellite positioning, the diagnosis and prevention of pests and diseases, and the monitoring and early warning of meteorological disasters. We must enhance monitoring and early warning, smart management, and information exchange throughout the grain production process. Second, we must make farmland in hilly and mountainous areas more suitable for mechanized farming insofar as local conditions permit and develop and promote agricultural machinery suited to grain production in those regions, plugging the gaps in the mechanization of grain production there. Third, we must vigorously develop commercialized services for grain production such as planting and harvesting services, unified prevention and control of pests and diseases, land trusteeship, and mechanized farming services, through which ordinary farmers and family farms can take advantage of a large number of advanced and useful technologies.

3.3     Make an all-out effort to encourage local governments to focus on grain production and producers to grow grain

To maintain and increase grain output, we must make it rewarding for producers to grow grain and for governments of major grain-producing regions to focus on grain production. Only by stimulating and maintaining the motivation of local party committees and governments to focus on grain production and producers’ motivation to grow grain can China’s comprehensive grain production capacity effectively translate into actual increases in capacity, which allows China to counterbalance the uncertainty of the external environment with the stability of domestic grain production and supply.

To motivate local party committees and governments to focus on grain, we must first improve the mechanism for making sure they fulfill their duty in this respect. Responsibilities and obligations to ensure food security cannot be imposed on main grain-producing regions alone, but instead must be shared between central and local governments and among main production regions, main consumption regions, and regions with balanced production and consumption. Both Party committees and governments must take responsibility for local food security and arable land protection, and they must be subject to rigorous review based on well-conceived criteria. Party committees and governments at all levels must keep the big picture in mind, invest more in grain production, keep grain-sown area and grain output stable, and consciously assume the responsibility for safeguarding China’s food security.³⁴ Second, it is necessary to establish a mechanism to ensure that local governments are motivated to focus on grain production. Transfer payments to major grain-producing provinces should be given due preference, and we should improve the mechanism for compensating main production regions. More rewards and subsidies should be granted to major grain-producing counties, which should be allowed more scope in the use of funds. Local governments should be required to provide a smaller proportion of—if not altogether exempted from providing—matching funds for certain projects and subsidies related to food security. These measures will help ensure that local governments have nothing to lose in focusing on grain production but concrete benefits and growth to gain. Third, we must support local governments in developing the grain economy, extending the industry chain, optimizing the supply chain, and upgrading the value chain, so that advantages in grain resources can translate into strengths in the grain industry and the economy, which gives local governments an internal motivation to focus on grain.

To motivate producers to grow grain crops, we must first improve policies to ensure that they make a profit from doing so. The priority is to stabilize and improve the policy of minimum grain purchase prices, which is essential for keeping expectations and confidence stable and for preventing a significant reduction in grain-planting land. Guided by the approach of stabilizing the framework, reforming the mechanism, and enhancing flexibility, we may prudently proceed with the reform of the minimum purchase price policy to ensure compliance with WTO rules. At the same time, we must step up impact monitoring and risk assessment, and a mechanism should be put in place to compensate producers for losses caused by the reform. Furthermore, we must maintain the existing amount of subsidy, put new increases to the best use, and improve the specificity and effectiveness of policies to tangibly protect and incentivize grain growers. We must actively and steadily expand the availability of full-cost insurance and revenue insurance for rice, wheat, and corn to more regions, evaluate their effectiveness, and work fast to make improvements accordingly. We should strengthen support for large-scale grain producers in particular, enhancing rewards and subsidies for building up grain production capacity, loan interest subsidies, insurance premium subsidies, and subsidies for the purchase or upgrading of agricultural machinery and tools, so as to help safeguard them from risks in grain farming and ensure reasonable returns, or at least no losses, for them. To protect grain growers, it is important to make full use of non-product-specific amber box support, actively expand blue box subsidies, and continue to increase green box investment in agricultural infrastructure. We must gradually establish a tripartite policy framework covering price, subsidy, and insurance to support grain growing. Second, it is necessary to guide producers toward utilizing market mechanisms to make a profit from growing grain crops. We must actively develop agricultural trusteeship, unified prevention and control of pests and diseases, and mechanized farming services to help reduce costs and boost efficiency in grain production; guide producers in adjusting the crop types and varieties planted and encourage ecological farming to help them grow high-quality produce that fetches good prices; and develop contract farming, processing, and logistics to increase the overall income from grain growing.

3.4     Save food and reduce losses throughout the grain production chain and supply chain

We must attach great importance to conserving food, foster the idea that “conservation and loss reduction is equivalent to increasing production,” and take integrated measures to reduce losses and waste in grain production, distribution, storage, processing, and other stages. It is particularly important to improve the top-level design for conserving food and reducing losses and to build a long-term, regular mechanism that coordinates the entire production chain and involves the entire society.

At the production and harvesting stages, we must first breed and promote new varieties of grain crops that are seed saving and suitable for mechanized farming, have high yields and high efficiency, have multiple resistances and wide adaptability, and suffer little loss during harvesting; promote technologies such as factory production of rice seedlings and precision sowing of corn and wheat; and conserve germplasm resources. Second, we must comprehensively improve agricultural production conditions, strengthen monitoring and early warning for meteorological events, pests, and diseases, and enhance the ability to protect grain production from the impacts of disasters, so as to reduce losses from disasters. Third, we must develop and promote smart and green agricultural machinery and equipment for precision harvesting; facilitate the integration of varieties, agricultural machinery, and agronomic practices; optimize the makeup and regional distribution of agricultural machinery fleets; enhance the equipment and capacity for emergency harvesting; step up training in how to correctly operate agricultural machinery; and guide producers in harvesting at the right time and reducing harvest losses.

At the storage stage, we must first boost investment in or subsidies for grain drying facilities and encourage various market players to develop grain drying services for farmers and family farms, so as to reduce potential losses associated with drying issues. Second, we must support state-owned and private enterprises in repairing and upgrading old warehouses, encourage the construction of digitalized, standardized, and smart modern grain storage facilities suited to local conditions, and promote the adoption of advanced and practical technologies for green grain storage by other storage providers, so as to make grain storage more scientific. Third, we must encourage and regulate the development of professional grain storage services, promote simple, practical, and convenient grain storage equipment for farmers, and step up training and services in grain storage technologies, so as to reduce storage losses. Fourth, we must pay attention to the rotation of grain reserves to ensure constant storage of new grain and constant freshness of stored grain, thereby reducing the risk of grain spoilage.

At the distribution stage, we must first strengthen the main channels, key routes, and critical nodes for bringing grain from the north to the south; build a well-structured modern system for the convenient transportation and distribution of grain that minimizes losses; and improve special-purpose infrastructure and supporting facilities for grain logistics to make distribution more digitalized, standardized, and scientific. Second, we must enhance the capabilities and standards of the bulk loading, bulk transportation, bulk storage, bulk unloading, and multimodal transport of grain, so as to reduce losses during distribution.

At the processing stage, it is necessary to first revise the standards for moderate grain milling, rationally define the degrees of milling, and guide grain companies toward moderate milling by, for example, levying higher taxes on companies that overprocess grain. Second, it is necessary to improve the equipment, technology, and techniques for milling grain. Moreover, we must explore how to make integrated use of the by-products of grain milling such as rice bran, wheat bran, and germ, reducing their losses by turning them into edible products, functional substances, or industrial products. At the same time, we must strictly control the development of biomass energy that uses grain as raw material. Third, we must raise awareness of the nutrition and functions of moderately milled grain products and the loss of nutrition or substandard nutrition caused by overprocessing, so as to dispel consumers’ dietary misconceptions about polished rice and white flour and foster a healthy attitude toward moderately milled grain products.

3.5     Encourage a sense of frugality and curb plate waste

To ensure long-term reduction in food waste, it is necessary to strengthen legislation and regulation, establish long-term mechanisms, continue to further campaigns to save food, and resolutely curb plate waste. In particular, we must enhance public awareness, firmly encourage thrifty habits, and foster an ethos in society that waste is shameful and thrift is admirable. Focusing on key areas—restaurants, school and workplace dining halls, and homes—and key occasions such as business meals and social events, we must step up education, guidance, regulation, and supervision, implement the Action Plan for Saving Food, and effectively curb plate waste.

First, it is important to vigorously promote the ethos of practicing economy and avoiding waste. We must reinforce the idea that conserving food is honorable and wasting food is shameful through social guidance, media publicity, school education, and legislation; actively raise public awareness of the Anti–Food Waste Law and other relevant laws and regulations; promote the “Clean Your Plate Campaign”; and strengthen the scrutiny of food waste behavior. We must instill traditional Chinese virtues such as diligence and thrift particularly in children, teenagers, and students from an early age and step up public awareness campaigns and school education, so that an aversion to food waste may take root in their hearts and minds and become internalized as they grow up. At the same time, we should popularize knowledge about diet and nutrition through dietary guidelines and food guides, so as to help people develop healthy, nutritious, and balanced diets and eating habits and reduce unnecessary consumption arising from overeating and improper diets.

Second, it is important to step up efforts to tackle food waste in the restaurant industry. We must establish a food waste regulatory regime consisting of government regulation, industry self-regulation, and social scrutiny, with regular food waste monitoring, spot checks, and inspections to urge the practice of economy. Financial means such as tax breaks and tiered food scraps disposal rates can be used to incentivize restaurants to conserve food. We must guide the restaurant industry toward strengthening scientific management of food procurement, storage, transportation, and processing. Restaurants should proactively remind consumers to prevent food waste and order an appropriate amount of food according to their actual needs, and they should provide half- and small-portioned dishes and free containers for customers to take leftovers home.

Third, it is important to reduce household and personal food waste. We should actively guide families toward changing how they buy and store food by encouraging frequent purchases of small quantities of ingredients as they need them, so as to reduce waste from overpurchasing and improper storage. We should encourage families to eat a science-based, nutritionally balanced diet and to cook a diversity of nutritious meals in small portions.

Fourth, it is important to strengthen the regulation of official business meals such as those served at receptions, meetings, and training sessions. Meal arrangements should prioritize health and economy and avoid waste. We must vigorously encourage students to develop good eating habits centered on thrift and waste prevention, strengthen on-site supervision in school cafeterias, and step up checks on food waste. It is necessary to further transform customs and traditions, advocate new practices, and curb lavish banquets and wasteful extravagance.