Despite its hopes, China will remain a food importer, analysts say

President Xi Jinping has made food security a national priority since becoming China’s leader a decade ago, with a multi-prong drive for self-sufficiency in food. It is “an improbable, if not impossible, goal,” say analysts from the Brookings Institution and the Center for Strategic and International Studies in a brief.

“By necessity, if not by choice, China will have to continue to depend on imports to meet the food demands of its population,” said the scholars. “To guard against dependencies, China likely will continue seeking to diversify its sourcing of critical inputs, foodstuffs, technology, and know-how.”

China is the world’s largest agricultural importer and faces many challenges in feeding its 1.43 billion people. It is considering a package of laws to enhance its food supply with provisions dealing with farmland protection, food production, food reserves, food processing, and food circulation, said the brief, part of a CSIS-Brookings joint project on U.S.-China matters.

“The strategies that China has proposed and initiated will have significant spillover effects on the rest of the world,” said the report. “This makes China’s efforts to enhance its food security not just a matter of concern for China, but indeed an issue of importance across the world.”

Nearly 20% of the world’s population lives in China, which has less than 10% of the globe’s arable land and 6% of its water resources. China is the No. 1 customer for U.S. food and ag exports with purchases forecast at $28.7 billion.

The CSIS-Brookings brief, “China’s food security,’ is available here.