Achieving Food Security in China

Zhang-Yue Zhou is Professor at the College of Business, Law and Governance, James Cook University.

• 1. Introduction1.1 Motivation1.2 A Snapshot1.3 Objectives 1.4 Key Terms1.5 Organisation2. Existing Studies on China’s Food Security2.1 The Great Famine during 1958-622.2 Food Shortages during the Cultural Revolution, 1966-762.3 Food Abundance since the 1980s2.4 Food Security for the FutureAppendix to Chapter 2 3. China’s Food Security Practice in the Past3.1 Food Scarcity: 1950s-1970s3.2 Food Abundance: 1980 to Date 3.3 From Scarcity to Abundance: What are the Key Determinants?3.4 Concluding Comments4. Current Status of Food Security in China4.1 Evaluation Framework 4.2 Current Food Security Status: Evaluation by the Oshaug–Eide–Eide Framework4.3 Current Food Security Status: Evaluation by Other Approaches4.4 Concluding Comments5. China’s Quest for Food Security: The Challenges Ahead5.1 Sustaining Food Production Resources 5.2 Eliminating Unsafe Food and Improving Food Quality 5.3 Narrowing Income Inequalities5.4 Reducing Food Wastes5.5 Making Grain Reserve Management Transparent5.6 Carrying Out Innovative Reforms to the Institutions5.7 Summing Up6. China and the Global Food Security 6.1 Will China Starve the World?6.2 Other Impacts of China on Global Food Security 6.3 How Should the International Community Deal with the Impact of China?

'A valuable study of the Chinese experience of food security and insecurity in its recent past and exploration of some of the implications for global food security issues.’ — Kenneth E Jackson, Research Professor, Auckland Institute of Studies, Former Director of the Centre for Development Studies, University of Auckland 'Wisdom is not a trait that is easily or quickly gained. It’s a process that takes time and living. But we can acquire wisdom and become wiser if we open our eyes, ears and minds to the insights of others. It is via knowledge passed through generations and from one human being to others that we truly understand the world around us. It is in this light that I regard Zhang-Yue Zhou’s latest effort.Zhou’s Achieving Food Security in China: The Challenges Ahead is ostensibly about China’s efforts to achieve food security. However, it is also about sharing a lifetime of hard knocks, acquired experience, knowledge, analysis, and wisdom as to the circumstances, policies, processes, institutions and incentive systems which either contributed to or undermined the achievement of that goal. To some extent, this book also serves as a warning of the "never again" variety in the sense that the stories, analysis and insights are shared to avoid similar follies in other countries and in the future.' — Brad Gilmour, Chief of Trade, Policy and Market Analysis, Mouralea Trade, Agriculture and Resource Consulting'This book is not just an intellectual exercise or research topic to inform China’s food policies. It is apparent how deeply personal the subject is to Zhou as he relates his own experiences and those of his family, growing up in rural China during these famine periods. [...] Zhou presents the historical context in Achieving Food Security in China with passion from his own experiences. [...] Zhou’s personal experience combined with his research provides a valuable perspective into not only where China is now with its food security, but also how it got there.' — The Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Volume 62, Issue 3'This book is an excellent read for people who keep an interest on China’s food security issue. Finally, this book may also be helpful for students, academicians and policy makers from other food insecure countries to take home some of the experiences of China’s food security journey.' — Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Volume 72, Issue 4"The provision of food represents a fundamental obligation of the state to its people. In the opening pages of Zhang-Yue Zhou’s Achieving Food Security in China, the horrifying consequences of failed agricultural policy are laid out in deeply personal terms…In a graphic account of the famine, Zhou highlights the extreme misery of rural dwellers: families resorted to cannibalism; individuals were tortured when found to be concealing food; people ate the excrement of better-fed rural cadres for nutrients. For Zhou, China’s food security failures were a consequence of irrational government policy, and this book seeks to ensure that China enacts the right policies that will ensure its citizens will never go hungry again." — John K. Yasuda, for China Quarterly, 2020