China’s food security situation and key questions in the new era: A perspective of farmland protection

doi:10.1007/s11442-022-1982-9

Abstract

Abstract:

As the world’s largest developing country, the ability of China’s agricultural resource utilization to effectively support the current and future food security goals has been affected by a variety of factors (e.g., transformed supply channels, tightening international situation and frequent emergencies) in recent years and has attracted extensive attention from the academic community subject to multiple factors. This study uses literature review, statistical analysis, and spatial analysis methods to systematically explore China’s food security situation in the context of farmland resource constraints. It is found that the demand-side pressures such as demographic changes, social class differentiation, and dietary structure adjustments derived from economic growth and rapid urbanization have placed extremely high expectations on food supply. However, the quantitative restrictions, utilization ways, and health risks of farmland resources on the supply side constitute a huge hidden concern that affects the stability of food production. Although China’s farmland protection system is undergoing a transition from focusing on quantity management to sustainable use, the matching and coordinating demand pressure and supply capacity for food security is unbalanced. Therefore, facing uncertain future development scenarios, policymakers should focus on building a resilient space for China’s farmland protection to withstand the interference of major emergencies. The existing farmland protection space policy can be integrated by establishing a national farmland strategic reserve system (based on resilient space), and further development of targeted use control measures for zoning, grading, and classification will help realize sustainable China’s farmland resources use.

Key words: food security, systematical analysis, key questions, farmland protection, resilient space, China

LIANG Xinyuan, JIN Xiaobin, HAN Bo, SUN Rui, XU Weiyi, LI Hanbing, HE Jie, LI Jin. China’s food security situation and key questions in the new era: A perspective of farmland protection[J].Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2022, 32(6): 1001-1019.

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Analytic index	Unit	Index interpretation	Calculation method
Fragmentation degree	Dimensionless	The index is used to characterize farmland dispersion and irregularity degree and reflect farmland resource distribution patterns.	A comprehensive measurement of farmland patch density, patch aggregation degree, and patch area index, respectively (Liu et al., 2019)
Infrastructure completeness	m/m²	The index is used to characterize the supporting conditions of agricultural infrastructure, mainly including field roads and agricultural power and water conservancy construction projects.	Length of field roads and irrigation ditches per unit area
Scaling rate	%	The index indicates the farmland proportion that has reached large-scale operations based on high-standard farmland construction standards, reflecting intensive farmland management.	The farmland proportion that reaches large-scale operations according to the high-standard farmland construction standards of the Ministry of Agriculture of the PRC
Multiple-crop index	Dimensionless	This index represents the number of consecutive crops planted on the same plot in a year, reflecting the changes in crop maturity.	The ratio of total crops sown area to farmland area in the whole year