Commentary: China's food security policies improve people's lives, benefit world

BEIJING, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- China's policies on ensuring food security have played an important role in elevating the living standards of its people and contributed to world food security. In 2022, ensuring food security will remain a priority in the country's rural development.

During the just-concluded annual central rural work conference, Chinese leaders reiterated that the country must secure its own food supply at all times, urging all relevant parties to play their part in protecting farmland and stabilizing grain output.

Guaranteeing that the people are well-fed should be a top priority for every country and government. However, with a population of more than 1.4 billion, it is no small feat for China to achieve this goal.

This explains why China's attitude on ensuring food security remains unchanged over the years. At the annual Central Economic Work Conference held in 2013, Chinese leader Xi Jinping said ensuring food security will remain a long-term task, therefore, it is essential for the country to provide full and long-standing support for agriculture, particularly grain production.

In this regard, the country has taken solid measures that cover all aspects of agricultural development. For example, to safeguard the country's arable land, the Chinese government spared no efforts in ensuring the country's total farmland area stays above 1.8 billion mu (approximately 120 million hectares).

The country also took other steps to increase grain production capacity, such as optimizing the regional configuration and the combination of production factors, and popularizing water-saving irrigation technologies.

The measures have significantly boosted the country's food output. Currently, China's per capita food supply has grown to more than 474 kg, which is well above the international standard of 400 kg. This is more than double the figure from 1949, when the country saw a meager per capita food output of just 209 kg.

China's steady grain output through the years has also enabled its people to choose plentiful and wholesome foods, which is manifested in the increase in the consumption of non-grain foods such as meat and fish, ligneous foods, vegetables, and fruits.

In addition, China's food security policies have brought tangible benefits to the country's vast rural population, especially farmers. In order to reduce the burden on farmers and boost their enthusiasm for growing crops, China has abolished the animal husbandry tax, pig slaughtering tax, tax on agricultural and forestry specialties and, among others, the agricultural tax which had been around for about 2,600 years. These measures have greatly supplemented the country's efforts in combating poverty.

With its remarkable achievements in ensuring domestic food security, China has actively shared its experience with the rest of the world, an action praised by many. To date, China has facilitated over 1,500 technology transfers across the world in fields such as crop production, animal husbandry, farmland water conservation, and agricultural products processing, which has benefited over 1.5 million farmer households.

Earlier this year, China pledged to continue ensuring food security in its 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025). The country is determined to "hold firm its 'rice bowl'," and make greater contributions to the global goals of zero hunger and zero poverty.