Where does the epidemic impact global food security? Where does China's food security come from

　The pneumonia epidemic in COVID-19 has impacted agricultural production, trade, commodity prices and residents' purchasing power, posing a threat to food security. China's strict blockade and isolation measures have effectively curbed the spread of the epidemic, but they have also had a significant negative impact on economic activities including agricultural production and trade. Due to the abundant buffer stocks and the smooth supply chain in China, the pneumonia epidemic in COVID-19 has not had a major impact on China's food security. However, with the recovery of domestic demand and the uncertainty of international market, it will pose challenges to China's food security in the future. Therefore, it is necessary to take practical and effective measures to resume agricultural production, strengthen market monitoring and early warning, and promote smooth international trade. In the long run, it is necessary to adapt to the new characteristics and trends of food consumption with economic development, firmly optimize the grain planting structure and promote the pace of agricultural cooperation with foreign countries, and make full use of two markets and two resources to ensure national food security.Influence mechanism of pneumonia epidemic in COVID-19 on global food securityIn 1996, the World Summit on Food Security gave a rich definition of food security, which was generally accepted and adopted. "All people can get enough, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life at all times". According to this definition, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has defined four dimensions of food security, namely, availability, availability, availability and stability. The impact of pneumonia epidemic in COVID-19 on food supply and demand will directly and indirectly affect the four dimensions of food security.The epidemic has impacted food production and trade and destroyed food availability. Blocking measures and self-isolation in response to the epidemic will reduce the supply of labor, which may lead to the reduction of cultivated land area, restrict crop management, and ultimately lead to a decline in harvest. This negative effect is particularly prominent in developing countries where the agricultural production system is labor intensive. With the spread of the epidemic around the world, some food exporting countries began to worry about the shortage of their agricultural production and food supply, and then adopted export prohibition or restriction measures. For example, Vietnam, as the world's second largest rice exporter, suspended the authorization of rice export from March 25, 2020 to give priority to ensuring domestic supply and price stability. In addition, the spread of the epidemic will also lead to port closure and logistics barriers, forcing the food trade chain to be interrupted. In mid-March, Rosario and Timbues, two major agricultural export ports in Argentina, were forced to temporarily close down. For countries with insufficient food reserves, the interruption of production and trade will seriously threaten their food availability.

　The epidemic caused economic recession and decreased purchasing power, threatening the access and utilization of food. Supply shocks caused by infection rate and death rate, isolation measures to limit liquidity, and rising business costs caused by supply chain restriction and credit crunch will all affect the economy in an all-round way, leading to economic growth slowdown or economic recession. Slow economic activity and mobility restrictions may reduce household income and purchasing power, especially in urban areas of less developed countries. If the government lacks the financial resources to start relevant social safety net programs (such as food banking and cash transfer), the affected families in the country will easily fall into food insecurity. People will turn to cheaper food with lower nutritional value, which will lead to the increase of malnutrition. If the outbreak crisis lasts long enough, it may further lead to a wide decline in calorie intake of vulnerable people. The forecast data of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in April shows that the global economy will shrink by 3% in 2020; The economic recession caused by the epidemic will reduce the GDP growth rate of all countries by 2%-10%, and the number of malnourished people in net food importing countries will also increase by 14.4-80.3 million.The reasons why the pneumonia epidemic situation in COVID-19 did not pose a major impact on China's food securityIn order to curb the spread of pneumonia in COVID-19, China has implemented strict blockade and isolation measures, which have affected the production, circulation and accessibility of grain and other agricultural products to a certain extent. However, during the epidemic prevention and control period, China's grain supply and price were generally stable, which was mainly attributed to the continuous and stable achievements in increasing grain production and abundant grain reserves. In addition, since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China has made remarkable achievements in tackling poverty and greatly reduced the incidence of food insecurity related to poverty.First, China's grain production capacity has been continuously improved. China adheres to the policy of ensuring basic self-sufficiency of food based on domestic market, implements active agricultural support policy and strict farmland protection system, implements the strategy of "storing grain in land and storing grain in technology", and continuously promotes structural reform and institutional mechanism innovation of agricultural supply side. Despite rapid population growth, unprecedented expansion of urbanization, loss of cultivated land and shortage of water resources, China still feeds 21% of the world's population with only 7% of the world's cultivated land. In the past 10 years, China's grain output has continued to increase, with the highest output reaching 664 million tons in 2019, an increase of 0.9% over 2018 and a record high. Rice and wheat have more than enough production and demand, and can be self-sufficient. The overall self-sufficiency rate of grain exceeds 95%, which has laid a solid material foundation for ensuring national food security, promoting economic and social development and long-term stability of the country. The idea of "having food in your hand, not worrying in your heart" and "holding the Chinese rice bowl firmly in your own hands" has become a reality.Second, China's grain reserve and circulation capacity has been continuously enhanced. After years of improvement and adjustment, China has established a complete grain reserve system. No matter from the grain reserves, varieties and systems, or from the processing capacity of enterprises, China is fully confident and capable of coping with various market risks, meeting market demands and stabilizing market prices. Since 2014, all localities have re-approved and increased the grain reserve scale in accordance with the principle of "three months' sales in production areas, six months' sales in sales areas and four and a half months' sales in production and marketing balance areas", effectively ensuring the stable supply of grain in various regions. Combined with the balanced rotation system of local grain reserves, the quality and quantity of grain reserves are guaranteed at the same time. In addition, large and medium-sized cities have established finished grain and oil reserves that meet the requirements of 10-15 days, and diversified market entities have also established commodity inventories that maintain normal production. All the backbone channels of grain logistics have been opened, and the multimodal transport pattern of roads, railways and waterways has basically taken shape. The proportion of bulk grain transportation and containerized transportation of finished grain has greatly increased, and the efficiency of grain logistics has steadily improved.

　Third, the international grain market is abundant, and the grain price has not been impacted by export restriction policies of individual countries. The International Grain Council predicts that the world's wheat, rice, corn and soybean production will reach record levels in 2020, and the stocks of wheat and rice will also increase. The increasing global spread of pneumonia in COVID-19 has led some countries to impose trade restrictions on major commodities to ensure stable food supply in China. Taking wheat as an example, on March 22, 2020, Kazakhstan banned the export of wheat flour, and on March 30, lifted the export ban and announced the export quota of wheat and wheat flour; On March 30th, Ukraine set a ceiling for wheat exports. Countries in North Africa and the Middle East, which are highly dependent on wheat imports, began to scramble to increase their reserves. However, due to the overall good prospects of wheat supply, the export restriction policies of these exporting countries have not caused much pressure on prices. According to FAO market monitoring data, the international price of wheat decreased by 2.2% in March. As far as rice is concerned, people are worried that the drought in Thailand may further aggravate the impact of the epidemic on the international rice market supply. After Vietnam announced the suspension of rice export, consumers' purchases in both exporting and importing countries increased sharply. Rice prices once reached the highest level for many years, but then declined. In March, the international price of rice increased by less than 5%. In contrast, due to the reduced demand for animal feed and biofuel production, the prices of corn and soybean both fell by more than 3% month-on-month.Fourth, remarkable achievements have been made in getting rid of poverty, greatly improving the ability of poor people in China to obtain food. Poor people are usually the most vulnerable to the threat of losing food supply due to sudden shocks (such as economic or climate crisis) or periodic events (such as seasonal food insecurity). FAO, World Bank and other international organizations have warned governments to pay special attention to the ability of poor or vulnerable groups to obtain food during the outbreak of pneumonia in COVID-19. From this perspective, food insecurity is a consumption problem closely related to poverty. Policy initiatives to increase the real income or asset value of the poor can enhance food security. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core has attached great importance to poverty alleviation and made great decisive achievements. From 2013 to 2019, the per capita disposable income of farmers in 832 poverty-stricken counties increased from 6,079 yuan to 11,567 yuan. The per capita net income of poverty-stricken households with established cards nationwide increased from 3,416 yuan in 2015 to 9,808 yuan in 2019. The poor people's quality level of "not worrying about food and clothing" has obviously improved. Even if the job opportunities and income decline due to the epidemic, their food security and nutrition will not be in danger.The main challenges of China's food security after the epidemic crisisChina's food security has stood a severe test during the epidemic prevention and control, but it still faces great challenges in the future. On the one hand, the gradual recovery of demand brought about by the resumption of work and production is expected to bring pressure to the supply side, and food prices may rise; On the other hand, the epidemic situation in some major food exporting countries in the world is still very serious. The longer the blockade and isolation measures last, the greater the pressure on their food systems. In the future, export restrictions may even be implemented again to give priority to ensuring their food supply.

　First, with the promotion of resumption of work and production, the demand for dining out increases, and the fluctuation of demand is expected to increase the pressure on the supply of agricultural products. During the epidemic prevention and control period, the dining in hotels and restaurants decreased significantly, and the demand for meat, aquatic products, fruits, vegetables, edible oil and other agricultural products decreased significantly. After the resumption of work, the consumption of the group will suddenly increase, and it is expected that there will be a short-term sudden increase in bulk purchases, which will lead to certain fluctuations. In the early stage of epidemic prevention and control, poor transportation hindered the purchase of agricultural means of production. Most of the merchants selling agricultural means of production offline closed their doors, and most of the e-commerce companies selling agricultural means of production online did not deliver goods in a short period of time. Poor circulation of personnel also brings many inconveniences to agricultural production activities. Some growers who rent the land of other villages for production cannot transport the means of production to the cultivated land in time. Some large growers who need a lot of labor are hard to find employees. In many areas, productive services such as plant protection and technology to the countryside cannot be carried out. In addition, perishable high-value agricultural products have been seriously unsalable in the whole country, and farmers have suffered heavy losses, which greatly affects their investment in the next production cycle and their enthusiasm for sustainable operation. It can be predicted that in the future, the release of food demand will bring certain pressure to the supply side of agriculture in China, and the risk of food price increase will be intensified.Second, the shortage of agricultural resources is increasingly constraining the domestic grain production capacity. After hard work and unremitting efforts, China has basically achieved self-sufficiency in food by relying on its own strength. However, the intensive production mode of "high input and high output" has brought great pressure on limited water and soil resources and rural environment. The amount of chemical fertilizer applied per mu of cultivated land in China is about three times that of developed countries, and the utilization rate of pesticides is about 33%, which is lower than that of developed countries by 20-30 percentage points, which makes the secondary salinization and acidification of cultivated land very serious. In 2013, China's moderately and severely polluted cultivated land reached about 50 million mu, with an over-standard rate of 19.4% and an over-standard area of 350 million mu. Food production also consumes a lot of scarce water resources, and the groundwater consumption for agriculture in North China Plain accounts for more than 80% of the total groundwater consumption, which has formed the largest groundwater funnel in the world. For the sake of the sustainability of food production, China has implemented a series of measures to control the overuse of agricultural production resources, such as zero growth plan of fertilizer and pesticide application, fallow plan of cultivated land rotation, and the strictest water resources management system. Under the background that economic growth and urbanization expansion continue to stimulate the increase of food demand, the increasing scarcity of agricultural production resources increases the difficulty of food supply management in China.Third, the import and supply situation of soybean and other important agricultural products is not optimistic. Since this century, high fluctuation level has become a key feature of agricultural commodity prices. Price fluctuations increase the risk of relying on global trade to ensure food security. In the process of sustained and rapid economic growth and urbanization, China has maintained a high level of self-sufficiency in staple food, and selectively outsourced the production of feed grain and oil grain. Soybeans used for oil extraction and animal feed raw materials are the most strategic imported agricultural products in China, with a high degree of import dependence. In 2019, the import volume reached 85.51 million tons, and the import dependence reached 83%, and the sources were concentrated in Brazil and the United States. Affected by Sino-US trade friction, over half of China's imported soybeans came from Brazil in the past two years. In recent years, China has launched a large-scale infrastructure investment in Brazil to improve the export logistics system of Brazilian soybeans. Participating in the construction of food supply networks in major exporting countries has promoted the autonomy and stability of China's imports to a certain extent. It is worth noting that because the Brazilian government has not taken strict blockade and isolation measures, the number of people infected and killed by pneumonia in COVID-19 continues to rise. In the future, the government may be forced to strengthen prevention and control, and the logistics system of agricultural products production and export will be destroyed to a certain extent, thus threatening the stable supply of soybeans in China. On January 15, 2020, the United States and China signed the first-stage economic and trade agreement. As part of the agreement, China is resuming the import of soybeans from the United States, but whether the import is smooth or not also depends on the spread of the epidemic in the United States and its prevention and control situation.

　　Fourthly, the trade restriction measures of major exporting countries are unpredictable, which increases the uncertainty of the international food market. The increasingly common response to stabilizing domestic prices is to impose trade restrictions. Net exporters of goods with rapidly rising prices can temporarily issue export bans to alleviate price increases. If the country's export scale and market share are large enough, the export ban may aggravate the global price fluctuation. Since late March 2020, some countries have implemented export restriction measures for important agricultural products such as grain. As the global market reserves are generally sufficient and the harvest prospects are good, these measures have not caused widespread panic buying and sustained soaring prices. At present, the export restriction policies of these countries have been relaxed or cancelled, but there is still the possibility that such policies will rise in the future, especially under the background that the situation of epidemic prevention and control in major food exporting countries such as the United States and Brazil is still unclear. The international community has reached a general consensus that grain export restriction measures will harm the international market supply and price stability, but the multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization (WTO) as the core has not yet built a strong export restriction mechanism. If the global spread of the epidemic worsens, exporting countries, especially developing countries, may start export restriction policies on important agricultural products at any time for the legitimate motive of giving priority to ensuring their own food security. Since there are more exporting countries than importing countries in the global grain and oil market, the new round of export restrictions may cause panic buying and hoarding to a greater extent, and the fluctuation of global food prices will be unpredictable, which will seriously threaten the food availability and stability of importing countries.Specific countermeasures to ensure China's food security after the epidemic crisisSo far, due to the relatively abundant global food stocks and the weak isolation measures implemented by the affected countries in derived demand, the damage of COVID-19 pneumonia epidemic to the global food supply chain is still limited. However, in the medium and long term, the potential risks to global food supply and food prices will depend on the duration and severity of the epidemic. Food security is related to national independence, political stability, economic development and social stability. We should take precautions and take targeted measures to provide our own supply capacity to ensure China's food security.First, comply with the new trend of grain consumption and accelerate the optimization of grain production structure. For a long time, China has firmly implemented the principle of absolute self-sufficiency in rations, and cultivated land resources give priority to wheat and rice production. Compared with Japan, South Korea and other countries which have the same shortage of people, land and water, China's ration self-sufficiency rate and reserve level are quite high. Generally speaking, with the development of economy, the consumption of rations will increase first and then decrease. China's per capita consumption of rations fluctuated from 90 kg in 1960 to the peak of 179 kg in 1984, and then continuously decreased to 151 kg in 2013. On the contrary, driven by the rapid development of income growth and urbanization, the demand for feed grain in China has increased rapidly, exceeding the domestic production capacity and having to rely on importing soybeans from other countries. Soybean trade has become an important way for international grain market risk to be transmitted to domestic market. Considering that the domestic production capacity of rations has been very solid, the consumption of rations will continue to decline in the future, and the main pressure of agricultural food system will come from the impact of transition to animal protein diet, it is necessary to further speed up the adjustment of planting structure, properly tilt the cultivated land resources, breeding and agricultural machinery technology research and development funds to the soybean industry, and improve the competitiveness of domestic soybean industry.Second, formulate temporary subsidies and credit plans to restore the enthusiasm of farmers and agricultural enterprises for production and operation. During the period of epidemic prevention and control, the slow sales of agricultural products led to a decline in the income of farmers and enterprises, which may directly affect the stable supply of agricultural products in China in the coming period. In addition, due to the inability to go out to work, the non-agricultural income of farmers will also decline, making it more difficult to raise funds for agricultural production and operation. The government should introduce a relief plan as soon as possible to provide key support for farmers and small and medium-sized agricultural enterprises, so as to maintain the integrity of China's food supply chain and ensure that all people continue to get the food they need. There are three mechanisms to implement the government's temporary relief plan: first, market promotion, that is, providing direct income subsidies to agricultural producers whose product prices and market supply chains are affected by the epidemic; The second is food procurement, that is, government procurement for important agricultural products and the establishment of strategic emergency reserves; Third, marketing support, for example, vigorously develop online marketing of new agricultural products such as live e-commerce, and provide full-process services such as e-commerce training, processing and packaging, logistics and warehousing, online shop operation, trademark registration, marketing promotion, and microfinance for agricultural business entities. At the same time, the government should provide financial and credit support to agricultural enterprises in order to avoid the financial exhaustion of maintaining business continuity. It can also reduce the burden of agricultural enterprises by reducing or delaying taxes and social insurance premiums.

　　Third, strengthen the monitoring, early warning and information notification of the grain market to avoid panic buying and hoarding. Although the rapid spread of the epidemic has caused many uncertainties, the global grain market still maintains a good balance, and the grain stocks are abundant and the export availability is sufficient to meet the expected demand. According to the latest data provided by FAO, the world grain stocks and consumption ratio is 30.7%, which is in a historical high position. Nevertheless, people all over the world are increasingly worried about the impact of temporary blockade on domestic logistics and international trade, and panic buying often occurs. Some important agricultural products in China are highly dependent on imports. Even if the restrictive measures of domestic epidemic situation are gradually lifted and production resumed, this panic is still easy to transmit to domestic consumers. The government should do a good job in the dynamic monitoring and notification of domestic and international food prices, production, consumption, inventory and trade measures, so that producers, consumers, traders and processors can make rational judgments and curb unnecessary panic buying and hoarding in the food market. For soybean and other products that are highly dependent on imports, we should plan ahead and pay close attention to the impact of the epidemic on China's imported soybeans. Strengthen monitoring and early warning, strengthen coordination with major exporting countries, and strive to minimize the impact of the epidemic on soybean supply chain.Fourth, strengthen the communication and cooperation with FAO, WTO and other international organizations, and curb the agricultural trade restrictions. The experience of coping with the global food price crisis in 2007-2008 proves that restricting exports by exporting countries in order to increase domestic food supply may lead to serious confusion in the world food market, and then lead to soaring prices and increasing fluctuations. Shortly after Vietnam and Kazakstan announced export restriction measures to ensure their food supply during the blockade of COVID-19 pneumonia epidemic, FAO, WTO and World Health Organization (WHO) issued a joint statement stressing that the destructive consequences of such measures on global food security must be contained, and called on all countries to ensure that the negative impact of measures to stop the COVID-19 pneumonia epidemic on global trade and food security is minimized. Our government should continue to strengthen close communication and cooperation with the above-mentioned international organizations, adhere to the principle of global market opening and free trade, and take the firm stand of ensuring food security and nutrition of people all over the world, and oppose any unilateral trade restriction measures that beggar-thy-neighbor and destroy the global food supply chain, so as to avoid the imbalance between food supply and demand aggravating global hunger and malnutrition.Fifth, accelerate agricultural cooperation with foreign countries and improve the strategic layout of agricultural globalization. Based on the basic national conditions of people, land and water shortage, it is inevitable for China to use international markets and resources to adjust and supplement domestic food supply. The pandemic of pneumonia in COVID-19 once again verified the volatility, risk and uncertainty of the world food trade system. China needs the strategic policy of ensuring food security by using two kinds of resources and two kinds of markets firmly. On the one hand, it is necessary to increase agricultural technical assistance and financial assistance to developing countries. Since the global grain market is a whole, China's contribution to increasing grain output in any country in the world will lower prices and stabilize the market, thus helping itself to import, even if these agricultural products are not sold back to China. On the other hand, enterprises are encouraged to implement the whole industrial chain layout from planting, processing, warehousing, transportation to marketing in countries with rich agricultural resources and good basic conditions. Only by taking the initiative in the global food supply network can we effectively prevent and control the risks of trade to food security.