China basically achieve self-sufficiency in grain

China Could Basically Achieve Self-Sufficiency in Grain Basically achieving self-sufficiency in grain by the domestic resources is the guiding principle for solving the problem of grain supply and demand of China. China is making great efforts to increase its grain production. Normally, its self-sufficiency rate of grain is supposed to be above 95% and the net import rate ought to be less than 5% of the total consumption quantity.
At this stage, China has basically achieved self-sufficiency in grain. During the period of future development, China has many objective advantages to achieve basic self-sufficiency in grain on its own. There’s great potential for increasing in grain yield on the basis of China’s natural agricultural resources, production conditions, technical level and other developing conditions.
It has growth potential of the yield per unit area of the existing cultivated land. Nowadays, the per unit area yield of grain varies greatly in the same area, the highest being 7,500 kg to 15,000 kg per hectare while the lowest only being 3,000 kg to 5,000kg per hectare. For a relative limited sowing area, China will possibly achieve its expected total grain output target if the annual average increase rate of per unit area yield could keep 1% from 1996 to 2010 and keep 0.7% from 2011 to 2030. The speed is still rather low when compared with the annual average increase rate of 3.1% of the per unit area
yield during the last 46 years. It is still possible to achieve the target even though considering the problem of the rate of diminishing returns of land. Now, China’s per unit area yield of grain is still low compared with other countries of high grain yields. In a short time, it is quite difficult for China to reach the level of countries of high grain yields. However, the gap could probably be reduced through our efforts. The yield per hectare can be increased by over 1,500 kg per hectare through a series of measures, such as remoulding the medium-and-low-yield land, intensifying water conservancy projects, enlarging irrigated areas and promoting the popularizing rate of advanced suitable engineering and biological measures.
China also has a great potential for the exploitation of untouched arable land resources. W e have 35 million hectares of wasteland which is suitable for farming. About 14.7 million hectares of the wasteland could still be reclaimed. The Chinese government is protecting the existing cultivated land. At the same time, it is also trying hard to speed up the reclamation of the wasteland which is still suitable for farming and the land which is abandoned by industrial and mining enterprises. China is going to reclaim over 300 thousand hectares’wasteland each year to limit the damage of cultivated land which is occupied and to help keep long-term stability of the area of cultivated land. Through the measure of
increasing the multiple crop index, the area of food crops is supposed to be kept at the level of 110 million hectares more or less.。