Xi Jinping worries about food shortage

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping expressed concern over the food crisis at a recent meeting despite official media reporting 18 straight years of good yelds in China.

Xi pointed out that "croplands are still declining," as official media source CPC News has reported on December 12, quoting Xi's speech at the efficient performance conference on December 8, “In some places we have a lot of good lands that are not used for grain… So, what about grain?”

"China's grain production has been redundant for at least 18 consecutive years," National public radio of China said at the 1st of December. The Statistics Bureau has published data showing that total grain production in 2021 hit a record 682.85 million tons, which is 13.36 million tons or 2.0 percent more than last year.

The official data, which probably did not convince Xi, also casts doubt that this is most likely "the CCP's usual political propaganda to maintain regime stability, because low grain yields is a great sorrow for China's agriculture," as the financial columnist from Hong Kong Liao Shimin said.

Liao explained that high-yielding land in the southeastern provinces, that is considered China's economic powerhouse, has been largely industrialized, and some new croplands are located in western China, where natural conditions are not suitable for farming due to insufficient rainfall and low temperatures.

Moreover, industrial waste, use of fertilizers and pesticides have led to land pollution. AmbScience, an environmental engineering consulting and services company, cited data from the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China dated April 2014, showing that 349 million mu (23278,300 ha) of croplands in China, accounting for about one-fifth (19.4%) of the total area of croplands, are seriously polluted.

According to the report of the National Forestry and Grassland Administration dated June 2020, since the CCP launched a nationwide campaign called "Farmland return back to forest" in 2002 in an attempt to "improve the ecological environment," as of 2019, 139 million mu (9271300 ha) of Chinesev croplands, all of which have been converted to forests or pastures, have disappeared.

One eyewitness told The Epoch Times that a significant parcel of fertile arable land near his home in a large grain-producing region of Northeast China that had been planted with corn was forcibly taken from farmers by local authorities and given to a local resident in order to grow trees.

An Epoch Times reporter found out that farmers were discouraged from working not only by the policy of "Farmland return back to forest," but also due to the high cost of agricultural commodities such as seeds, fertilizers and farm equipment, as well as the ongoing official suppression of grain prices and a ban on personal interprovincial grain transportations, that significantly weakened the propensity of farmers to work.

Some farmers in the main northeast grain-producing regions told The Epoch Times: "Currently [we] can't make much money from farming and even lose income," "seeds and fertilizers are very expensive, and small subsidies are not even enough to pay for rural assignments".

"Rural assignments" means that farmers must pay certain fees set by village officials under different names, sometimes in the form of gray expenses not specified in the administration budget, and that they are expected to receive monetary compensation from the government when they cannot perform a voluntary work assigned by the village authorities.

In 2020, Yuan Longping, a Chinese rice expert, in an interview with the national CCTV channel, in response to a question about whether there is enough food in the country to feed the entire population, replied that there is not enough food, and some products, such as grains and legumes, have to be imported from other countries, otherwise China will face a serious hunger problem.

Liao said that since last year, China has been purchasing grain in the entire world amid "a bumper harvest," underscoring the communist regime's urgent need to increase grain stocks.

China's total grain imports has risen to a record level in the past two years. On November 15, the China Agricultural Outlook, with reference to customs data, reported that grain imports in 2020 increased by 27.97% compared to 2019; in the first 10 months of 2021, grain import reached 137.956 million tons which is almost 23% more than last year; total grain import in 2021 is expected to exceed total grain import of 2020.
Source: epochtimes.com.ua