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Frontiers of Agricultural Science and Engineering

ISSN 2095-7505

ISSN 2095-977X(Online)

CN 10-1204/S

Postal Subscription Code 80-906

Front. Agr. Sci. Eng.    0, Vol. Issue () : 69-76    https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2014023
RESEARCH ARTICLE
China’s new problems of food security revealed by the Food Equivalent Unit
Huilong LIN(),Ruichao LI,Cangyu JIN,Chong WANG,Maohong WEI,Jizhou REN
State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystems, College of Pastoral Agriculture Science and Technology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730020, China
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Abstract

China's food security has a great influence on the world, and has always been the top priority in China. In recent years, as the concept of food security is evolving into one of nutrition security and the importance of food diversity is increasing, research based on nutrition security and broad food systems are increasingly needed in today’s China. Thus, not only grain for human consumption, but also animal foods have been integrated into the Food Equivalent, which is used to analyze China’s current agriculture system and reveal the water resource distribution. The results indicated that the average animal food consumption has risen by 78.6%, and now China’s daily supply of animal food per capita has reached about 50% of that in the USA and 80% of that in the South Korea. So there exist an obvious disparity in animal food supply between China and these two countries. It is impossible for the China’s current agricultural system to achieve the level in the USA. Under China’s current agricultural system, the consumption proportion of feed grain had surpassed the consumption of food grain, increased sharply from 33% in 1992 to 67% in 2011. However, the growth potential of total grain output is approaching an upper limit, so the continued growth of feed grain demand exerts great pressure on the China’s food supply. The discordance of the spatial distribution of water resource and virtual water revealed that China’s current agriculture system had a low efficiency in being able to achieve food and nutrition security. China’s current “grain farming” cannot meet the demand of increasing nutrition and appropriate resource utilization. The implementation of grassland agriculture appears feasible and necessary for saving feed grain, providing a large number of high-quality animal foods and appropriate water resource utilization.

Keywords food security      nutrition security      food equivalent unit      grassland agriculture      China     
Corresponding Author(s): Huilong LIN   
Issue Date: 22 May 2014
 Cite this article:   
Huilong LIN,Ruichao LI,Cangyu JIN, et al. China’s new problems of food security revealed by the Food Equivalent Unit[J]. Front. Agr. Sci. Eng. , 0, (): 69-76.
 URL:  
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fase/EN/10.15302/J-FASE-2014023
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fase/EN/Y0/V/I/69
PorkBeef and muttonPoultryEggsMilk
Grain consumption3.52.52.02.50.3
Tab.1  Grain consumption to produce unit animal food [18]/(kg·kg-1)
Fig.1  Change in consumption of food and feed grains in China from 1992 to 2011
Fig.2  H-P filter analysis of grain yield in China from 1978 to 2011
Fig.3  Changes in per capita food consumption in China from 1992 to 2011
Fig.4  The dietary structure of residents in per capita animal food consumption in China from 1992 to 2011
YearPer capita energy supplyderived from animal food/( g·d-1)Per capita protein supplyderived from animal food/( g·d-1)
ChinaSouth KoreaUSAChinaSouth KoreaUSA
1990-19923256104152870
1991-19933357105173070
1992-19943659107193271
1993-19953859107213372
1994-19964059105233472
1995-19974260104243471
1996-19984260105263471
1997-19994362108273572
1998-20004464109283573
1999-20014665110293673
2000-20024767112293774
2001-20034767112303874
2002-20044869114313875
2003-20055069114323875
2004-20065170114333975
2005-20075270112344175
2006-20085472111354275
2007-20095673110364174
2008-20105972109374173
Tab.2  Comparisons of animal food supply between China, South Korea and the USA [5]
Fig.5  Distribution of per unit area water resource in China
Fig.6  Distribution of per unit area virtual water in China
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