In line with its efforts to ensure food safety, China, the biggest supplier of agricultural products, has set goals to significantly reduce its reliance on foreign products over the next ten years. However, these goals will be extremely challenging, according to experts.
With restricted land and water, China will have to quickly improve farming productivity through technology, including physically modified crops and increase the area under cultivation to join Beijing’s 10- year projections.
According to a report released in late April, the government wants to achieve President Xi Jinping’s objective of becoming an “agriculture strength” by the middle of the century, with a target of 92 % self-sufficiency in staple grains and beans by 2033, up from 84 per cent from 2021 to 2023.
Cutting the government’s goods would be a blow to exporters from the US to Brazil and Indonesia, who have expanded capacity to meet desire from China’s 1.4 billion citizens, the world’s largest market for soy, meat and grains.
The agriculture ministry projects a 75 % decrease in corn imports to 6.8 million tonnes and a 60 % decrease in wheat imports to 4.85 million tonnes over the ten years until 2033.
For soybeans, the biggest item on a farm import bill that totalled US$ 234 billion last year, Beijing sees imports falling 21 per cent to 78.7 million tonnes in a decade.
These goals defy the patterns of the past ten years, when imports of grains and oilseeds have increased by 87 percent.
” Forecasting a sharp reversal where in 10 years the country will be importing less than it does today seems questionable”, said Darin Friedrichs, co- founder of Shanghai- based Sitonia Consulting.
According to five analysts and industry executives, China will struggle to achieve its goals primarily because of a lack of land and water.
In stark contrast to Beijing’s projections, the US Department of Agriculture ( USDA ) sees China’s corn imports in 2033 and 2034 roughly in line with current levels and wheat imports declining 20 per cent. In the biggest divergence, USDA expects soybean imports to rise 39 per cent.
The USDA anticipates that the demand for animal feed, a major producer of soybeans and corn, will grow faster than the country’s corn output will grow, and that sorghum and barley imports will increase.