{"id":164455,"date":"2013-10-24T21:06:57","date_gmt":"2013-10-25T04:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=164455"},"modified":"2013-10-24T21:06:57","modified_gmt":"2013-10-25T04:06:57","slug":"china-import-grain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/10\/china-import-grain\/","title":{"rendered":"Should China Import More Grain?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After president Xi Jinping told farmers in Hubei that the Chinese &#8220;must rely on ourselves for grain security,\u201d\u00a0The Economist questions the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/china\/21588436-china-globalises-some-still-think-it-should-be-self-sufficient-food-daily-bread\"><strong>prevailing policy that the world&#8217;s second largest economy must meet 95% of its grain demand with domestic production<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In the early 1960s, even as tens of millions of Chinese starved in a brutal famine, Mao Zedong was reluctant to import grain. Now, though, China is deeply integrated into global commodity markets. It is not alone: Japan and South Korea both import 73% of the grain they consume. Saudi Arabia imports 87%. Yet official policy in China still calls for 95% of China\u2019s grain demand to be met by domestic production.<\/p>\n<p>To many economists, the very idea is nonsensical. Given global price disparities and China\u2019s comparative advantages, they say, China should import more of its food rather than dedicate limited land and water resources to growing it all. Feng Lu of Peking University says earning enough foreign exchange through exports to import whatever grain you need could be described as self-sufficiency. In 1961, he reckons, China would have needed 25% of total export revenues to meet domestic grain shortfalls through imports. Today, that proportion is at most 2%. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/china\/21588436-china-globalises-some-still-think-it-should-be-self-sufficient-food-daily-bread\"><strong>Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Last month, China announced that it would <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2013\/09\/27\/china-grain-imports-idUSL4N0HN2HW20130927\">continue import quotas on wheat in 2014<\/a> at the same level as this year. Bloomberg reported this week that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2013-10-23\/china-wheat-areas-seen-getting-dry-winter-needing-spring-rains.html\"><strong>wheat-growing areas of northern China may see a drier-than-normal this weekend<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Temperatures in central and eastern China may be mild during December, January and February, with some brief cold snaps occurring in northeastern areas, according to a seasonal outlook report for\u00a0Asia\u00a0from the\u00a0State College, Pennsylvania-based forecaster. The main Chinese wheat-growing\u00a0areas\u00a0probably won\u2019t see temperatures cold enough to damage crops that are dormant during winter months, said Dale Mohler, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA dry winter alone wouldn\u2019t be enough to cause serious problems as long as they get spring rains,\u201d Mohler, who focuses on commodity forecasting, said in a telephone interview. \u201cThe crop could be in a little more stress going into the spring, so rains would have to start on time.\u201d [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2013-10-23\/china-wheat-areas-seen-getting-dry-winter-needing-spring-rains.html\"><strong>Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After president Xi Jinping told farmers in Hubei that the Chinese &#8220;must rely on ourselves for grain security,\u201d\u00a0The Economist questions the prevailing policy that the world&#8217;s second largest economy must meet 95% of its grain demand with domestic production: In the early 1960s, even as tens of millions of Chinese starved in a brutal famine, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":983,"featured_media":164457,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[116,2,14744,14745,14746,38],"tags":[16726,576,2757,4674],"class_list":["post-164455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-economy","category-level-2-article","category-level-3-article","category-level-4-article","category-the-great-divide","tag-food-trade","tag-grain","tag-hubei","tag-xi-jinping","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.1 (Yoast SEO v24.1) - 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