An old Chinese saying goes, "repair the house before it rains."

Despite the dramatic increase in the grain production that China enjoyed between the 1980s and 1990s, researchers sounded the alarm during the weekend that China may face the food shortage in less than three decades. This worst scenario will happen if the country does not start to tackle the problems hindering the continuous growth in food production.

Three decades seem like a long time but, even now, problems are looming. Grain production declined between 1999 and 2003. Arable land is on the decrease and climate changes are making food production more difficult. At the same time, many farmers are woefully unaware of new developments in agricultural technology.

"It is time to take action," said renowned US-based researcher T. C. Tso last Friday in Beijing.

Big challenge

What all boils down to is the international catch-word, "food security," as the President of China Agricultural University Chen Zhangliang discussed the issue during the weekend at a ceremony marking the opening of the new China Food Security Research Centre.

"Our mission is to find ways to feed Chinese people now and especially in the future," said Chen.

That is: how to feed a population of approximately 1.5 billion by 2020?

Chen said the new centre, which has Nobel Prize winners and leading scientists and economists on its research team, will lead the search for a workable solution to this pending problem.

"We need to increase crop yields by 50-60 per cent within 20 years," said Wang Hongguang, the newly-appointed director of the centre.

He presented historical statistics to clarify how demanding the task is.

During the 1,000 years from the beginning of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) to the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, the average rise in crop yield per hectare increased by only 105 kilograms - from 915 to 1,020 kilograms.

But the average yield has soared from 1,020 to 4,500 kilograms in the slightly more than 50 years from 1949 to the present.

"That's where we stand today," said Wang, who claimed that China still need to more than double the current average yield per hectare in 20 years.

Wang believes that in this country, which feeds 22 per cent of the world's population on only 7 per cent of the world's arable land, grain security must be placed at the very top of the government's agenda.

Awareness of the problem has been heightened in the last few years, with the country's grain production declining for four consecutive years, as a result of a series of natural disasters, reductions in the amount of arable land and farmers' reluctance to plant more grain.

The research centre predicts that by 2030, China will have a population of 1.6 billion and will need about 640-720 million tons of grain. This means that China's total grain output must increase by at least 200 million tons within 30 years.

"We are fully aware of the difficulties we face," said Wang.

Thankfully, Chinese scientists had already become aware of the challenge as early as the beginning of 1990s. In 1999, China Agricultural University organized a nationwide research network aimed at finding breakthroughs that could bring a dramatic boost in yield.

"They have outlined a programme to increase yields and the new centre's major task is to help achieve the goals set by the network," said Wang.

Super hybrids

Meanwhile, agronomists led by Yuan Longping, "father of hybrid rice," are working hard to make sure that China's hybrid rice technologies will help raise world food security levels.

"China's hybrid rice technologies have great potential to raise the grain output in those needy countries with inadequate arable land and growing populations," said Liang Anqiong, deputy director of the southern rice breeding office under the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture.

Yuan Longping said that increasing grain yields through the use of technology is an effective way to solve the global food shortage issue.

Yuan said that rice feeds more than half of the world's population, and, therefore, increasing grain yield will play an extremely important role in assuring food security and reducing the number of people living in poverty.

Now, Yuan is busy cultivating a super hybrid rice.

He said the super hybrid rice programme is being carried out in three phases.

During the first phase between 1996 and 2000, a rice named "Pioneer Rice" was developed, with a targeted yield of 10.5 tons per hectare.

That goal was realized and the rice was planted in 1.8 million hectares of paddy fields nationwide, realizing an average yield of 9,000 kilograms per hectare.

The standard of 10.5 tons per hectare was achieved in pilot fields with ideal conditions.

In the second phase, from 2001 to 2005, the goal is 12 tons per hectare.

The third phase will run from 2006 to 2010, and the goal will be 13.5 tons per hectare.

"If we realize our second-phase goal, the country will see a 30-billion-kilogram increase in annual rice yield," said the academician from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "It means we can raise 75 million more people, according to the standard of one person consuming 400 kilograms of rice per year."

Other concerns

Population growth is not the only challenge China's agriculture must face.

Both climate change and the decline in area of arable land are serious problems.

Agricultural researchers are being called upon to put more effort into research on the effects of high temperatures and pests, so that Chinese farming methods can be adapted to the warming climate to minimize the effect on food security posed by this threat.

Lin Erda, a senior researcher with the Agro-meteorological Institute under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences said global warming has both positive and negative effects on farming. But he said there could be more negative influences in the long run. It has been estimated that by 2030, grain production in China might decrease by up to 10 per cent because of changes in temperature, if effective measures are not taken.

Lin stressed that policy-makers must adopt a long-term outlook, and that work must be done to further develop high-temperature and pest-resistant crops and agricultural practices that conserve water.

On the other hand, the country's grain acreage dropped under 100 million hectares last year, the lowest since 1949.

As a result, per capita grain reserves were only 333.5 kilograms in 2003, the lowest level in the past 22 years, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

China's top legislator Wu Bangguo recently warned law enforcement agencies of the possible problems that could arise from the illegal appropriation of farmland for industrial or real estate development.

He said the recent iron-fisted clean-up in the land market had seen some results, but that local authorities were still too eager to re-allocate cultivated land for industrial development.

He pointed out that in 1998, China amended its Land Management Law in order to safeguard shrinking crop land, and set up a strict farmland protection system.

However, unlawful appropriation of farmland has again reared its head and even become rampant in the past few years, said Wu.

Suggestions

T. C. Tso, senior adviser of the US Department of Agriculture, said current technology will be insufficient to meet China's food requirements in the future.

To feed China's population in 2050, a scientifically educated workforce with an agricultural background will be vital, Tso says, in his article "China's Agriculture in the Future" in the magazine Nature.

China may need to use low-risk, genetically modified organisms and transgenic animals to meets its needs - and such moves must be based on solid scientific research to ensure that they are successfully implemented.

Many scientists in China are attempting to increase plant yields.

However, Tso says, a lack of nationwide co-ordination and co-operation has resulted in duplication of efforts and low efficiency.

China has recently established many pioneer laboratories for basic and applied research, but a national strategy is still needed to ensure that limited human and financial resources are not wasted.

China has devoted great efforts to developing its science and technology base, and has made remarkable progress. The objectives of this policy are to improve general welfare, increase national and international competitiveness and promote academic achievement. But, when measured against such indicators as the number of biotechnology and chemical patents and the innovation index, China still lags far behind other countries.

"The country must increase its science and technology investment, which will ultimately lead to poverty reduction and to increased agricultural production," according to Tso.

(China Daily July 19, 2004)