/ world today news/ For many decades, the primary sector of the economy was neglected all over the world, especially after the advent of neoliberal doctrines in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 21st century, however, we see that agriculture can not only be modern and knowledge-intensive, but also strategically important to the survival of humanity. The fact is that today 828 million people, according to some experts, are hungry in the world. Or to put it another way, almost 10 percent of the world’s population. On the other hand, the lowering of food quality standards in countries such as the US has led to health problems among millions of people.
“Global food systems are broken and billions of people are paying the price. More than 780 million people will go hungry while almost a third of all the food produced in the world is wasted or thrown away,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Against the background of these worrying facts, there is also positive news coming out of China.
In the summer of 2023, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs called for more attention and cooperation in this field, especially against the background of the difficult economic recovery of the world in the post-pandemic environment. According to the Chinese authorities, the international community should prioritize food security and work together to find an adequate solution to the problems of food and hunger.
It turns out that China is the world’s leading grain producer, even though it cultivates only 9 percent of the world’s arable land. And against this background, as well as the fact that it has a huge population that has its own huge needs, China manages to contribute nearly a quarter of the world’s food production, successfully feeding its 1.4 billion citizens. Which in itself is a success. A food crisis in China would de facto become a global food crisis. But this is not happening, and instead we are seeing increasing successes of the PRC in the field of agriculture and sustainable solutions to the problem of world hunger.
China also has its own approach to addressing food problems, and more importantly, it is taking adequate measures – using its own experience, the country is helping developing countries. For example, the Global Development Initiative has prioritized food security as one of eight key areas of international cooperation. And within the G20, it was China that introduced the International Initiative for Food Security Cooperation.
It also turns out that China is the country that provides the most financial aid and sends the most experts and humanitarian workers to implement the projects under the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations South-South Cooperation. Within these frameworks, China cooperates with more than 140 countries around the world in the field of agriculture and food security. Moreover, nearly 1,000 agricultural technologies have been shared by the PRC with developing countries, resulting in some places increasing food yields by as much as 60 percent.
The People’s Republic of China has also helped train over 14,000 experts in hybrid rice cultivation in nearly 80 developing countries, and has also started the construction of 13 model villages for agricultural development and poverty alleviation in Africa, which are to serve as a reliable model for the development of the poorest continent.
However, all of Beijing’s work on humanitarian causes around the world related to world hunger would not have been possible if China itself had not been successful in developing its own agriculture. In 2023, for example, it turned out that for the ninth year in a row, the PRC will have a record grain harvest – over 650 billion kilograms. It is about the autumn harvest, which was extremely rich and successful, despite natural disasters in some regions of China.
In addition, according to China’s Ministry of Agriculture, the total sown area for autumn crops has increased significantly this year. The summer harvest also reached its second-highest peak on record. Nearly 87.33 million hectares of land have been sown for the autumn harvest alone. As experts pointed out, not only have larger areas been planted this fall, but there have also been significant technological improvements, especially when it comes to growing crops such as soybeans and corn.
China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has set itself the goal of increasing overall output per hectare of land. The new policies that have been prepared in this regard affect nearly 200 grain-growing municipalities and 100 soybean-growing municipalities. The Chinese government has allocated 2.4 billion yuan ($328 million) alone to support measures to increase grain and soybean production.
Thanks to innovative administrative and technological introductions, stable government funding, and large food and seed reserves in recent years, China has been able to ensure not only the Chinese nation’s secure access to food products, but also greatly increase the scope of its humanitarian aid to developing countries. countries as we indicated above. The country is now much more independent from the volatility of world food prices.
The country has laid out special policies for the year 2024 that aim to turn it into a kind of agricultural superpower. According to the Chinese authorities, the revitalization and revitalization of rural agricultural regions is of paramount importance to the nation. In this sense, the Chinese President and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CCP, Xi Jinping, has already given work tasks to the authorities in the agricultural sphere, rural regions and in relation to Chinese farmers. This happened at the Central Agricultural Conference last year 2023.
According to the Chinese president, in order to make progress with China’s modernization, the country must make unremitting efforts to strengthen the foundation of the agricultural sector and push forward the renewal of rural areas. The very fact that such a conference on rural areas and agriculture is attended by the highest authorities, including the president himself, shows that China prioritizes its agriculture and the revitalization of rural areas.
The key word for 2024 for Chinese agriculture will be food security. According to the Chinese authorities, this is of fundamental importance to the nation, and in this sense, a lot of work will be done in rural areas to ensure food security, increase arable land, harvests, and also accelerate the improvement of the seed and fertilizer industry. . Special attention is paid to the scientific and development aspect of the development of Chinese agriculture in the 21st century and specifically in this year 2024.
The goal of the People’s Republic of China will be the prevention of food catastrophes and disasters, both within the country itself and around the world, especially in developing countries. In this sense, China has already set a good tone by helping, for example, Syria, where there is a serious problem of feeding the population amid the recent devastating war and the harsh American sanctions that prevent Syrians from getting access to food and medicine.
To maintain food security, China’s central government has set a red line for the volume of arable land, which must not fall below 120 million hectares. Also, serious efforts will be made by the authorities to prevent the conversion of agricultural lands to those used for non-agricultural purposes.
As for the harvest, the goal for 2024 is not to fall below the 650 billion kilograms of grain achieved this year – an ambitious and serious goal for which the authorities, as we indicated above, have paid special attention. However, going by the statistics, the goal is likely to be met for the tenth year in a row.
In addition, China will also build a diversified food logistics system, making investments and efforts simultaneously in agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries and the scientific side of the issue. Precisely in order to develop agriculture more intensively, the Chinese authorities consider it important to strengthen the scientific and technological aspect, as well as reforms, to increase efforts to achieve breakthroughs in key technologies for the field. This was emphasized by Xi Jinping himself.
According to Chinese analysts, the country not only needs to improve the quality of arable land, but will also achieve its goals through modernized agricultural infrastructure and farm facilities, as well as scientific and technological breakthroughs in the field of seed and fertilizer production.
The country will also make significant efforts to improve not only the rural infrastructure, but especially the public services that the state offers in rural areas in 2024, apparently to further improve the lives of the population there. In 2024, the impact mechanization of agriculture will continue, which already exceeds 73 percent, with as many as 1.8 million agricultural machines already equipped with positioning systems from the Chinese BeiDou navigation satellite system.
The PRC has already achieved basic national security in terms of production of seeds, grain, cotton, oil, sugar, pork, cows, sheep, chicken, fish, shrimp, crab and shellfish, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs assures.
The great successes of Chinese agriculture and Chinese science, thank God, benefit not only the Chinese people, but also the whole world and especially developing countries that have serious problems with nutrition, both because of climate changes and in some cases their geographical features, and because of geopolitical instability and uncertainty. And in this increasingly uncertain and unstable world, the well-organized system of Chinese agriculture is without exaggeration the guarantor of starving humanity. And also in a model for agricultural and rural development of countries like Bulgaria, we would add.
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