Food security for China

Food Security in Africa: China's New Rice Bowl - The People's Republic of China (PRC) is home to 22% of the world’s population, but has only 7% of its total arable land.

In the past three decade, the country's economic growth has led to the rise of a new wealthy class in Chinese society made up of hundreds of thousands of Chinese people whose dietary demands have changed and who consumes more food. Starting in the 1990s, in order to accommodate this growing demand, China began encouraging its citizens to establish agricultural-businesses overseas.

Initially, most of this investment went to nearby countries such as Laos, Burma and Cambodia. But, scarcity of land and overpopulation in these countries have led to political backlashes that prompted the Chinese government to turn its attention to Africa to fill its people's rice bowl.

Angola was already China’s biggest trading partner in Africa and its single largest oil supplier, good for 15% of the China’s total oil imports. China’s agricultural investments, which were primarily concentrated on Southern Africa, are now slowly spreading to other parts of the African continent.

Since 2002, China has been very busy as of late promoting hybrid rice production in West Africa by expert missions to Sierra Leone, Guinea and Mozambique and train high level ministry officials and senior university students on ‘modern rice production methods’.  

But is hybrid technology the answer?

Yield data from six Chinese hybrid rice varieties obtained in Guinea last 2003 demonstrated a stunning 9.2 t/ha for the highest yielding hybrid, which is three to six times higher than the yield of local cultivars. However, these tests required extremely high application of fertilizers (160 kg N, 70 kg P, 70 kg K) and no local variety was included.

Africa’s solution for China’s appetite

In Guinea Bissau in early 2007, Chinese businessmen pledged to invest € 45 million in the country’s cashew nut industry, which is one of the biggest such industries on the continent. After serious food shortages last year that degenerated into violent riots, the Senegalese government was eager to attract Chinese investment. According to Professor Li Anshan, one of China's top African specialists at Beijing University: “Africans desperately need to modernize their agriculture both to insure their food security and to earn hard currency by exporting. China needs to deal with its growing food demand and Africa seems to offer the solution”.

See further:

- http://r4dreview.org/2009/03/is-hybrid-rice-the-answer/

- International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)

- http://www.jamestown.org/

Published on 1 July 2010