China has unveiled its rural “revitalization” plan for 2025, listing “ensuring the supply of grain” and overall food security as its top priority.
“China’s grain supply, overall, does not surpass demand; instead, it remains in a state of borderline sufficiency,” Han Wenxiu, director of the Office of the Central Rural Work Leading Group under the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee.
He said this year’s rural policy outline, known in China as “Document No. 1,” will focus on efforts to “stabilize” an area of arable land that will serve as the country’s grain basket.
China imported 29.5 million tons of corn in the 2020-21 marketing year, more than five times the pre-2020 maximum, Reuters reported on Feb. 11, adding that much of that haul was U.S.-sourced.
China’s 2024-25 corn and wheat imports reached 10 million and 8 million metric tons, respectively, down nearly a quarter from the January estimates, Reuters cited U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture figures as saying, in sharp falls of 57% and 32% respectively from their averages over the last four seasons.
Meanwhile, soybean imports reached a record high of 105 million tons in 2024, accounting for 66% of total grain imports, it said.
What is Document No. 1?
The ruling Chinese Communist Party signals the importance of rural and agricultural policy in its political agenda by making it the subject of its first major policy document to be issued in the New Year.
The first of these documents in 1982 was ground-breaking, because it formalized a shift from the collective farming of the Mao era to the “household responsibility” system of rural leases, paving the way for private markets in agricultural products and restructing the economy to unleash decades of economic growth.
In recent years under President Xi Jinping, food security has become a top priority for the government, with rural policy moving to once more tighten state control over the supply of grain and to facilitate the transfer of rural land away from farmers if needed.
“Central Document No. 1 is a political document,” Li Chuanliang, a former deputy mayor in charge of financial and economic affairs in the northeastern cities of Jixi and Hegang, told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview.
“No matter what good news it announces in a given year, it has only one purpose, which is to further control and stabilize [agricultural production and supply].”
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What does this year’s document tell us about China’s priorities?
Experts say the renewed focus on food security could be linked to Beijing’s decision to explore non-U.S. food sources amid uncertain bilateral ties.
The top item listed by Document No. 1 reads: “Comprehensively consolidate the foundation of national food security and ensure stable production and supply of important agricultural products such as grain.”
The government wants producers to increase capacity by 100 billion jin (more than 66 million tons) and to “strive to maintain stable grain production throughout the year.”
The document calls for the stabilizing of the arable land supply to ensure a constant supply of grain.
How will they do this?
There isn’t really an internal grain market in China. Most grain purchases are made by the state-owned conglomerate Sinograin, and prices are controlled by the government.
The central government will also coordinate the transfer of grain and compensation between grain-producing and grain-consuming provinces, so as to financially support major grain-producing areas, Zhu Weidong, deputy director of the Office of the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission, told a news conference launching the policy on Feb. 26.
In 2023, the government hired an army agricultural management officers whose main job is to " stabilize the grain supply" as part of a nationwide and comprehensive food security policy.
They will try to ensure that land remains available for agricultural use, rather than being developed or exploited in other ways.
Beijing is also revamping a Mao-era system of food distribution that experts say could provide an emergency logistics network in the event of war.
The government will also seek to boost grain and oil crop yields with “high-efficiency” planting and processing technology, expand oilseed rape and peanut production, and research new forms of feed for livestock to reduce the demand for grain in that sector, the document said.
It will also encourage people to eat more edible fungus-based foods, algae-based foods and “plant meat,” and “deepen agricultural cooperation” with its Belt and Road partners, which means non-U.S. sources of grain, experts say.
“China has long relied on soybean imports from the United States and Brazil,” according to current affairs commentator Cheng Xiaonong, who said Beijing is also concerned about how it would feed its 1.4 billion people in the event of a war or a blockade.
“A country with more than one billion people must be able to be self-sufficient in food supply,” he said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.