China's food security dream faces land, soil and water woes

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https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-food-security-dream-faces-land-soil-water-woes-2024-05-23/

China's food security dream faces land, soil and water woes

By Mei Mei Chu
May 23, 2024 4:57 AM EDT Updated 2 hours ago

Summary

- In 10 years, China aims to slash grains, soybean imports
- Outlook diverges sharply with US forecasts for China
- Lack of arable land, soil damage pose challenges
- China needs bigger farms to speed productivity growth

BEIJING, May 23 (Reuters) - China, the world's biggest agriculture importer, has set targets to drastically reduce its reliance on overseas buying over the coming decade in line with its push for food security, but they will be exceedingly difficult to meet, experts say.

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[Irish_Dem]

1. This is an important issue.

The Chinese government is hell bent on feeding the Chinese citizenry.
1.4 billion hungry people does not bode well for a dictatorship.

So food is a national security issue and China relies on the US for that food.
At the same time China increasingly hostile to the US, and we may be engaged
in a war with them when they invade Taiwan.

We could cut off their food supply.

So it is critical that China provides domestic sources of food, but that is going to be difficult for them.