Draft law to ensure more stable rice bowls and food security

A draft food security law recently submitted to China's top legislature for deliberation clearly stipulates that China implements a national food security strategy based on self-reliance, domestically based companies, moderate imports and technological support.

Keeping the rice bowl firmly in Chinese people's hands has always been a top priority for China, a country of 1.4 billion people. China's food security guarantee has continuously improved over the past decade, as it feeds nearly one-fifth of the world's population with just 9 percent of the world's arable land and 6 percent of the world's fresh water resources.

China has ensured sufficient harvests and market supply of grain harvests for years. However, there are still potential threats to its food security because of insufficient legal protection. On the one hand, the problem of "non-agricultural" and "non-grain producing" tags in some cultivated land cannot be ignored. Epidemics and extreme weather conditions have also brought uncertainties. On the other hand, there are a series of outstanding challenges for China's food security, such as growing rigid demand, relatively little arable land, and increased difficulties to boost grain production. All these highlight the need to further improve the law to ensure food security.