Kommentar af Will Martin og Emiko Fukase på Verdensbankens “Let´s talk Development”
Nye stigninger i fødevareimporten til det gigantiske land vækker bekymring på globalt plan – for der er munde nok at mætte i forvejen, skriver to debattører på Verdensbankens netsted.
A recent surge in China’s food imports has rekindled concerns about global food demand and about food self-sufficiency in China.
According to UN Comtrade data, China’s trade in food was roughly balanced until 2008 but subsequently moved into deficit, with net imports rising to 38.7 billion US dollar (216-217 milliarder DKR) in 2013.
A key question is whether China will become a massive net food importer like Japan and South Korea, which rely on world markets for more than 70 percent of grain and soybean demand.
China’s rapid economic growth, at 8.5 percent average annual per capita in purchasing power parity terms since economic reform began in 1978, has dramatically changed Chinese diets (kostvaner).
While China’s per capita calorie consumption appears likely to be approaching its peak, the composition of food demand seems likely to continue to change, as consumers shift away from basic staples (grundnæringsmidler) and towards animal-based products.
Greater burden on agricultural resources
This shift to greater dietary diversity imposes greater burdens on agricultural resources since animal-based diets require much more agricultural resources than vegetable-based diets.
One way to address developments in China’s food self-sufficiency is to build up from an evaluation of the available resources, particularly land and water, using economy-wide models.
A recent, high-quality, study of this type by Huang, Rozelle and Yang (2013) predicts that China will need to import feed grains and other foods for some time but that its overall food self-sufficiency is likely to remain at above 90 percent level through 2030.
To complement this modeling approach, we turn to a simple statistical model, highlighting how key determinants of food demand and supply, such as income growth, productivity growth and land endowment, interact in influencing the demand for and supply of food, and net import demand.
To incorporate higher agricultural resource use associated with dietary shifts, we use resource based cereal equivalent (or CE) measures (Rask and Rask, 2011; Yotopoulos, 1985) to aggregate consumption and production of food.
Læs videre på
http://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/who-will-feed-china-21st-century
Begynd fra: “On the consumption side, we estimate the relationship….”
