Why does China want to build a more diversified food supply system?
Hi, everyone,
On September 15, the State Council of China issued the "Opinions on Practicing the Macro-Food Concept and Building a Diversified Food Supply System". This document emphasizes establishing a "macro-agriculture concept" and a "macro-food concept" and building a diversified food supply system.
The purpose of China's doing this is first to protect the ecological environment and make food no longer overly dependent on cultivated land. We know that farming damage to the ecology includes aggravating soil erosion. China will accelerate the construction of a diversified food supply system featuring the combination of farming, animal raising, and microorganisms by promoting the development of new varieties, new fields, and new food technologies, and improving the ecological environment on the premise of ensuring food supply.
China's "developing food resources in an all-round and multi-channel way and expanding food source channels" will include at least the following:
- Traditional agricultural products such as grain, legume oil crops, vegetables, meat, aquatic products, etc.
- Woody oil crops, forest fruits, forest fungi, bee products, etc.
- Deep-sea aquaculture products.
- New types of foods using biotechnology, such as sugar production from non-grain biomass, microbial thallus protein, algae food, etc.
- Edible fungi.
Some measures that China will soon take include:
- Strengthen basic research on food development. Try to have breakthroughs in cutting-edge technologies such as microbiomics, related big data, material science and intelligent manufacturing, and intelligent evaluation of food nutritional quality, and promote the deep integration of science and technology and the development of the food industry. Support the tilt of agricultural science and technology talent training plans towards the field of food science and technology, and strengthen the construction of relevant disciplines and majors.
- Accelerate breeding innovation. Strengthen the construction of germplasm resource banks for crops, livestock and poultry, agricultural microorganisms, forestry and grass, marine and freshwater fishery. Cultivate new high-yield, high-quality and stress-resistant varieties.
- Overcome the bottleneck of key equipment for food development such as the harvesting of woody grain and oil and the sowing, harvesting, transportation and other links of facility vegetables, and research, develop and promote applicable machinery in hilly and mountainous areas, facility planting and livestock and aquaculture equipment and special machinery for under-forest crops.
In addition, China will also promote the consumption of nutritious and healthy food, continuously promote food conservation, and work against food waste on dining tables and in public cafeterias, to reduce losses in food production, processing and consumption. ###