Han Jun, Deputy Director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, suggests that the Central Government could set different targets for provisions and overall food supplies.

"Provision security should be set as a core target to guarantee 100-percent self-sufficiency for rice and wheat, while the self-sufficiency rate for grain crops as a whole should be over 90 percent," Han said. "The target is to keep overall food self-sufficiency rate over 80 percent."

Hong believes that China's national food security will be assured as long as it can maintain more than 95 percent self-sufficiency for provisions, 65 percent for oils and 30 percent for soybeans.

To maintain stable grain production, the Chinese Government has set a target to conserve a minimum 120 million hectares of arable land, about 13 percent of the country's total land area.

However, according to official data, China's arable land has shrunk to about 121 million hectares, meaning the per-capita availability of arable land is less than 0.1 hectares.

According to UN standards, if per-capita availability of arable land falls below 0.05 hectares, this is to be considered a crisis. Currently, the measurements in more than 600 of China's 2,000 counties fail to meet this limit.

"We have no space to withdraw further," said Zhang Xiaoshan, a researcher with the CASS' Rural Development Institute.

Sustainability

Facing the harsh reality of today's situation, this year's CEWC pledged to further increase the country's agriculture output in a sustainable way by changing the development mode. To do this, there will be a focus on improving the construction of agricultural infrastructure and faster development of agriculturally applicable science.

In the past, the government considered raising the grain yield as a way to ease food security pressure. However, this method isn't sustainable and a great deal of farmland for various crops has already reached its maximum possible output, according to a study released by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in September last year.

"This led to many chronic problems like land and water pollution from excessive use of pesticides and fertilizers," said Li Guoxiang, Deputy Director of the CASS' Rural Development Institute.

According to a Xinhua report, the amount of fertilizers used during agricultural production in China averages at 480kg per hectare of land, 4.1 times of the global average, but the actual utility rate is only 30 percent. Excess fertilizer resides in the soil, creating pollution.

"In order to solve this problem, we must get rid of outdated development ideas and focus on both the quantity and quality of grain production," Li said.

Xu Xiaoqing, a researcher with the Research Department of the Rural Economy under the Development Research Center of the State Council, said that the aim of pushing to change agricultural development is to realize the integration of advanced techniques and mechanized production, and improve the utility ratio for agricultural resources.

According to statistics released by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China has more than 2.67 million hectares of medium- and low-yield farmland and 667,000 hectares of saline soil.

If farming techniques were sufficiently advanced, this farmland could be properly utilized, Xu said.

Xu also suggested that the utilization ratios for water and fertilizers could be improved by developing related technologies. "There is a lot of potential because the 50-percent utilization rate for water in China's agricultural production is much lower than the 70-percent average in developed countries," Xu added.

Pushed by the fast pace of industrialization and urbanization, China's agricultural and rural development has entered a new era and is facing a number of challenges, including higher production costs and rising demand, according to Li, with the CASS' Rural Development Institute. "Under such circumstances, China should help family farms to become intensive, specialized, large-scale agricultural operations," he said.

In November last year, the Central Government allocated 805 million yuan ($131.32 million) to boost agricultural industrialization, according to the Ministry of Finance. The investment aims to support new agricultural management systems and the industrialization of competitive products, the ministry stated.

Meanwhile, Cheng Biding, Deputy Director of the Regional Economic Association of China, noted the waste caused by poor management.

According to a 2011 survey by the State Administration of Grain, Chinese farmers lost 8 percent of their harvests due to poor storage. This equates to about 20 million tons a year or equivalent to the yield of 4.11 million hectares of land.

To solve this problem, China is exploring new methods, such as establishing "grain banks," huge, modern silos to help farmers store their grain.

"We can only ensure food security if we successfully manage our harvests in every step of production, processing, transport and storage," Cheng said.

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