Self-sufficient food policy benefits world

Early this year, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) issued a special alert warning that North China, the country's wheat basket, was suffering from a severe winter drought that could devastate China's wheat harvest, putting further pressure on world wheat prices that have been rising rapidly in recent years.

Underlying the FAO's warning is the central message that should China lose its winter wheat crop, it will go to the international grain market to make up any shortfall. The sudden entry of such a huge buyer could certainly rock the international food markets.

However, the FAO's warning is a false alarm. First, because for the past six to seven years, China has lost around 7 percent of its annual grain output to various forms of natural disasters, and yet its annual grain production has been on the rise. In 2010 China's total grain production was a historical record of 546 million tons. Second, successive years of bumper grain harvests have enabled China to build up a large grain reserve of more than 40 percent of its annual consumption - much higher than the world average of around 17-18 percent. The growth in grain productivity for the past three decades has been very impressive, particularly since 2004.