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China's growing demand for soy, meat and dairy will require an additional 63 million hectares of farmland from all its trading partners, according to new research reported by Eco-Business on October 21st.
Projections by the Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), an independent global research institute, in collaboration with Chinese researchers, predict that China's demand for soybeans and dairy products will double by 2050 from the base year of 2010, said the report.
The study, which was published in Nature Sustainability , also predicted that China's demand for pork and poultry would increase by a third, with demand for cereals and other crops increasing by 25% and 9%, respectively, wrote the Eco-Business .
To meet growing demand for food, China would need to expand its pasture and agricultural land by an additional 25 million hectares by 2050, according to the study, generating an additional 100 tons of CO₂ emissions annually.
“Assessing the impacts of future food demand requires comprehensive analyzes of China's agricultural sector,” said study lead author Hao Zhao, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
The study also looked at how trade relationships need to change to meet China's growing food needs.
“If we want to track how this affects the global environment, more complex models are needed because we have to look at China's trade with other countries,” added Hao, who represents the Integrated Biospheres Future (IBF) Research Group.
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The study said that despite China's aspirations to be self-sufficient in food, it was struggling to meet its domestic demands and that was when trade came into play.
For example, China largely depends on U.S. soybean imports, according to the report. However, the study projected that bilateral trade patterns would change, and China was expected to import 66 million tons of soybeans from Brazil in 2050.
“It is clear that China’s growing demand for agricultural products poses a challenge to the world. If we are to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals that have been mapped out, policies promoting sustainable consumption and production need to be further developed in China,” said study co-author Petr Havlik, who leads the IBF Research Group at the IIASA.
“We need proper trade agreements too. China needs to import from countries with greater resource efficiency and at the same time be cautious about resource exploitation,” Havlik added.
China has currently adopted “moderate imports” as part of its official food security strategy, the report said.
He also set a goal of building another 66.7 million hectares of “high-standard agricultural land” by 2022, to be used in large-scale mechanical farming to increase productivity, wrote the Eco-Business .
China-based agricultural analyst Zhang Xin told Eco-Business that many countries, including Russia and Ukraine, have recently imposed strong restrictions on food exports, raising concerns about food security in China.
“It is now urgent to do more to move towards a more efficient and modern farmland management system,” he said.
This text has been automatically translated from English.
Source: Oils & Fats International (OFI)
