2. Prospects for Population Growth, Farmland Exploitation, and Food Production in the 21st Century
Will China really become a gigantic grain importer, as forecasted by Mr. Brown?
According to the Chinese National Statistics Bureau, the total population in mainland China reached 1.2 billion on February 15, 1995. This is so large as to account for 21.4% of the world population, 5.7 billion. The bureau also announced that the future increase of the Chinese population would be controlled within 1.3 billion during the Ninth 5-year Plan period (1996-2000). In its long-term prospects up to the mid 21st century the total population of the mainland would be controlled within 1.5 or 1.6 billion, to eventually realize zero population growth. The population is expected to gradually decline after reaching its peak of 1.6 billion in 2030.
Such population growth has been attracting worldwide attention focusing on whether China will be able to support itself. In reality, China is feeding about 22% of the total world population with merely 7% of the total world farmland area. In the past 50 years since the foundation of the new China, its per-capita farmland area has decreased from 2.7 Mu to 1.2 Mu, due to population growth, while its per-capita demand for food has increased from 209kgs to 380kgs.
The Chinese Department of Agriculture and Ecological Environment Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has also announced their forecast results.
It estimates food production in China will increased by 72.1% between 1973 and 1995, and achieve 456.40 million ton in 1993, 460.00 million ton in 1995, and will achieve 500 to 520 million tons in 2000. In the meantime, the Macro Agriculture Research Center of the Chinese Agricultural Science forecasts that before 2020 when the population grows to 1.5 billion, the crop yields will increase to 670 million ton from 625 million ton, or to 450kgs from 425kgs per capita, so basically ensuring the self-sufficiency in food. Accordingly, the self-sufficiency rate of food in 2020 is expected to be 95% or more, which is far above Mr. Brown's forecast of 41% in 2030.
