Furthermore, due to the decrease in the available land area stemming from the population growth and economic development, the per-capita arable land area in China decreased from 0.18 hectare soon after the establishment of the modem nation to 0.11 in 1996. Especially, economic growth and the increasing population density in the Changjiang and Zhu Deltas is gradually converting the arable land that is most suitable for food production to other uses, seriously affecting production and supply of food.
As China is going through a high economic-growth period, solution of the food problem will be an important issue in the modernization process in future. China is a country with an immense population. Nations or regions with small populations may be able to solve food problems by imports, but such is not the case for populous countries. Total world food production is sufficient to meet the demand of the total world population now, yet a number of countries and regions are suffering from shortage of food. China needs steadily to maintain self-reliance with regard to food-supply as well as its high self-sufficiency rate, and that is the foundation which will guarantee sustainable growth. As a matter of fact, China has always been on this track.
To meet the huge population's demand for food, Chinese agriculture has no choice but to pursue long-term maximization of food production. However, as production has increased, the law of diminishing marginal returns has come into play, and the consumption rate of farm products especially crops has increased continuously-from 30% in 1984 to 35.6% in 1992, then to 42.5% in 1993. This trend sharply increases the marginal cost of food production. For the moment, China's domestic food prices are at the same level as those of the international market. Such continuous increases in food prices imply that China will have to introduce, as a developing nation, the agricultural protective policies which only developed countries can normally adopt.
