HUNGER WAR

Introduction

Food security is an important aspect for stability in any country. For years, China has been attempting to build an internal and self-sufficient food system for its population of 1.4 billion people. However, the mammoth task of providing food for the world’s largest population consists of several challenges, such as internal and external stability, good governance, international trade agreements, agricultural technology, and a global food supply chain. These conditions are often interlinked and any changes in these could disrupt attempts to establish self-reliance . For instance, if a country imports fertilizers from another country for better agricultural production, it would face a severe impact on its agricultural industry if it failed to import fertilizers in unforeseen circumstances. Supply chains become intrinsically important for countries striving for food safety and food security. China has been striving to enforce various domestic and international policies to secure its people from the food shortages in the country. However, external and uncontrollable situations could interfere with the large-scale production of food and presentations. The Russia- Ukraine crisis is one such event that will affect China’s food security for years to come. The country depends heavily on agri-food products and fertilizers from conflict ridden nations. The recent crisis and trade sanctions on Russia have restricted its export activities globally, affecting many countries. Ukraine and Russia are global exporters of food products such as wheat, soybean, sunflower oils, various cereals, and maize.

Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, production and export have been severely interrupted due to internal instability, infrastructural damages, road blockages, and export sanctions. Amongst many countries, China faces a massive problem in meeting its food demands and feeding its large population. This chapter discusses how Ukraine and Russia are important actors in global food production and how the conflict between the two countries has posed an immediate as well as a longer threat to global food security particularly for the Belt-road initiative (BRI) countries. Therefore, the instability in these two countries could lead to immediate and lasting effects on global food security particularly in China, as it depends heavily on both of these countries for their food supplies. Furthermore, the paper will attempt to discuss a few strategies the Beijing administration is undertaking to fight against the food crisis in the country.

The Contribution of Ukraine and Russia to the Global Food Security

Russia and Ukraine are both major contributors to global food markets. According to UN agencies, Ukraine runs the world’s most extensive food program, providing food for countries in crisis. According to David Beasley (2022) - the head of the WTF, Ukraine provides 40 per cent of its wheat to the world. Russia and Ukraine export major cereal crops like wheat, maize, and barley.

It is notable that Ukraine and Russia combined has a large share of food exports in the world - particularly in agro-food products. One-quarter of the global wheat export came from these countries. Ukraine accounts for approximately half of the sunflower oil exports globally while Russia and Ukraine combined contribute another one-fifth of barley and maize export to the global food exports. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAOUN) reports that in 2016/17 and 2020/21, Russia and Ukraine respectively averaged around 19, 14, and 4 percent of global output in barley, wheat, and maize.

Furthermore, FAOUN acknowledges the role of these countries in global agriculture from the international trade perspective. Both the countries are the highest net exporters of agricultural products, often concentrated within a few countries. Therefore, the role of food exports of these countries becomes significant for the countries heavily dependent on their food security. Amongst the seven highest exporters of wheat, Russia and Ukraine share 79 per cent of total wheat exports, with Russia standing at the top with 39.2 million tonnes of wheat and meslin. In contrast, Ukraine stands at sixth with 20 million tonnes of wheat and meslin.

The agro-products export of these countries cannot be undermined for global food security. Moreover, the national food security of a number of countries is heavily dependent on import of agro-products from Russia and Ukraine. Therefore, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has become significant for not only their internal food security but also for the global food supply chain.

Along with the agro-products, Russia stands at the top in exporting nitrogen (N) fertilizers and is the second leading supplier of potassium (K) fertilizers, and third for phosphorous (P) fertilizers. The Russian Federation and Ukraine are vital suppliers to many countries not only in agro-products and food products but also in fertilizers. FAOUN stated that the global reliance on Russia for N, K, and P fertilizers stands at approximately 20 per cent dependency rate by 21 net importing countries. Many countries in Central Asia, Europe and the Latin America depends on the Russian fertilizers for their agricultural productions.

China is one of the major importers of N-fertilizer and P-fertilizers from Russia. Therefore, the Chinese agricultural industry would suffer significantly without the Russian fertilizers, which could lead to an internal food security crisis and jeopardize the Chinese attempt to be self-sufficient in food production and consumption. According to Asia Global online (2020), China’s major food security challenges are subjected to the shortage of wheat, barley, maize, sunflower oil and fertilizers.

Although fertilizers are not food products, yet it is an essential part of agricultural production and efficiency. In 2021, China imported about 28.35 million metric tons of corn, amounting to 152 per cent of the previous year. The United States, Brazil, and Ukraine are significant exporters of corn to China, while Ukraine accounts for one-third of the total amount. Deteriorating trade relations with the US in recent years has led China to seek other options to meet the corn supplies from other countries. Ukraine has emerged as the leading nation to meet the corn demand of China under the backdrop of the US-China trade war. Since 2020, Ukraine has become China’s top trade partner in providing various agro-products along viewing Beijing as a critical entry point for BRI related trade.

The Evolution of China’s Food Security Regulations

Food security is one of the most significant sustainable development goals for any country. Every country strives to be self-sufficient in food production and consumption. However, due to internal and external factors, these goals are more than not left as desired rather than achieved. Lila Buckley (2012) points out that China had successfully fed 1.4 people - 20 per cent of the world’s population with only nine per cent of the world’s arable land. However, the challenge of continually providing for its people remains a humongous task with deteriorating arable land resources, water shortages, population increase, and climatic changes. Since the Cultural Revolution, China has been trying to build a strong food self-sufficiency program by investing in its agricultural sector and intensifying domestic food production. But Buckley highlights that in recent years, China had to limit exports of rice, maize, and wheat due to food shortages and the lack of sufficient grain banks.

There are three elements necessary for sustainable food systems that are food production (grain, cereal, dairy, and poultry), inputs (fertilizers), and outputs (state of the environment). China has faced many famine and food shortage situations in the past. Ration quota and land reform laws were a few steps in equal distribution of food and natural resources to its people. In 1955, for the first time, China implemented the food quota system for its people. However, over the decades these policies have been rectified and reformed due to various developments. In 1981, the land reforms were implemented to incentivize the Chinese farmers to promote the domestic food demands. The land reforms in China helped the country increase its grain production from 345 million tons in 1982 to 618 million tons in 2017, surpassing the growth of its people by 34 per cent. The amount of food production in China feeds 20 per cent of the world’s population on 7 per cent of the world’s farmlands.

The rapid growth of food production is possible by the excessive and inefficient use of fertilizers. Consequently, the efficiency rate of food production in China remains at 32 per cent compared to the world’s efficiency rate of 55 per cent, leading to severe environmental damage and poor dietary products causing health issues. Food safety is a more significant issue within the food security system in China. John K. Yasuda (2015) exposes the Chinese food system at large remain unproductive and inadequately administered such as microbiological hazards remain unmonitored, lapses within supply-chain management, and policies are incorporated. Food adulterated complaints reported by China Consumer Association have increased in 2011 by 22 per cent since 2010¹¹. Statistics on food poisoning and inflated food inspection are often underreported by the Chinese government. The Pew Research Center reported food safety as the most serious concern that has increased from 12 per cent in 2008 to 41 per cent in 2012. Food security in China, therefore, does not limit to the supply of food products but the large eco-system of production, land, fertilizers, governance, distribution, and various other aspects. These multiplicities pose great difficulties and challenges for any country not only to meet the food requirements of their people but to create a healthy dietary pattern, good quality food production, better infrastructure, transparent governance, and multilateral trade corporations.

Yasuda, writing on Why Food Safety Fails in China: The Politics of Scale, highlighted that China has over 240 million farmers, 1 million processors, and millions of distributors. Even then the country has failed to formulate a national food security system with varied interests within a common framework of governance.  The scandal of infant formula in Fuyang, Anhui province, in 2013 led China to formulate its first significant food safety initiative through the development and strengthening of central-level coordination bodies. Food-safety laws and procedures stretch back to 1949 when China for the first time, shifted its focus from ‘food security to food sanitation to food safety . Soon after the formation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the major concern in the nation-building of the newly formed government of Wenbao Wenti was ‘how to solve the problem of food and clothes’. The State Council of China, in the wake of three years-long famine (1959-1961), promulgated the Trial Regulations on the Administration of Food Sanitation (TRAFS) in 1965. TRAFS regulations dealt with the poor sanitary conditions under which the food products were manufactured, purchased, processed, stored, transported, and distributed. Various enforcements tools were implemented under these regulations, such as ‘training in ethics, skills training, public surveillance, food sanitation, performance competition, administrative penalties rather than economic incentives, information disclosure, and judicial control’. The reform represented the first-ever food security legislation of the People’s Republic of China. The cultural revolution had jeopardized the legal system and resulted in the failure of TRAFS regulations in China.

The second primary food safety law in China was ‘The Food Sanitation Law (for Trial Implementation) of 1983’. During the latter part of the 1970s, the Chinese government had learned its lessons through historical experiences of the Cultural Revolution and thus forcing the Chinese government to reform its economy through liberalization and open its markets to the outside world. The advent of economic liberalization brought new laws and regulations to advance the Chinese economy and political structures. These new regulations were further extended to food ingredients, food additives, and food packaging from merely food sanitation and food security. Eventually, these regulations were replaced by a sanitary food law in 1983, which was then extended to privately owned food manufacturers and vendors emerging from the economic reforms.

The Food Sanitation Law (FSL) was revised and updated in 1995 by the Standing Committee of the NPC. The revised FSL had a basic framework of the previous laws of 1983, while the significant change was in the administrative supervision role designated to the Ministry of Health. This was the first attempt to centralize the FSL at the country level while representing the regulations to the county or state level administrative agencies. Under the revised laws, the State Council and Provincial governments issued over 100 detailed rules, followed by 500 food standards by the Ministry of Health. The major loophole in the newly revised FSL was that these regulations did not take a ‘farm to fork’ approach and left the cultivation unregulated and open to exploitation .

The 21st century has forced China to enforce international food safety laws with the country’s ascension into the World Trade Organisation (WTO). In 2001, China formally joined the WTO and regulated the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (the SPS Agreement). To abide by the international food safety regulations and measures, China had to ratify its domestic food regulations in line with the international standards and procedures. During the same period, China suffered from global food safety incidents, one of which was the melamine- tainted milk scandal. Many of these incidents arose from international food adulteration for economic gains. However, these incidents brought national shame and economic losses, and distrust amongst local and global communities towards Chinese food standards. As a consequence of various instances of food safety collapses, forced the National People’s Congress (NPC) to revise and formulate new food laws and regulations to safeguard food safety and maintain the international trust in Chinese food products. On the 28th of February, 2009 NPC finally passed the Food Safety Law, which was later enforced on June 1, 2009. 

Food Safety Law, which was later enforced on June 1, 2009. Yonghong Hang believes that there are two major points noteworthy in the Food Safety Law of 2009.

• Firstly, the shift from food safety to food sanitation - the shift from food management to the assurance that food is non-toxic, harmless, and compliant with sufficient nutritional requirements and will not cause any chronic, acute, and potential short and long-term health issues to the consumers.

• Secondly, “the Food Safety Law is a starting point for building a risk-based food safety system and developing the collaboration between administrative agencies and governmental stakeholders”. These regulations enabled the Chinese government not only to ensure the safety and nutritional value of their food products but also brought private and public enterprises into an organic system to secure various food regulations and measures towards the former goals.

The shift from food safety to food sufficiency in the Chinese food regulations and laws enabled better and nutritionally high-quality staples and other food products. However, the primary goal of food sufficiency was still paramount to the Beijing administration. To achieve food sufficiency, the Republic of China looked outwards despite a sustainable agricultural sector. China depends on many countries such as Brazil, the United States, Canada, Japan, and Central Asia for its agro- food products. Food import remains the primary solution to the growing food security problem in China, as the arable land per person remained well below 0.21 acres in 2016.

China’s Food Imports as a Solution to Food-Security

As pointed out above, China has been implementing self-sufficient food security policies for its people. However, there are internal and external challenges to attaining food sufficiency in China due to its population size and limited natural resources like arable land, water, fertilizers, and food production due to harsh climatic conditions. According to a China power report, China’s food import is almost double its exports in 2017. In the last ten years, China’s food imports grew from $28.5 billion to $105 billion, while its export grew from $33.8 billion to $59.6 billion. In 2007, China’s surplus in food export was about $5.3 billion, implying that China exported more food products in 2007 than buying from other countries. This trajectory changed drastically over a decade as China imported food products worth over $105 billion while imports remained at $59.7 billion. Food imports became one of the significant solutions for China to fight against the growing insufficient food banks in the country. The second problem for China remained the limited natural resources to produce a variety and efficient agro-food products. There could be many reasons for the growing dependency on food imports, such as food prices, land limitations, population growth, poor agriculture, and global dietary patterns.

China’s power report suggests that the rapid economic growth has reduced the malnourished population of China. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) defines undernourished as “the condition of an individual not acquiring enough food to meet the minimum dietary energy required per year, and is a key indicator of chronic hunger.” FAO report indicates the drastic decline in the undernourished population in China from 16.2 per cent in 2000 to 8.6 per cent in 2017. The decline in the malnourished population came with the rise in the per capita income from $330 to $9460 over the same period. With the rise in per capita income , China could reach the UN targets of cutting the undernourished population in half by 2015. The growing middle-class population of China could afford sufficient and better food because of growing economic conditions.

Due to the growing middle-class population and high incomes, the change in diet was rather prevalent. China has been moving from a ‘grain-oriented’ diet to a ‘meat-based’ diet in recent years. Meat consumption in China witnessed an astronomical increase. China consumed merely 7 million tonnes of meat in 1975, which grew to 86.5 million by 2017, making China the biggest meat-consuming country globally. The change in diet required heavy dependence on the import industry of China as it could no longer meet the demands of its people, whose dietary patterns changed dramatically. China’s power report infers that “China has become increasingly reliant on imports to account for changing food habits.” Chinese food imports grew from just $14 billion to $104.6 billion. The food trade deficit of China forced the Beijing administration to rethink and revise their food self-sufficiency policy to meet the domestic food requirement with home-grown food products. However, the rapid changes in the economy and dietary patterns forced the country to look outside its borders to meet the needs of its people. Ground-water contamination is another problem for poor agriculture in China, along with limited arable land. 15.5 per cent of the total groundwater in China is labeled as ‘grade V’, that reflects the contamination level of water as not only unuseful but also harmful for agricultural and domestic purposes. Soil contamination has also forced the government to prohibit agricultural activities in some parts of Henan province.

Food production scandals and corruption have also tainted the reputation of Chinese products. Baby formula killed six infants while 300,000 were sickened - “additional scandals have included the seizure of $483 million worth of illegal meat in 2015 - some of which was to be found more than 40 years old - and numerous instances of illegal gutter oil used in restaurants”. These scandals have forced the Chinese population to distrust domestic products while the demand for imported food products has grown substantially. The rapid growth in per capita income had not only changed the food patterns but had also supplied financial abilities for the Chinese people to look for imported food products. These factors have forced China to look outside for its food requirements - raising its food imports to approximately twice as much as its exports. The global food market remains a critical place for China to obtain its food sufficiency and food security. However, the recent Russia-Ukraine Crisis has escalated tensions within the Beijing administration for its substantial dependency on food imports from these countries. The Belt-Road Initiative (BRI) was an attempt to reduce China’s wheat dependency on the United States and other western countries while importing more wheat from countries like Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Eastern Europe. The current situation in Eastern Europe - particularly, the Russian invasion may have serious impacts on the wheat, sunflower oil, and other staple needs of China.

How did the Russia-Ukraine war affect China in terms of food security?

The conflicting situation and ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia have many implications for the world order. China’s self-reliant stance on food security and its focus on boosting food production has enabled a less severe effect of war on them. China remains the largest consumer of corn, yet, according to researchers, only 9.4% of their domestic consumption came from imports. Similarly, only 5.9% of the country’s wheat production was imported. However, it is noteworthy that Ukraine has played a vital role in China’s food security. In such a situation, any hindrance in imports from Ukraine is likely to increase inflation in China. Imports of wheat, corn, edible oil, and seeds are likely to be disrupted, creating inflationary pressure on China.

Since China depends heavily on Russian fertilizers and other agricultural chemicals. Therefore, the Russian war conflict with Ukraine had certainly halted the supply chain of these chemicals and various other agricultural production needs in China. These supply chain disruptions and Russian sanctions could lead to severe agricultural production challenges for China – resulting in a larger food security crisis in the country. As argued above that China had been regulating various food laws and policies with recent agricultural reforms and farming protections, the lack of fertilizers and agricultural chemicals would pose a greater threat to the domestic agricultural production in China – causing the multilevel and complex problems in self-sufficiency goals in food security.

Furthermore, Russia contributes to the global production of wheat, barley, sunflower oil, wheat, and maize. The current conflict between Ukraine and Russia poses serious concerns for China’s food security on two fronts: the rise in inflation of important agricultural products; and secondly, to navigate the alternative source of imports that may be rising. China imports roughly 69 per cent of sunflower oil from Ukraine and 28.3 per cent from Russia. This accounts for a total of 97 per cent estimated. The turn of events in the war can lead to a change in the trade pattern, which may bring China some turbulence. However, China’s recent focus on securing domestic food safety is likely to ensure that not much is affected by the war. There is no consensus on how severely or how lightly may the war affect China. However, seeing the current trend, it is safe to note that in the long term, the Ukraine-Russia war is likely to affect the import of many important agricultural commodities. This can raise issues of inflation caused by the war, as well as the issue of finding trade routes to import, which can all boil down to the ultimate question of accessibility. Furthermore, the agricultural industry of China is most likely to suffer as the Russian fertilizers are difficult to be imported due to various sanctions. China depends heavily on Russia for N and P fertilizers for efficient and productive agricultural production. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine had slowed if not stopped the exportation of various agri-food products and fertilizers. Keeping these factors in considerations, China is one of the biggest importer of agro-food products from both of these countries. Evelyn Cheng writing on CNBC states “Ukraine has been an important part of China’s attempt to improve national food security by diversifying its suppliers of grain . . .any disruption in shipment would undoubtedly create inflationary pressure”.