Pursuing food security, China plants confidence in farmers

Zhang Baohua's "enclosure movement" was rewarded after he leased a chunk of farmland from his fellow villagers.

The 61-year-old farmer in eastern Shandong Province rented 600 mu (40 hectares) of farmland plots and received 138,000 yuan (21,940 U.S. dollars) in subsidies this year.

As part of incentives to spur enthusiasm for raising crops, the local government offered subsidies to farmers who leased more than 300 mu of farmland for the first time this year.

Rapid urbanization has left fewer people willing to grow crops, as toiling on farmland is widely regarded as less profitable than working in cities, said Hu Yuegao, an agriculture professor at China Agricultural University.

"The subsidies enhanced my confidence in farming," Zhang told Xinhua.

In order to boost the agricultural sector and spur crop-growing confidence, China earmarked 1.2 trillion yuan in 2012 from its central budget to support agriculture, up 17.9 percent from the previous year.

China's grain output hit 590 million tonnes in 2012, marking the ninth consecutive year of growth. The country achieved its grain output target for 2020 eight years ahead of schedule.

But China should not ignore the significance of food security even after years of good harvests, according to a statement released after the recently concluded Central Rural Work Conference.

China is expected to consume 720 million tonnes of grain by 2020, which means the country has to increase its annual grain output by more than 10 million tonnes in the coming years.

Song Hongyuan, an agriculture researcher with the Ministry of Agriculture, said China's grain production foundation is unstable.

China needs to work to make crop-growing profitable for farmers and modernize the agricultural sector, said Song.