Food security has come at ecological cost: official

Despite concerns over China's ability to feed its 1.3. billion people, the production of many agricultural goods has exceeded the domestic demand, but the accomplishment has come at a hefty cost to the ecology, an official from a government think tank admitted on Friday.

The 2014 China's Food Security & Food Safety Strategy Summit was jointly organized by the Development Research Center (DRC) of the State Council and the Almanac of China's Economy Press.

According to information released at the Friday summit, China's food production nearly doubled, an increase of 98 percent, from 1978 to 2013. Production of oil rose six times, fruit 37 times, and aquatic products more than 12 times.

"A lot of our commodities, including agricultural and food products, have exceeded their demands … However we must realize that China's agriculture has critical problems in many aspects. Currently China's food production capability was obtained, for a substantial part, by sacrificing the environment," said Li Wei, director of the DRC.

"China's utilization of fertilizers and pesticides [per square kilometers] has greatly exceeded the global average and is far beyond what's reasonable," he added.

According to Luo Yunbo, Dean of the College of Food Science & Nutritional Engineering under China Agricultural University, the amount of fertilizer used in China equals that of India and the US combined, but the effectiveness of fertilizer utilization in China is 10 percent lower than developed countries.

Excessive extraction of underground water, desertification and inappropriate exploitation of wetland have all contributed to ecological deterioration, Li added. He suggested that China should import more food to reduce the pressure on the environment.

Li's opinion was echoed by Huang Jikun, director of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Huang predicted that in the next 20 or so years, the risk of food shortages will increase but said the situation will not have an imminent impact on China's food security.

"Some African countries have huge potential in agriculture … If China could help these countries develop, it will indirectly secure China's food security problem," Huang said.