Dynamic Analysis of China's Population and Grain Balance

Principal Investigator:
Shen, Jianfa

Co-investigator(s):
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Summary:
Who will feed China? Can China feed herself? This is an important question facing the world and China in the 1990s. There have been a hot debate and two opposite views exist. The debate was started by Lester R. Brown in the Worldwatch Institute in a series of articles and talks from 1994. Based on the industrialization experience of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, which have changed from a position of self-sufficient in grain to import up to 66-76% grains nowadays, Brown predicted that China will import huge amount of grain from the rest of the world and he warns that the world is now on a demographic and economic path that is environmentally unsustainable.

This project will attempt to assess the past and future balance of population, grain production and consumption in China using the recent population and agricultural data of China. It attempts to draw conclusions based on precise and reliable quantitative analysis and dynamic simulations. The results will be most useful for a better understanding of China¡¦s position in population and grain balance and international trading on grain.