- Soybean imports have increased drastically in recent years to make up for the shortfall in domestic production and meet the ever-growing demand of the domestic market.
It is problems like these that the proposed national grain safety policy is expected to solve. Based on self-reliant grain production and moderate imports, the policy was outlined at theCentral Economic Work Conference in mid-December, an annual tone-setter for next year'seconomic development, and the Central Rural Work Conference in late December.
China has always been committed to ensuring basic grain self-sufficiency by using domesticresources. But going by the policy, the country needs to become self-sufficient in corn, togetherwith rice and wheat, and prevent the domestic corn market from going the soybean way. Andincreasing production remains the best way of becoming self-sufficient in corn.
Though gradual, China's corn production has been rising in recent years, reaching a record 200million tons in 2012. But corn imports have also kept rising because of the inflexible demand forfeed and its use to make biofuel. Such a tendency cannot be checked without making concertedefforts.
China does not have authoritative data on how big a gap its domestic corn supply faces. Corn production has seen a gradual increase in recent years, but that has been achieved mainly by squeezing the cultivation area of other crops and not by raising per-unit yield of corn. Since it is not possible for China to continuously expand its corn growing area, the country has to boost its per-unit corn output if it wants to fill or narrow the corn supplying gap and become self-sufficient inthe crop. The lack of progress will hamper the country's efforts to ensure grain security and prevent the domestic corn market from suffering the fate of the soybean.
The Central Economic Work Conference emphasized the use of science and technology for grain security. China's corn yield is about 380 kilograms per mu (666 square meters), only 60 percent that of the United States. A lower output, however, means room for improvement. A series of methods can be used to boost per-unit corn yield, including improving the infrastructureand farming procedures, and choosing good strains of seeds, better soil and fertilizer management.
New technologies, including breeding and growing technologies for transgenic crops, can be ofhelp.
The self- bred phytase transgenic corn technology - coupled with industrialized cultivation basedon experimental planting and assessment of scientific attributes - can also help China boost itsper-unit corn yield. Such types of corn can sharply lower phosphorus pollution and raise the ratio of feed nutrient utilization.
China has no option but to expedite efforts to develop its own corn technologies and promote industrialization if it does not want its domestic corn market to be dominated by international transgenic corn supplies.
ChinaDaily, by Huang Dafang Senior researcher with the Biotechnology Research Institute, Chinese Academyof Agricultural Sciences.
