(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-04-16 07:27

In his inspection tour of a grain production area in North China last week, Premier Wen Jiabao used a quote from the late Chairman Mao Zedong: "With enough grain reserves ready, our heart will be at ease." We see the unprecedented importance the central government has attached to agriculture development and grain production.

Premier Wen assured the people and the world that China had enough grain reserves and that it could feed its own population. As Wen said, a country with a population of 1.3 billion makes the biggest contribution to the world by feeding its population on its own.

Authorities from the State Administration of Grain reiterated on Monday that grain supply was not a problem with ample reserves, and that China would very likely have another bumper harvest, the fifth consecutive increase in grain output in the past three decades.

In the backdrop of soaring food prices worldwide and the warnings by the United Nations and the World Bank against a looming food crisis, the stability of food supply and agricultural production in the world's most populous nation is of particular significance to the food security of the entire world.

But it may not be wise to ignore a possible imbalance between supply and demand in the future. It may not always be plain sailing in the long-term development of agriculture.

An old Chinese saying goes: "One must take a long-term view of the deficiency in the future even when the supply is more than enough, and it would be too late to regret a state of unpreparedness when one is faced with scarcity".

As Nie Zhenbang, director of the grain administration, suggested in his signed article in People's Daily on Monday, we have an uphill battle ahead to keep the balance between the supply of grain and its demand in the years to come, with the dwindling of fresh water resources and arable land.

In such circumstances, the importance of keeping our existing farmland from being eroded away by construction projects and urban expansion can never be overestimated. So we need stricter and harsher penalties for those officials who dare to occupy farmland without approvals from the central government.

In addition, we cannot afford a more polluted ecological system, which will further deplete the already deficient fresh water supply for agriculture use.

We should not sacrifice self-sufficiency in food supply for urbanization and business growth.

The lowest grain reserves in decades and soaring food prices in many parts of the world should further increase our urgency to do a better job in promoting agriculture development.

(China Daily 04/16/2008 page8)