Photo: History of Qingmei Kan
Editor|Ome Kanshi
"The people regard food as the sky" is an old saying that has been passed down in China to this day, and the mainland, as a country with a large population, consumes hundreds of millions of tons of grain every year.
Although we are a large agricultural country and still import a large amount of grain every year, India, which also has a similar population base, is the world's largest grain exporter.
Could it be that the mainland is inferior to India in terms of grain production? You may not be able to imagine the truth behind it!
Although the population of China and India is more than 1.4 billion, the output is very different, according to relevant data, in 2022, India's total grain production is 324 million tons, and the mainland's output is twice as much as India's.
This also makes people wonder, with a population of more than 1.4 billion, India still insists on exporting grain with only this grain, don't their own people eat much?
But if you look at the agricultural environment in China and India, you will suddenly understand.
Compared with the geographical environment of the mainland, the upper plain area of India is the largest area, while the mainland is mostly mountainous, from this point alone, the Indian country is very suitable for growing food, according to relevant data, India's arable land area has reached an astonishing 1.535 million square kilometers.
In addition, India is located in a very advantageous geographical environment, India is located on the South Asian continent, bordered by the Himalayas to the north, and bordered by the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal.
In addition, we can also find that India is located in a low latitude region, which makes most of India belong to the tropical monsoon climate, which is mainly characterized by warm and rainy weather, which is of great help to the growth of food.
Coupled with the fact that the tall mountains in the north have the effect of blocking the cold air, the grain grown in most parts of India can even be harvested three times a year.
Such a geographical environment and climate, which have great advantages, have also contributed to the harvest and prosperity of agriculture in India. However, with such a good environment, why is the total amount of food produced by India every year still not as good as that of the mainland?
Although India is a developing country, the construction of some infrastructure is still relatively backward, which also leads to many shortcomings in agricultural technology in India.
In rural India, development is still quite backward, and many infrastructure constructions cannot meet the needs of the villagers, not only the poor road infrastructure in the rural areas, but also the lack of agricultural irrigation systems.
As a result, Indian villagers have to use more backward and traditional methods to cultivate crops, which has led to a significant decrease in the speed and yield of food production.
On the other hand, the mainland's agricultural technology is already very advanced, because the mainland has already had a development process of thousands of years in planting, coupled with the rapid development of the mainland's science and technology, mechanized agricultural technology has been greatly improved.
In addition, there are arid regions in India where there is a perennial shortage of water and there is no even a basic irrigation system, let alone reservoirs and dams, which severely weakens crop yields.
Therefore, even if India is faced with this dilemma, it will still choose to export a large amount of its own grain, but the poor in India still account for a considerable part, and some people cannot even solve the most basic food and clothing.
Why does India insist on exporting grain, and is it not good to keep this grain for its own consumption? However, it also has to do with India's agricultural policy and market structure.
The most important of these is that India's industrial development prospects are very worrisome, which leads to the fact that India has nothing to exchange with foreign countries, so they can only rely on the hard-earned grain in exchange for some foreign exchange.
Therefore, India has no choice but to export grain to the outside world every year, because this is no longer a simple export issue, but a matter of India's own interests, otherwise a large number of Indians will starve to death every year because they cannot eat.
In addition to this, there are also relevant subsidy policies in India to encourage the production of food, which also increases the motivation of Indian farmers to a certain extent, thus promoting the improvement of agricultural technology.
Therefore, many Indian villagers will do their best to produce food in order to get these subsidies, but even so, the total amount of food they can produce each year is still somewhat different from ours.
And in the dietary Xi and lifestyle are also very different, Indians generally have a low demand for meat products, but Indians most often eat some plant-based vegetarian food.
This is not so high for some livestock, and to a certain extent, it also reduces the demand for animal feed, but the dietary needs in China are different.
The demand for meat products in the Chinese market can be said to be very large, although the sales after the impact of the epidemic in recent years are not very optimistic, but in general it is slightly more than that in India.
Therefore, the demand for plant feed in the mainland is much higher than in India, which is why the mainland imports a large amount of grain every year.
However, China imports grain not only for feed, but also to ensure domestic food safety and the interests of farmers across the country.
China's annual grain imports are also very diverse, not only the common wheat, but also soybeans and corn, which also meet the various needs of the people in more aspects.
In addition, some countries have a small population base, which will produce a lot of surplus food every year, and the mainland will import it at a relatively low price, thus reducing the cost and price of food in the country.
Nowadays, with the continuous improvement of the mainland's scientific and technological level, agricultural production is becoming more and more modern, and it can be seen from this that the mainland also has sufficient guarantees in terms of food security.
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