The content described in this article is based on official and reliable sources, which are repeated at the end of this article
Preface
Since the advent of Yuan Longping's grandfather's "hybrid rice" in 1973, the Chinese people have completely bid farewell to the days when they can't have enough to eat, and at the same time, the mainland has become a major grain producer. But even so, the mainland still has to import a large amount of grain every year, and the order of imported soybeans alone is enough to feed some small countries with small populations.
However, our neighbor India, which also has a population of 1.4 billion, exports a large amount of grain to foreign countries every year, although its land is less than one-third of that of the mainland. In 2021, India exported 21.4 million tons of rice, ranking first in the world in terms of rice exports, while the mainland imported 160 million tons of grain, making it the world's largest grain importer.
So, what is the reason why India exports a lot of grain, but we have to buy it all over the world?
Comparison of agriculture in two countries
India is located in the South Asian subcontinent, because it is bordered by the Himalayas in the north, which blocks the cold air flow from the north to India, which also makes most of India have high summer temperatures and abundant sunshine.
In addition, it belongs to the tropical monsoon climate, so the temperature is higher throughout the year, and the rainy season and dry season are more distinct, which also creates good growing conditions for the growth of crops. For most of the year, India's grain and crops are exposed to plenty of heat and light, which is conducive to the growth of crops.
In many parts of India, crops can be harvested three times a year. And at this point, only low-latitude regions such as Hainan Province can meet the conditions of India.
India is also a region with very complex topography, with plains, plateaus and mountains, and the diverse terrain features also provide the basis for him to grow different crops.
Like the Thar Desert in northwestern India, it is the main base of animal husbandry in India, while the high principles in the north provide a good environment for forests and grasslands. The central and southern regions are the main agricultural growing areas, with the Gangetic Plain being an important food production base.
However, in terms of the amount of arable land, although India has only 2.98 million square kilometers, its arable land area has reached a staggering 160 million hectares, which is 40 million hectares more than the mainland.
But interestingly, even though India has unique land resources and planting conditions, in 2022, they only produced 314.71 million tons of grain, but the mainland's grain production this year reached a staggering 686.53 million tons, which is twice as much as India. This is enough to see how low the land utilization rate in India is.
And this is also related to the level of industrial development of their countries, because their level of industrial development is relatively weak, so the stimulating effect on agriculture is relatively small. Even now, there are many farmers in India who are farming with oxen.
Add to that the scarcity of irrigation systems for farmland such as dams
Even though they have plenty of precipitation in June and July every year, they are not well preserved and utilized.
Since India, which has better land resources and climatic conditions than China, and produces less grain than China, why does India insist on exporting grain?
The truth about India's grain exports
India's grain exports are directly related to the backwardness of its country's industrial development, because they can only earn foreign exchange by buying and selling grain, which can also guarantee the country's fiscal revenue to a certain extent.
In addition, India also attaches great importance to its own military development, but because of their limited technological capabilities, it has no ability to rely on itself in the construction of a modern army.
But this guy has always had a dream of a strong army, so he can't make anything by himself, and he still wants his army to be stronger, what should he do, so he came up with a way, that is, to buy it.
Therefore, when they export grain to the outside world, to a certain extent, they also provide a certain amount of economic support for their own national defense construction, so that they can have military spending on purchasing weapons from abroad every year.
In addition, a lot of land in India is still in the hands of landlords, where 10% of the people control 50% of the land, so these landlords will treat ordinary landless farmers as low-cost labor to squeeze, and they will not care whether ordinary people have food to eat, only how much their grain can be sold this year.
Although this behavior in India has brought great benefits to the state and the landlord class, the people of the country are living in dire straits, according to statistics, India's per capita food supply is only 222 kilograms, while the mainland is more than twice that of India. According to the United Nations' Hunger Index rankings, India is also a country with severe hunger.
If a country like India, which is so hungry, dares to export grain, why does the mainland buy a large amount of food?
Why does China buy a lot of grain?
According to statistics, the total amount of grain imported by the mainland in 2022 will be as high as 14,687 tons, which is 21% of the country's total grain production, while the amount of grain exported is only 3.22 million tons. Seeing this set of data, do you have any questions, is there not enough food produced in China?
In fact, this is not the case, if it is just a simple solution to the problem of food and clothing, then China's grain is not only enough to eat, but also cannot be eaten. However, with the development of China's economy, the quality of life of the people is gradually improving, and people pay more attention to their quality of life while being fed.
This change in lifestyle has also increased the need for food diversification, so these processed grains are mainly used for processing feed and soybean oil.
Every year, 80 million to 90 million tons of soybeans are imported from abroad. Then at this time, someone will ask, since the mainland has enough food to eat. Why not give up some of the wheat and plant soybeans instead?
That's because the yield of soybeans per mu is only 300 catties at most, and if we want to produce 100 million tons of soybeans, we have to plant more than 600 million acres of farmland. In this case, we will only have 1.2 billion acres of land left to grow the staple food we need, and then we may not have enough to eat at all.
In addition, the price factor is also one of the reasons why many factory owners import grain from abroad. Because for some large feed processing factories in China, the cheaper the raw materials, the better it is for their own interests.
According to official data in 2023, the domestic price per ton of corn is 2,817 yuan, while the price of imported corn after paying taxes is basically 2,499 yuan, a gap of nearly 400 euros in quick money, making those bosses more optimistic about the grain imported from China.
In addition to this, our large imports of stored food are also related to a major lesson learned in 2004. That year, China's soybean self-sufficiency rate was less than 20 percent, which caught the attention of Americans, who took the opportunity to hype up international soybean demand. The $0.15 per kilogram of soybeans was speculated directly to $0.39.
Seeing that the price of soybeans soared, domestic farmers immediately expanded the production of soybeans, but only a few months later, the price of soybeans in the international market fell to $0.18, so the price of domestic soybeans was also affected, and directly plummeted. Many people blindly expand their planting, because soybeans are unsalable, and they can only let them rot in the ground.
Many Chinese soybean processors were unable to pay the high price for the goods during the subsequent price crash, so they led themselves into an economic crisis that eventually led to a takeover by the United States. As a result, it has basically controlled China's soybean processing enterprises.
Four years later, the United States began to use the old routine to speculate on the price of soybeans, and at this time, the state took action to release the reserve of soybeans from the granary, thereby stabilizing the domestic soybean price and crushing the American plan.
summary
The reason why we import soybeans and corn is not that we can grow them, but that they are cheaper to import from abroad than to grow them ourselves.
Therefore, the reason why China buys food all over the world is not because we don't have enough to eat, but because the country has more long-term and far-reaching considerations. In order to prevent those with bad intentions from taking advantage of the opportunity to fall into trouble when we can encounter difficulties, just like oil, even if our reserves are rich enough, we must insist on importing them in case of emergency.
Source: National Development and Reform Commission of the People's Republic of China, "Food Security Becomes a Global Focus on the Continent and the Situation is Quite Stable"
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