Only by strengthening food security as the foundation of national security can we effectively guard against various risks and challenges in a world amid profound changes unseen in a century, thus laying a solid foundation for ensuring the overall national stability. Scientific and technological innovation is not only the fundamental way out for China’s agriculture, but also the key to ensure the food security initiative.

The issue of providing adequate food for 1.4 billion people has been No.1 issue concerning people’s livelihood, and first priority for the national development and security. At the Central Rural Work Conference, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, Xi Jinping once again called for a firm grip on food security initiative and yearly grain production. This requirement clarified is a significant guide for us to implement works related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers in the new stage of development.

In order to find a foothold in the new stage of development, and keep a firm grip on food security initiative, in the first place, we must adhere to the concrete practice with the people-centered philosophy of development. Only by ensuring the national food security and fundamentally solving food issues concerning people’s livelihood, can the people live a dignified, decent and happy life. In the second place, this is an important precondition for achieving steady and sustained economic growth as well as social stability and harmony in the new stage of development. Only by firmly adhering to the strategic bottom line of food security can we push forward reform, development and stability, thus ensuring a good start in building a socialist modern country in an all-round way. Last but not least, it is the basic support to cope with the complex and changeable international situation. Only by strengthening food security as the foundation of national security can we effectively guard against all kinds of risks and challenges in a world amid profound changes unseen in a century, thus laying a solid foundation for ensuring the overall stability of the state.

To keep a firm grip on food security initiative in the new stage of development, we must constantly consolidate food security, and always maintain the strategic initiative in food security. To do so, we must balance the overall interests of development and security, understand the critical importance and urgency of holding the food security initiative, always tighten the string of food security, stick to shouldering the important task of ensuring national food security, and provide higher-quality, more efficient and more sustainable food security and support for the construction of a new development pattern.

We should firmly grasp comprehensive grain production capacity, which is the foundation. We must unswervingly and thoroughly implement the strategy of storing grain in the land and with technology, and constantly stabilize and improve the comprehensive grain production capacity. We must ensure that the responsibility of farmland protection is comprehensively implemented, resolutely curb conversion of arable land into non-agricultural or non-grain land; increase investment in agricultural infrastructure, further promote the construction of high-standard farmland with stable and high yields despite drought or excessive rain, and constantly improve the quality of arable land. We must improve and innovate the policy mechanism and institutional framework for supporting and protecting agriculture, more effectively motivate farmers for growing grain and farming, and ensure that local governments fulfill their political responsibility to focus on agriculture and grain production. We must expand the scale of grain reserves, optimize the structure and regional distribution of grain reserves, and further strengthen and improve the macro-control over grain.

We should also pay great attention to agricultural science and technology innovation. Scientific and technological innovation is not only the fundamental way out for China’s agriculture, but also the key to ensure the food security initiative. We must thoroughly implement the strategy of “invigorating agriculture through science and technology”. In the key links and fields of agricultural seed sources, equipment, facilities and processing equipment, we must break off technology bottlenecks, accelerate the formation of an agricultural innovation system that takes the market as the orientation and enterprises as the main body, with deep industry-university-institute integration, and promote the integration of agricultural science and technology resources, and the deep industry-university-institute cooperation.

We should strengthen the support of high-quality grain development. China’s major strategic achievements in COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control have shown that a solid food industry chain and healthy supply chain can strengthen our food security and resistance to risks. We must accelerate the high-quality development of the grain industry and attached equal attention to grain production, agriculture and manufacturing, promote the integrated development of the grain industry chain, value chain and supply chain from raw grain to finished products, from production areas to marketing areas, and from farmlands to dining tables, promote the transformation and upgrading of the grain industry, realize synchronization of the food security and the high quality and efficiency of grain, and comprehensively enhance our capacity to ensure overall food security.

We must make overall use of international agricultural markets and resources, and strengthen top-level design and systematic planning of the “going out” strategy for agriculture based on strategic initiative, security and controllability. We must strengthen monitoring on global agricultural investment trade and market risks, promote risk prevention and control thresholds; accelerate the development of global agri-food companies, and encourage companies to deeply integrate into the global agricultural production, processing, logistics, marketing and trade industrial chains, value chains and supply chains; we must actively participate in global agricultural governance and global food security governance, give full play to the role of the “Belt and Road” initiative as a platform for expanding international agricultural cooperation and promoting investment and trade construction, and step up to build a safe, sustainable and stable global agri-food supply network.

Originally published in People’s Daily on January 27, 2021