There Is No Food Crisis in China

In1995LesterR.Brown wrote abook entitled Who willfeed China?(Brown,1995),whoseerroneous contentcaused great losses to China’s economy.The Chinese government tookMr.Brown’s argument at facevalue,and encouraged peasants to overproduce by setting aprotectively high price.Over time,this has used up several hundred billion yuan to pay thedifferencebetweentheofficialpriceand marketprice.Tostorethesurplusfood,thegovernmentappropriated several more billion yuan to build warehouses.However,there …

There Is No Food Crisis in China

During the Great Faminein China in the early1960s, almost thirtymillion lives were lost. Asa result, Chineseleadershavebeen especially afraid offood shortages, which hasled to a misguided food policy and caused great economic losses. The argument given by Mr. Lester R. Brown is misleading, and there isno food crisis in China. Food supply on the world markets is ample, and food prices have been declining over the past fifty years. For China, the cost of imported foodstuffs is less than one percent of its foreign exchange earnings. Maintaining a freefood marketismoreimportantthan having atotallyindependent domesticfood supply.