Probable Food Crisis Looming Over China

Restaurants in Chinese cities in August were rewarding customers to clean their plates with coupons and cash rebates. Hotels such as the Marriot clipped their buffets by taking off dishes from the menus. Owing to reduced food options the price of a buffet went down to $22 per person at the Sheraton in Ningbo.

China commenced the campaign amid fears that it may not have sufficient fresh food to go around with short supply of several food items. 

With outbreak of African swine fever in there is already a shortage of pork. Reports say pork prices soared 135 per cent in China this February’20. Corn supply has been ruined by floods plus eggs, seafood and green vegetables stocks are also affected. Buyers have already locked in 17 million tones of corn for this year.

Though the Chinese state media denied claims of a food crisis, Beijing is reportedly reaching out to suppliers globally.

China’s imports of corn, sorghum, barley and wheat have jumped by more than 83%. There could be a possible shortfall of 20 or 30 million tones of grain as well this season.

Chinese traders have recently asked India to export at least 100,000 tonnes of broken non-basmati rice between December to February at a cost of $300 per tonne, which is the cheapest in the global market.

China also waste huge quantity of food. Back in 2015 the Chinese academy of sciences projected that 17 to 18 million tonnes of food were thrown away in China. It was enough to feed a country like South Korea (by size).

China is currently the world’s largest agricultural importer. It is now heavily depending on the imports to tackle a looming food crisis.

The United Nations predicts that entire world is facing a food crisis that hasn’t been seen in at least 50 years. China already seems to be in the middle of such a crisis and it now could be buying up every grain that is available globally.