Global Implications of China's Future Food Consumption

Abstract

SummaryRapid economic growth and urbanization in China have led to a substantial change in consumption patterns and diet structure of Chinese consumers over the past few decades. A growing demand for feed, fuel and fiber also places intense pressure on land resources. With continuing growth of China's economy and migration from rural to urban, the increase in food consumption and change in diet structure will likely continue, which will not only impose pressure on domestic land resources but also exert impact on land resources in other countries through import. This article applies a global multiregion input-output (MRIO) model to trace agricultural land use along global supply chains and examines the impact of China's future food consumption on global land use in 2030 against different socio-economic and technological scenarios. Our result shows that by 2030, China would need an additional 21% of cropland to support its increasing food 2 demand driven by population growth, urbanization and income growth and the associated diet structure change. Almost a third of cropland associated with household consumption (34 Mha) will be "outsourced" to foreign countries, such as Argentina, Brazil, UnitedStates and Thailand, for the consumption of cereal grains, soybeans and paddy rice.China also consumes 2.4 Mha cropland from Africa for its consumption of cereal grains and oil seeds. The dependence of domestic consumption on significant amounts of foreign cropland shows that China would face serious challenges to meet its grain selfsufficiency policy in the future, and at the same time this dependence would contribute to environmental and food security problems elsewhere.

Linking Local Consumption to Global Impacts

“…Yu and colleagues (), in “Global implications of China's future food consumption,” use MRIO analysis and agricultural land‐use data from the Food and Agriculture Association to conduct a scenario analysis of China's population and economy and implication for food consumption in 2030. Based on the developed scenarios about potential states of China's economy and society in 2030, the authors find that domestic food consumption will depend, to a significant amount, on foreign cropland, showing how this is potentially contributing to environmental problems as well as impacting on food security elsewhere.…”

“…Liang and colleagues (2016) examine deforestation and wood consumption in Russia arising from demand for timber, but especially nontimber imports, globally requiring timber from Russia as input to production. A number of articles look specifically at differences in households' consumption patterns, income and lifestyles, and environmental impacts associated with these differences at the national to global level (Ivanova et al 2015;Prell and Feng 2015;Serrano et al 2016) or at the subnational level (Burger Chakraborty et al 2016;López et al 2016;Steen-Olsen et al 2016;West et al 2015;Yu et al 2016).…”

The global economic costs of substituting dietary protein from fish with meat, grains and legumes, and dairy

“…Estimates for future land expansions in the literature reflect a variety of assumptions. For instance, the satisfaction of future food demand in China alone could require expanding in‐use agricultural land by 70 million hectares in Africa and Latin America (Yu, Feng, Hubacek, & Sun, ). Another study estimates that global food demand will require about an additional 200–300 million hectares over the same period, also mainly in Africa (Schmitz et al., ).…”

Needs, wants and values in China: reducing physical wants for sustainable consumption

“…Already today the impact of domestic food consumption on national biodiversity is high, and food exports to China have been found to be, together with those to the USA, the main external reason for species loss in countries such as Indonesia and Mexico (Chaudhary & Kastner, ). If the diet change trends continue, not only will the environmental impacts increase, but by 2030 China would need an additional 21% of cropland to support its growing demand; almost one third of household consumption would come from cropland around the world (Yu, Feng, Hubacek & Sun, ).…”