Sustainability in feeding China's growing metropoles - alternative text

Increasing urbanization

70% is likely to be China's urbanization rate, in 2030, reaching an urban population of 977 million.

138 million increase in addition to today's urban population, another 138 million Chinese residents will live in cities in 2030.

Chinese urbanization rate:

  • Urban (2015): 58.5% 
  • Rural (2015): 41.5%
  • Urban (2030): 70%
  • Rural (2030): 30%

Meat consumption

One of the implications of urbanization is rising demand in certain food categories, as urban diets consume more than rural diets. An Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) agricultural outlook report predicts that meat consumption per capita will continue to rise. By 2026:

  • Lamb: 28% increase
  • Beef: 26% increase
  • Fish: 22% increase
  • Poultry: 21% increase
  • Pork: 9% increase

Agricultural intensification

The dietary shift leads to increasing demand in production of food and feed, and pushes the state to pursue the agenda of agricultural instensification, through land consolidation, farm expansion, and implementation of modern agricultural technologies to boost efficiency in food production.

But the intensification program faces limintations, as China's farmland is fragmented, and mostly operated by small-scale farmers. By 2010, the average Chinese farmer operates on a land at 0.6 hectares. Also, agricultural intensification may aggracate the ecological overshoots by China's food system.

  • Average farm size is 0.6 hectares.
  • Fertilizer subsidies increased by 670% between 2004 and 2013.
  • Arable land:
    • Polluted: 16%
    • Non-polluted: 84%
  • 2-7 times more fertilizer use than other regions/countries per hectare of cropland.
  • Shallow ground water:
    • Drinkable: 20%
    • Undrinkable: 80%

Challenges food security coupled by recurrent food safety scandals

Urban consumers in China are anxious about safety of food purcahsed in mainstream markets.

These bottom-up food innovations have the potential to enable uptake of sustainable farming among smallholding farmers and counter the trend of industrial diets.

The spread of grassroot sustainable food innovations in China deserves attention from international organizations and research institutes that are interested in sustainable urbanization in China.

  • Organic certifications issued:
    • 2005: 200
    • 2013: 9990
  • 10 ecological farmers markets connecting urban consumers to organic goods.
  • 500 community supported farms.