Understanding recent challenges and new food policy in China

Despite of remarkable achievements in the past, China is also facing several major challenges, in particular on ensuring sustainable growth of agriculture, improving food security, increasing farmers' income. The paper reviews China's agricultural and food policy with specific focus on recent challenges, initial policy responses and their consequences, and re-adjusting in policies. The results show that the policy responses to the challenges of sustainable agriculture are strong and encouraging. Adjusting the national food security target in response to sustainable agriculture and major efforts to improve food security are significant. To increase farmer's income, China has shifted its policy regime from taxing to subsidizing and protecting agriculture in the past decade. However, the results of these efforts are mixture. Price interventions increased farmers' income, they also resulted in several serious problems. Good news is that some new efforts to solve these problems may bring China's market reform back to the right track though they still needs to be evaluated. The paper concludes that the previous experiences on agricultural development through institutional reform, technology change, market reform, and investment in agriculture should still be the keys for successfully ensuring food security and sustainable agriculture for China in the future.