By James Simpson and Ou Li
China, with one-fifth of the world’s population and rapidly rising incomes, is a country which has naturally been open to speculation about its ability to feed itself over the next several decades. Population will grow from 1.26 billion in 2000 to 1.40 billion in 2015 and 1.45 billion in 2030. Simultaneously, per capita income growth will lead to greater demand for meat, thus resulting in larger feed requirements for animals.
The objective of the research reported on in this paper was to determine the extent to which technically China will be able to maintain its current level of being essentially self-sufficient in animal feedstuffs and animal products.
This paper is divided into six main parts; overall results, model and methods, animal feedstuffs requirements projections, feedstuffs availabilities and crop projections, problems and prospects, and conclusions. The method used is to calculate all requirements and availabilities on the basis of metabolizable energy (ME) and crude protein (CP).
The conclusion is that technically China can basically maintain its current level of essentially being self-sufficient in animal products, and that it can meet its feedstuffs requirements with little or no additional imports. It can be expected that there will be years in which imports will likely be needed and other years in which there will be surpluses due to climatic problems and other factors.
A spreadsheet computer program based on protein and energy requirements and availabilities for animals served as the basis for the projections. The program is very large, with more than 5,000 lines of spreadsheet program, 800 variables and more than 2,200 parameters. No attempt was made to balance requirements and availabilities. Rather, best judgments of the authors and those of experts on China in each field were used. The small absolute size of the difference between requirements and availabilities is gratifying, and attests to the robustness of the model. More important is that the differences in the projection years are reasonable. There will be rapid growth in meat consumption, which could lead to possible need for either feedstuffs or meat imports by 2015. However, the projection for 2030 is that availabilities will be 5 percent larger than requirements. These results include conservative changes in technical parameters of animal and crop production, but assume that imports and exports continue at base year current levels. A component for fish was added which reveals that while energy requirements can be met even with fish added, larger protein feed imports than at present will be required.
A discussion about human population, technological change on the animal and fish side and on crop production is included. The situation of China as a rapidly developing country is provided. Storage and other losses are evaluated, as are issues such as water, research and development of agricultural technologies, and adoption of technology in agriculture.
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