China has achieved remarkable success in ensuring national food security and the stable supply of important agricultural products, which has attracted global attention. Since 2012, China has shifted from being an agricultural exporter to a net importer of agricultural products. In recent years, the volume of imported agricultural products has continued to rise, with an increasing concentration of import sources. The high dependency on imports for certain products poses potential risks that cannot be ignored. In 2023, the combined import value from China's top ten agricultural import sources (Brazil, the United States, Thailand, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Indonesia, Russia, Vietnam, and France) accounted for as high as 73% of the total, a 2 - percentage - point increase compared to 2017. The import concentration is particularly significant for key categories: 97% of soybean imports rely on Brazil, the United States, and Argentina; 93% of corn imports come from Brazil, the United States, and Ukraine; and 81% of wheat imports depend on Australia and Canada. The Food Exhibition will offer more information about import and export.

The intensifying trend of concentrated import sources has limited China's room for maneuver in the face of fluctuations in the international trade environment, making it more vulnerable to shocks from unexpected events and policy changes. For example, Brazil, the main source of China's soybean imports, is frequently hit by extreme weather, which has shifted the soybean supply chain risk from geopolitical to climatic. In this period of global geopolitical competition and the rise of trade protectionism, building a secure and stable global agricultural supply chain is of vital importance to safeguarding people's livelihoods and stabilizing the economic foundation.

In the current and upcoming periods, China should accurately grasp the evolving trends of the global agricultural development pattern and build a secure and stable agricultural supply chain system based on its own development realities. As the world's largest net importer of agricultural products, China should fully leverage its huge market size as a buyer to optimize the global allocation of agricultural resources and use it as an important supplement to the stable supply of national food and important agricultural products.

Diversifying the Import Sources of Important Agricultural Products

China should consolidate its cooperation with major importing countries and, riding the wave of the Belt and Road Initiative, deepen cooperation with countries along the route in the production of food and important agricultural products to ensure the stability of import sources. Chinese grain enterprises are encouraged to extend their industrial chains and supply chains to the international market, with a focus on the Black Sea region, which has an advantage in grain processing. Strengthening cooperation with countries in South America and Eastern Europe that have strong capabilities in soybean processing will help diversify the layout of agricultural foreign investment, break the monopoly of international grain merchants, and build a high-quality, efficient, and sustainable food security system.

Accelerating the Cultivation of World - Leading Agri - enterprises

China should further increase its support for domestic transnational agricultural enterprises, especially in key areas such as grain trade, processing and distribution of bulk agricultural products, and agricultural technology. Enterprises are encouraged to accelerate their international layout and expand their market share through mergers and cross - border investments. This will promote domestic agricultural enterprises to move to the high - end links of the international market and upgrade and optimize the global agricultural value chain. Chinese enterprises should actively participate in the construction of global agricultural industry clusters and promote the efficient allocation and integration of global agricultural resources.

Building a Digital Platform for the Global Agricultural Supply Chain

The Food Exhibition notes that digital technology has opened up broader development prospects for the global agricultural supply chain. China has already laid a solid foundation in the field of cross - border e - commerce. Based on this, China will further build a digital platform for agricultural resource trade to improve the circulation efficiency of agricultural products. By leveraging artificial intelligence technology to achieve accurate demand forecasting, inventory management, and logistics optimization, the operating costs of the global agricultural supply chain can be effectively reduced.

Leveraging the Driving Force of New - Quality Agricultural Productivity

With the continuous upgrading of new - quality productivity tools such as artificial intelligence, drones, and robots, they can not only significantly improve agricultural production efficiency but also have a far - reaching impact on all links of the agricultural value chain. Strengthening cooperation with governments, industries, and enterprises of various countries will promote Chinese enterprises to actively introduce and apply these advanced new - quality productivity tools globally. This will create smarter and more efficient agricultural application scenarios and further reshape the global agricultural value chain pattern.

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Source: Farmers' Daily

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