Food security is not only about having enough food to feed all the people in China but also about ensuring that the food is safe

Even in a year of excellent harvest, China faces a food shortage. Although crop output has continuously increased in the past decade and the overall grain production in 2013 broke the 600-million-ton mark for the first time, it is no easy task for China to become self-sufficient in food grains.

With the rapid increase in population and consumption, the gap between demand for and supply of food has been widening. In 2012, China's self-sufficiency rate in food dropped below 90 percent, and net imports of three major crops (wheat, corn and rice) became a normal phenomenon.