
How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people? - carapace
https://www.quora.com/How-is-China-able-to-provide-enough-food-to-feed-its-population-of-over-1-billion-people-Do-they-import-food-or-are-they-self-sustainable?share=1
======
FigBug
The country I don't understand how they do it is Bangladesh. A country the
size of New York State with 164 million people. (50% of the US population). As
I understand it, they generate 90% of the food they require.

~~~
triceratops
The subcontinent, and especially India and Bangladesh, have ridiculous amounts
of arable land. India has more than any other country in the world.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
besides the US

~~~
triceratops
According to Wikipedia[1] the title goes back and forth. In 2012, the latest
year for which the article has numbers, India had more. Despite being 1/4th
the size of the US.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arable_land](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arable_land)

~~~
nazgulnarsil
didn't know that! Thanks.

------
baybal2
Chinese farm productivity is shite, and the government knows it.

It is true that the state throws absolutely colossal amount of resources on
geoengineering and agriculture, yet to little effect.

China is nowhere near Holland or other advanced agriculture player in calories
production per unit of labour.

Out of close to a 100 officials I went by through my career, I only managed to
befriend two. From those two, I barely know in the most generalised terms of
what is happening in top tiers.

Agriculture meetings are alleged to be the non-stop shit show, an every day
crisis, and a way to demotion for the prime majority of cadres put on the agri
committees, as most of them fail at the task.

Provincial level party executives all send their deputies instead of
themselves to them as they fear demotion and penalties if they say something
silly at those meetings.

Chinese bureaucracy does not deserve much credit there. Were that much of
money be given to just anybody moderately competent, China would've long
beaten even Holland on that.

~~~
winfred
I don't think that calories production per unit of labour is a big concern
when you don't export produce and you've got access to so much labor and a
socialist economy where food prices are fixed and jobs are all but guaranteed.

The Dutch have a stronger focus on produce export and a higher income per
capita, so they have to be a lot more efficient in order to be competitive in
the global economy.

~~~
chii
calories per unit labour is a good measure of how advanced the agriculture
tech is. Just because labour is cheap, doesn't mean it's efficient - and
imagine if that labour could be spent on other things (while still maintining
the output).

~~~
winfred
I understand that, but China is still industrializing and has an enormous
abundance of labor. They have over 425 million farmers (and a decade ago, that
number was 700 million). At achievable efficiency, that could easily be done
by as few as 50 to 100 million, but then there just wouldn't be any available
jobs for the other 300+ million people. China is already using workers in
massive unneeded building projects and has an army of over 2 million soldiers
and who knows what else, just to keep the unemployment down.

A higher produce efficiency is not only not needed, it is unwanted. Full labor
market participation is of much more value to the Chinese right now than the
efficiency of the produce industry.

------
lph
One thing that's not mentioned is that the freshness and variety of produce
available in China is fantastic. There's much less refrigeration and
transportation, so there's a good chance the produce you buy at the local
street market came from nearby fields very recently. Seeing this as a visitor
from the US is quite a revelation.

~~~
nine_k
Which places did you visit, and observed this?

I bet it's characteristic for large cities where the amount of produce
consumed is large, and prices are higher.

~~~
lph
Beijing, Xi'an, Chengdu, and a handful of villages nearby them. Also some
roadside farmer stalls in between. I'm sure the quality and variety vary, but
the sample I saw was impressive.

------
chopinsky
The author has made no efforts to hide the fact that he's a China apologetic
and CCP propagation puppet. The fact is that the majority of the country's
rice and corns are imported (from SE Asia or N/S America), which are Chinese
main calory source. Another often overlooked fact is that China has built a
vast crops storage network across the nation, for the fact that a small
interruption in food supply chain could cause huge humanitarian disaster, and
the new crops will rotate out old stale crops, which are barely eatable but
sure, they're better than nothing. Most Chinese even have no idea of this,
that their daily rice supplies are usually 5+ yrs old, unless you pay a
premium to buy them from Whole Food equivalent super markets in China.

~~~
origin
> Most Chinese even have no idea of this, that their daily rice supplies are
> usually 5+ yrs old

Even during the Maoist period 'new rice' was given out/sold once a year for
celebration. Everyone was aware they were eating rotated granary rice.

Storing crops against famine (and eating the old, stored grain) is an ancient
tradition [1] dating back to at least 6000 BC, and in China, guarding against
famine was one of the earliest tasks of the Chinese proto-state.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granary)

------
pradn
" most of the population in India claim to be vegetarians"

At most a third of India is vegetarian.

[http://theconversation.com/the-myth-of-a-vegetarian-
india-10...](http://theconversation.com/the-myth-of-a-vegetarian-india-102768)

~~~
rueynshard
Sure, but even among the remaining 2/3rds, meat consumption is much lower,
compared to other regions where they typically eat meat every meal.

------
SQueeeeeL
This whole post has a Factorio vibe of x->y->z, I'd read a blog from this
author just breaking down infrastructure.

~~~
rntksi
You should check this out. Same author. He has quality answers on Quora.

[https://www.quora.com/As-a-Chinese-person-what-do-you-
think-...](https://www.quora.com/As-a-Chinese-person-what-do-you-think-of-the-
future-of-Vietnams-economy-compared-to-those-of-other-Southeast-Asian-
countries)

------
ETHisso2017
What's also overlooked is that China went through one of the worst man made
famines in history, and the government has internalized many of the lessons
(paid in blood) from that affair.

------
abledon
The author has other great answers in a similar structure too!

[https://www.quora.com/profile/Janus-Dongye-
Qimeng](https://www.quora.com/profile/Janus-Dongye-Qimeng)

~~~
D_Alex
The author writes well, but presents an unbalanced, Mainland-Chinese-
Propagandist views. This does not make for "great answers".

Also.... who is asking the questions?

~~~
abledon
true, I can stomach the propaganda, but that aside, the way he links each
chunk of the story together is really fun. Hes like a college professor that I
would of loved to have , where every lecture was a mini adventure.

------
dmix
Wow, Japan consumes more seafood then all of the US states combined and the EU
countries combined? That’s amazing.

~~~
jws
Japan has 50% more coastline than the United States.

Where I sit, 1000km from an ocean, seafood is pretty remote. Sure, it gets
flown in and flash frozen isn't horrible, but it isn't fresh.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
A lot seafood is flash frozen these days, even next to the coast and even in
japan. It’s just the best way to deal with parasites. I don’t think you can
eat sashimi in the USA that hasn’t been flash frozen.

~~~
wolco
lake/river fish usually have parasites and must be cooked.

I was under the impression that ocean fish don't have the same level of
parasites.

You would never eat a catfish raw.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
[https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/08/nyregion/sushi-fresh-
from...](https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/08/nyregion/sushi-fresh-from-the-
deep-the-deep-freeze.html)

------
entelarust
Those sat shots totally remind me of the intro to the blade runner where they
show the densely packed structures [https://i2.wp.com/rosettedelacroix.com/wp-
content/uploads/20...](https://i2.wp.com/rosettedelacroix.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/01/5a.png?resize=474%2C210)

------
einpoklum
The question should really be "How are many national economies keeping
innumerable people hungry, even though there's plenty of food to go around
several times over?"

In most places in the world it's easy and cheap enough to produce food and
distribute it. Actually, it's so easy and cheap that many world states
artificially subsidize agriculture/livestock farming/etc. to prevent them from
collapsing due to low prices.

~~~
kartan
> "How are many national economies keeping innumerable people hungry, even
> though there's plenty of food to go around several times over?"

I never see this question on TV. What I mainly see on Tv is talk about
political strategies, result surveys and the like. Climate change is one of
the few things that I see being discussed. And even that has a lot of this
let's talk about politicians positions and poll results.

I want to see more about how to improve the world. Does anyone know any good
on-line resources about this? Because mass media is doing a poor job. And we
need them to do a better job.

~~~
feral
Opinion:

The tough truth is that improving the world at that scale is mostly about
politics. Politics is how the nations allocate resources to problems.

You maybe want them to talk about the technical fundamentals of the problem
but the important bit is usually the politics.

[A sibling comment says to look at TED talks. This is an excellent idea. Then,
after a couple of years, ask why none of the solutions have been implemented,
and you are ready to get interested in the politics.]

~~~
saalweachter
In the 1950s, building a moonbase would have been an engineering and
technological challenge.

Today, it's basically a political and economics challenge, to convince enough
people it would be worth while to spend the time and effort to do it. Which is
not to say there wouldn't be engineers involved, solving new problems, but we
already know enough of the solutions that it's not really the sticking point
now.

(Which is to agree with you, a lot of things are organizational problems at
this point.)

~~~
chiefalchemist
> "Today, it's basically a political and economics challenge, to convince
> enough people it would be worth while to spend the time and effort to do
> it."

There's a quote by (I believe) Winston Churchill - which I can't seem to find
atm - that goes something along the lines of:

Winning a war/battle is relatively easy. It's convincing them to let you fight
that's far more difficult.

------
gezh
One thing that is not mentioned in the article is the massive amount of soy
beans that China imports each year (approximately 90 mmt in 2019) to produce
feedstock for their hog herds and acquacultures. Most of the soy beans are
imported from the US (pre trade war), Brazil and Argentina.

------
klenwell
I see 3 sushi restaurants on the same street, start to extrapolate in my head,
and wonder how we hadn't extinguished most edible fish species decades ago.

From what I've read and heard on the subject, my understanding is: (1) some we
have (touched upon at end of Jiro Dreams of Sushi, for example), (2) we are in
the process of doing so to most the rest, (3) fish farms are increasingly
making up the difference.

~~~
tus88
Fish stocks are being depleted. We are running the earth down.

------
mstaoru
Another perspective on how China is able to provide enough food:

\- In Shanghai 96% white-collar workers have at least one disease of the "food
triad" (diabetes, fatty liver, hypertension), up from ~80% in 00's.

\- In Beijing 26% of the whole population is overweight or obese, up from 11%
in 00's.

\- China has the largest percentage of obese children in the World, only
competing with Mexico.

So there is enough food, but this food is low quality empty calories to "feed"
1B people, not nourish them.

~~~
piiswrong
more than 1/3 of Americans are obese. the US is one of the fattest countries
in the world. Does that mean Americans are poor people who can only afford
empty calories? wake up. people just like to eat unhealthy stuff when given
the chance?.

~~~
winfred
>Does that mean Americans are poor people who can only afford empty calories?

I don't know if it's because they can't afford better or don't want to eat
better, but in the US there is a considerable relationship between
income/education and obesity. The poorer you are, the more likely you are to
be obese. 50% of the US makes less than $30k a year, and that group probably
amounts to somewhere around 75% of the obese people.

[https://www.stateofobesity.org/socioeconomics-
obesity/](https://www.stateofobesity.org/socioeconomics-obesity/)

~~~
kube-system
I don’t think the difference is due to income directly, but more to do with
class/social expectations. Eating is a very social activity, and the way
people eat is strongly linked to their individual and group identity.

Healthy eating simply isn’t prioritized by some people/groups, and others
don’t value it at all.

------
dgellow
This quora answer is pure CCP propaganda, why is this post on the HN home
page?

~~~
v-yadli
Freedom of speech I guess?

~~~
edwinyzh
Freedom of speech and I guess HN is an international community? On the post,
as the author said, seeing is believing. Whether or not it's CCP propaganda,
it's facts.

~~~
dgellow
“Seeing is believing” really doesn’t make any sense in the modern world. And
facts don’t exist in a vacuum, they are presented with a specific narrative,
some are just omitted, some are plain lies (China bringing joy to Tibet
population by providing better food, really?).

~~~
pms
I find it informative to see other points of view and an impressive number of
facts that are presented in this Quora answer, rather than just the Western
point of view, which arguably could be also called as "propaganda". Let's not
go this route.

------
known
China leads world in production of:

\- Rice \- Wheat \- Lettuce \- Cabbage \- Cauliflowers \- Eggplant \- Potato
\- Spinach \- Carrots \- Cucumber \- Pumpkin \- Sweet potato \- Grapes \-
Peach \- Apple \- Plum \- Strawberry \- Tomato \- Tea \- Beer \- Pork meat \-
Sheep meat \- Peanut \- Egg \- Honey

[https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/106956943987883622...](https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1069569439878836225)

------
coldtea
This is probably the best article I've read on Quora!

------
hackbinary
Imports of grain from Canada?

------
Marazan
Awesome self-burn about the quality of Chinese 'honey' there.

------
m3kw9
Is an infrastructure planning issue, if they don’t plan for food while
expanding population, the population wouldn’t expand anyways!

------
bartimus
Also more CO2 means increased plant growth.

------
scarface74
I can’t imagine the US being as efficient at anything as China is at growing
food.

~~~
kaesar14
What does this even mean? Almost 300 million people are agricultural workers
in China, versus 6 million in the US. Despite that, we produce nearly the same
quantity of food and export 140 billion dollars of food every year. The US has
plenty of efficiency shortcomings, but in agriculture, the US agricultural
sector is a modern marvel of engineering and efficiency.

~~~
Theodores
US produce is industrial feedstock, not food.

In the Brexit-headed UK there is considerable discussion about this, some
Brits don't consider US food to be edible. Phrases like 'chlorinated chicken'
get mentioned.

Are those soy beans fed to people or pigs? Same with all that corn. None of it
can be eaten, it has to be processed into corn syrup or fake potato crisps.
There is no modern marvel of engineering, it is monoculture, as if nothing was
learned from the dustbowl. It is also heavily subsidised. Watered by fracked
aquifiers. To international tastes it is all bland, adulterated and not really
food.

Those exports also put people out of work on the global market so they are not
growing their own food, just importing nonsense like American maize.

I am not into Chinese food but I know that Chinese people don't consider U.S.
food as having much taste, not even real food.

~~~
sct202
The funny thing with US soy beans is that the majority of our edamame and
fresh soy beans are frozen and imported from China or Thailand even though we
literally have fields everywhere growing soy beans across the country.

------
edisonjoao
What about India or that whole part of the world

------
intended
Yeah sorry - that answer is the sort that glosses over a huge amount of facts
to present a clean a-b-c dependency tree along side a decent heap of sino
philia.

So in particular the point on fish farms- fish farms are _hard_ , the fish
need many different things to be happy and not sick or affected by parasites.

This means medicines, treatment and more - further this is only viable if you
have transportation, refrigeration and markets.

Those make a larger difference than the base technology. Without the transfer
and storage tech, the rest is simply bottlenecked.

Further this

>Those Tibetans have no time to go to temples for worshipping any more,
instead, they have to work in the greenhouses taking care of tomatoes. This is
why Dalai Lama is not so happy to hear this.

Is simply Chinese propo. The Dalai Lama is unhappy, if at all, because China
has taken over what used to be an independent nation, decides how their
religion should operate, crushed dissent and even ostracized their own
citizens who made the mistake of talking to Tibetan protesters to do the very
simple human thing of figuring out the other side.

(Voting behavior and soft shilling of the poster in the thread is also pretty
odd.)

~~~
pvaldes
> fish farms are hard

Yes and no. Some fishes are really, really hard to culture. Other are very
forgiving and easy if you know what to do. Aquaculture shaped China since
thousands of years. They have a lot of population in part because they have
carps. Is a very efficient way to recycle waste in food.

------
amelius
How is it possible that Quora knows my first name?

------
lxe
Oh boy. Lots of things in the top answer that western folks will, uh...
question. Informative and complete nonetheless!

------
rajeshp1986
I was really impressed by the top answer until I read this statement.

"I mean, the Chinese government has also forced Tibetans to build a massive
amount of greenhouses on the Tibetan plateau. Those Tibetans have no time to
go to temples for worshipping any more, instead, they have to work in the
greenhouses taking care of tomatoes. This is why Dalai Lama is not so happy to
hear this."

What??

~~~
alexron782
You should post the following paragraph as well:

"As a result, the average vegetable price in Tibet has reduced by 90% over the
past decade and they don’t have to import vegetables from nearby provinces
anymore. Most of the Tibetans can finally afford to eat watermelons. Who
doesn’t like eating watermelons?

You know that most Tibetans historically only eat yak meat, milk, cheese, and
bread? They couldn’t grow anything in such a harsh climate. Only monks could
have the luxury to eat vegetables. Now it is the solid proof that the Chinese
government didn’t just destroy temples in Tibetan culture but helped them eat
vegetables and fruits."

~~~
nitwit005
The logic is a bit dubious. The Chinese had a pretty crappy diet when they
invaded Tibet. Whether the China invaded or not, the food quality would have
risen, just like most of the rest of the planet.

------
cybersnowflake
A lot of superdefensive people over at quora everytime you ask a question
about china.

~~~
dmix
Even the first answer has “Western media won’t tell you this”. Like there’s
some western conspiracy to downplay Chinese agriculture industry.

The Chinese media is constantly telling their people that the US is plotting
against China and is hostile to them, so the citizens don’t get any crazy
ideas like democracy and human rights. While simultaneously amplifying the bad
news coming out of America to show the ‘dangers’ of western culture.

Plus there is a large group of astroturfers constantly scanning the web for
mentions of China (aka “50 cent army”).

I don’t blame the individuals for holding these views but it’s something to
always be conscious of when reading anything online about China. And I say
that as someone who loves their country and people, just not their cultural
controls.

~~~
bllguo
The tone is honestly understandable. It pains me to bring up this cliched
point, but is the US media not constantly telling us that China is hostile,
China is plotting? As someone with a foot in both worlds, US coverage of China
is _at least_ equally warped. It's funny; to my parents and relatives in China
I'm perceived as having a US bias, but everywhere else I get characterized as
being too Chinese.

It's hard for me to emphasize enough how little typical Westerners understand
about Asia. It goes both ways but I think they're doing a better job of it -
at least in my opinion, China appreciates US culture much more than the US
appreciates Chinese culture.

~~~
nfoz
> It's hard for me to emphasize enough how little typical Westerners
> understand about Asia.

I bet the typical human knows very little about life and culture outside of
their specific environment. A typical city-dweller knows little about rural
life even in their own region, and vice-versa.

It's weird how easily we fall into a trap of saying "look how ignorant x
people are". I mean, of course, it's a big world, and we're busy, so it's
pretty hard to not be ignorant.

Maybe a bigger mistake is thinking that "Media" (news etc?) is an education
system. It's not and maybe it's not supposed to be. We need to come up with a
better system/expectation/culture around continuous education, but even in the
best case that can only apply to the subset of the population that has the
time and resources and interest to take part.

~~~
txcwpalpha
> I bet the typical human knows very little about life and culture outside of
> their specific environment. A typical city-dweller knows little about rural
> life even in their own region, and vice-versa.

I think this is certainly true, but at the same time, I've never met an
American (even an otherwise 'uneducated' one), who was under the impression
that London or Berlin are backwoods villages that struggle to keep the lights
on, whereas I have certainly met people that think Hong Kong is. So then the
question becomes "yes people are generally unaware, but what is it about Asia
specifically that makes it seem like there is an even larger lack of awareness
compared to somewhere like Europe?"

In regards to the rest of your comment: I wholeheartedly agree, but I don't
think it comes down to "time or resources". Some of it does just come down to
personal habits/preferences. Without passing any judgement, there are plenty
of people who spend their evenings watching The Bachelorette when they could
just as easily be using that time to watch The Travel Channel (or Discovery
Channel if it was still actually educational), but they actively choose not
to. I think that's a societal thing much more than it is a time or resources
constraint.

~~~
joey_bob
When the US was a backwoods nation, London and Berlin were world capitals, and
Hong Kong was a backwater fishing village, so American culture does not have
the same ingrained respect for Hong Kong that it does for European cities.
That being said, I don't know if you are using Hong Kong as a stand in for
major Chinese cities, but Hong Kong emigres make up a disproportionate amount
of ethnic Chinese American immigrants, and the way many of them talk about the
mainland, one might think mainland China is having a problem with the keeping
the lights one.

~~~
roboys
At the founding of the US, China was the #1 economy in the world. This view of
the world among Europeans is partially based of racism and racist accounts of
the world going unchecked.

The most investment-worthy economies on the planet have been in Asia for the
past couple centuries (if you understand buying the dip), this fact is an
economic threat to Europeans with a zero-sum view of global capitalism (has
been for at least 2 centuries). The rest writes itself....

------
ZeroGravitas
This and watching HBO's Chernobyl have prompted me to ask: how do communist
countries work? Is there something I can read or watch to best understand
things like who owns these farms, who profits from them, how do they pay
workers, how do you buy a house, etc

It's all as foreign to me as medieval peasants and nobles so I don't know how
it works from day to day. The fact that China now has billionaires, and
billionaires spoiled kids doing donuts in supercars also confused me.

~~~
jotm
It was pretty simple in the USSR: the government owns the farms, the
government profits from them, they pay the workers (very often in product).

The government/party says a new farm will be created here, the order goes out.

It is all controlled from the top (communist party) through the regional
council, through the local council (often a few councils inbetween). After the
farm is established, a few inspections by party officials and it's all set up
and operating.

This created the perfect opportunity to fudge reports like there's no tomorrow
and essentially the party had no idea what is actually going on.

Papers say production is fine, orders are to maintain levels, report comes
back saying everything is proceeding as ordered. In reality, production was
higher than reported (with no room to grow if ordered), workers are skimming
product, managers are skimming product, local council is skimming product and
money, regional council is skimming money. To make up for the shit pay, but
also because why not, the party won't miss it.

Orders come in to increase production, report says "no can do, need more
equipment, need more land, need more workers". Of course, more than is
actually needed, so someone can have their own tractors.

The black market, often in barter, was huge.

The party in Moscow could not contain its spread even with their network of
spies. People trusted each other, not the party, the police were in on it.

Not sure if that's how it works in China, but they have the advantage of
instant communications, instant checks on any level, modern surveillance.

This turned out messy, I'm too tired.

~~~
pm90
Wonder how this could change with modern technology and controls.

------
edoo
Perhaps the question should be how do 1B people feed themselves despite the
government of China.

------
Inu
The author's answer to the question 'How do mainland Chinese feel about the
protests in Hong Kong on the extradition law amendment?':

[https://www.quora.com/How-do-mainland-Chinese-feel-about-
the...](https://www.quora.com/How-do-mainland-Chinese-feel-about-the-protests-
in-Hong-Kong-on-the-extradition-law-amendment/answer/Janus-Dongye-Qimeng)

~~~
pzo
At the very end author compares hong kong island to langkawi portraying
lankgawi as some unatractive island and that hong kongers should be happy they
are connected to mainland. This is where I started look more critical at the
whole article having been in those islands before myself - it was a great
reality check that you have read everything very critically these days.

I recommend everyone not only to check google images how langkawi look like
but even more recommend to go there for a holiday [1]. It's called 'bali of
malaysia' and popular tourist destination. Very close to another great
malaysian island - penang.

Author says "You can rent this island for 99 years and start to develop your
economy." I would happily rent it for even 10 years if the price is right!

[1]
[https://www.google.com/search?q=langkawi](https://www.google.com/search?q=langkawi)

~~~
madez
I'm majorly surprised you needed to read until the end to figure that out. To
me it was and is impossible to read from the beginning without having my
propagandometer going off-limits nearly instantly. I wanted to take parts and
comment here to substantiate my claim, but the post is too extreme and long.
It's obvious. The linked post is outright /r/sino material.

~~~
echevil
The quora question is "How mainland Chinese feel about protests in Hong Kong",
and the answer IMO is same as the reality of how mainland Chinese really feel
about it.

------
sonalr
Yeah definitely liberated Tibet with all those greenhouses and tomatoes in
xinjiang.

------
BurningFrog
Without reading the link...

This kind of question is dumb. It imagines there is an entity called "China"
that's tasked with feeding 1.3B people.

In reality, it's just 1,300,000,000 individuals tasked with feeding
themselves, just like anywhere else in the world. We do it by division of
labor. Some grow food, others build goods, others provide services. We all
trade with each other so everyone can specialize at what we do best.

It's no different if the nation border happens to enclose 1.3B Chinese
nationals or 300K Icelandic ones.

~~~
staplor
Read the link and then delete your comment.

~~~
dang
This comment breaks the site guidelines:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
Please don't be a jerk on HN.

~~~
staplor
Thank you for the reply. Won't do it again.

------
holografix
China is investing heavily in Africa.

------
hummel
He forgets to mention: Africa

