Evaluation index system construction and empirical analysis on food security in China

Abstract: Food security is not only one of the most important issues that Chinese government attaches great importance to, but also one of the hot topics that researchers focus on. In order to make a comprehensive analysis on China's food security, this paper, from the perspectives of its four subsystems including food production resources, food availability and stability, food access, and food utilization, constructed an evaluation indexes system on food security, and further made a quantitative assessment about the state of food security in China from 1990 to 2011. The results showed that: in China, during the period of 1990-2011, as to the development of food security system, it could be divided into steady increase stage (1990-1998), rapid decrease stage (1999-2003) and rapid increase stage (2004-2011). As to the four food security subsystems, the development of food production resources subsystem could be divided into slow decrease stage (1990-2002) and rapid increase stage (2003-2011); the development of food availability and stability subsystem could be divided into fluctuating increase stage (1990-1998), rapid decrease stage (1999-2003) and steady increase stages (2004-2011); the development of food access subsystem could be divided into slow increase stage (1990-2004) and rapid increase stage (2005-2011); while the development of food utilization subsystem had only one stage, with its index constantly on the rise. As to the impact of the four subsystems on food security system, food production resources subsystem had the greatest impact, while food availability and stability came next, whose weight were 0.377 and 0.302 respectively. Using pathological diagnosis methods, this paper also analyzed the major factors hindering China's food security system from 1990 to 2010, and listed the first five obstacle factors in descending order of hindrance. It pointed out that, from 1990 to 2000, state financial support for agriculture, total grain production and road density were the key factors that had posed the greatest hindrance to the food security system. The obstacle degree of the three factors in 1990, 1995 and 2000 were 44.48%, 44.05% and 44.29%, respectively. However, from 2000 to 2010, the obstacle degree of the three factors on food security system was on the decrease, while the obstacle degree of per capital cultivated land was on the rise. In 2010, the factor of per capital cultivated land became the greatest obstacle to food security system, whose obstacle degree was 29.79%; the next greatest obstacle factors were net grain importation and domestic food price index, whose obstacle degree were 16.93% and 11.87%, respectively. As to the obstacle degree of the four food security subsystems, food production resources subsystem had the maximum obstacle degree to food security system, food availability and stability subsystem coming next, with their obstacle degrees rising from 31.32% and 26.34% in 1990 to 43.69% and 39.32% in 2010, respectively. Finally, based on the development characteristics of China's food security system, this paper proposed some relevant suggestions and policies to improve the state of China's food security.