The provision of food represents a fundamental obligation of the state to its people. In the opening pages of Zhang-Yue Zhou's Achieving Food Security in China, the horrifying consequences of failed agricultural policy are laid out in deeply personal terms. Zhou, who was born at the outset of the Great Famine of 1958–1962, recalls how his own mother would break into tears when faced with the harsh reality that there was not enough food to feed her family. In a graphic account of the famine, Zhou highlights the extreme misery of rural dwellers: families resorted to cannibalism; individuals were tortured when found to be concealing food; people ate the excrement of better-fed rural cadres for nutrients. For Zhou, China's food security failures were a consequence of irrational government policy, and this book seeks to ensure that China enacts the right policies that will ensure its citizens will never go hungry again.
The emotional power of the study is balanced by a meticulous examination of the literature on China's food security, official statistical data on food production, and policy documents. The first part of the book takes a historical look at China's period of food scarcity (1950–1979) and food abundance (1980–present). In both periods, Zhou provides a catalogue of policy shifts and their effects on food production. Scholars will find much of his discussion of these periods to be unsurprising. In his analyses of the Great Famine, he points to problems in the people's commune system, the diverting of labour from agriculture to iron and steel production, and food waste in communal dining halls. His assessment of China's rural transformation following the 1978 Third Plenum largely converges on scholarship emphasizing the importance of decollectivization and the development of rural markets. In many ways, his historical review is simply a catalogue of the scholarly consensus on China's agricultural policy.
It is in the second part of the book that Zhou's analysis adds real depth to the current debates on China's current food security challenges and potential policy solutions. Achieving Food Security in China makes the case that scholars must develop an expansive view of a country's food security, “food supply is plentiful in today's China. However, … food availability is only one aspect of food security” (p. 88). Beyond the adequacy of a country's food supply, Zhou interrogates China's nutritional adequacy, food safety and quality, cultural acceptability of food systems, environmental sustainability and social stability. While China's self-sufficiency ratios across a number of food types are high, he argues that the system is subject to significant vulnerabilities. Given regulatory shortcomings in food safety and environmental protection, Zhou contends that it will be difficult to preserve the integrity of China's food supply. Moreover, he points to ominous trends in social stability, including rising inequality and increased protests, which will have a negative impact on food security. These threats to the food supply are described as “daunting” (p. 110), and are symptoms of China's overall political institutional framework, particularly its high levels of corruption.
My main reservation is that Zhou approaches the issue of food security too much through the lens of an agricultural economist. This is problematic insofar as a major theme across the chapters of this book is the relationship between authoritarianism and food insecurity. In his historical analyses, Zhou emphasizes how suppression, secrecy and a lack of feedback mechanisms compounded the negative effects of poor food policy choices. In the current period, Zhou argues that China's authoritarian system lends itself to higher levels of corruption and a lack of accountability of local officials to the people they govern. Yet, Zhou barely engages with the significant body of work in political science exploring these authoritarian dynamics, which, in some cases, covers the same empirical ground.
Political scientists will argue that his policy solutions lack a certain air of political practicality. For example, to facilitate farm size growth, Zhou suggests that the collective landownership system should be abolished (p. 131). However, tackling such an issue involves multiple stakeholders and affects numerous vested interests. In another instance, he recommends the establishment of a memorial to famine victims to educate the public about food security, which he himself then deems politically impracticable (p. 127). At other times, his policy solutions suggest a fundamental overhaul of China's authoritarian system of governance, calling for politically accountable government, press freedom and government transparency.
Nevertheless, Achieving Food Security in China is an important book that helpfully maps the contours of China's food security problems. The historical and thematic breadth with which Zhou approaches the topic will provide scholars and policymakers with a much-needed perspective as we seek to ensure a steady and safe supply of food for China's hungry citizens.
