From having enough to eat to eating well: China's 'greater food approach'

Grain, cooking oil, meat, eggs, milk, fruits and vegetables – the everyday staples in Chinese households – have long been more than private concerns.

During his frequent domestic inspection tours, Chinese President Xi Jinping has been seen lifting the lids of pots on stoves to observe how people eat. He also frequently conducts field visits to check crop conditions and repeatedly points out the need to curb food waste. It is his way of emphasizing national priorities and signals a broader policy shift – from ensuring people have enough to eat to enabling them to eat well. This reflects a move toward "greater food" – an all-encompassing approach to nutrition and dietary quality.

What is the 'greater food approach'?

At its core, the "greater food approach", as Xi pointed out, aims to better satisfy the people's needs for a better life, grasp the changes in people's food structure and guarantee an effective supply of various foods including meat, vegetables, fruits and aquatic products while ensuring grain supply.

Xi first articulated this broader vision decades ago. While working in Fujian in the early 1990s, he wrote that food should not be understood narrowly as grain alone, but as a wide range of products that sustain human life. That thinking later evolved into national policy.

From the call to adopt an all-encompassing approach to agriculture and food at the 2015 Central Rural Work Conference to the report to the 20th CPC National Congress in 2022 stressing a diversified food supply system and the "No. 1 central document" for 2025 emphasizing multi-channel food resource development, the concept has been continuously enriched.

Why does China emphasize it?

Despite record harvests in recent years, China faces structural constraints. With less than 40 percent of the world's average arable land per capita and limited water resources, the country operates under tight resource conditions. Expanding food sources beyond farmland helps ease pressure on grain supply while strengthening overall food security.

At the same time, consumption patterns are changing. As incomes rise, Chinese consumers are eating less staple food and demanding more high-quality protein, diverse fruits and vegetables, and healthier diets. China's Engel coefficient, the share of household spending on food, fell to 29.8 percent in 2024, signaling a transition toward higher living standards. Protein supply per capita has also climbed into the global top 10.

Global uncertainties add urgency. As a major importer of soybeans and edible oils, China faces risks from trade protectionism and fragile global supply chains. A diversified domestic food system provides greater resilience against external shocks.

How is the concept being put into practice?

China is turning the all-encompassing approach to food into concrete actions, with progress increasingly reflected in output figures, efficiency gains and technological advancement.

The country has established 169 national-level marine ranches, with its output of marine products having ranked first worldwide for 36 straight years. Aquaculture hit 73.58 million tonnes in 2024, a 12.3-percent increase compared with 2020. Meanwhile, total output of meat, eggs and dairy products reached 175 million tonnes in 2024, up 18.8 percent from 2020. Per capita annual consumption of meat and eggs has climbed to 72 kilograms and 25 kilograms, respectively, both above global averages.

Another focus is cutting food loss and waste. According to institutional assessments, about 460 million tonnes of food is wasted in China every year, accounting for more than 22.7 percent of our total food production. Cutting food waste by just half could feed around 190 million people for an entire year. Progress is being made. By mid-2024, China had built more than 5,500 grain post-harvest service centers, covering all major grain-producing counties, aiming to provide services for farmers ranging from grain cleaning, drying, storage and processing to sales, improving the quality of grains sold on the market and reducing losses during storage and distribution. In 2022, these facilities helped process 160 million tonnes of grain in a single year, reducing losses by more than 12 million tonnes. At the consumption end, the implementation of anti-food waste law has led to a measurable decline in catering waste, with surveyed restaurants reporting an average 11 percent reduction in kitchen waste in 2022.

The country last year has announced an action plan to reduce food loss and waste, aiming to establish a more sound long-term mechanism by the end of 2027. According to the plan, the loss rates of grain and food during their production, storage, transportation and processing will be below the average international levels by the end of 2027. Meanwhile, per capita food waste per meal in the catering industry, government canteens, school canteens and enterprise canteens will decrease significantly, and food waste will be effectively curbed.

Technology-driven agriculture underpins these gains. By the end of 2024, China's overall mechanization rate for crop cultivation and harvesting exceeded 75 percent, while the contribution rate of agricultural science and technology surpassed 63 percent. Moreover, by the end of 2023, the number of agricultural machines equipped with the BeiDou navigation system nationwide had already totaled 2.2 million, a crucial step in the country's drive for smart, sustainable farming and food production.