Food Security, International Agricultural Trade, and Economic Growth in China

Abstract

China, with the largest population in the world, has always been concerned about its food security. Recently, rapid economic growth in China has led to the disappearance of absolute hunger, but an increase in food consumption and environmental problems still threaten the maintenance of China’s food security. This study aims to analyze the effects of main factors on Chinese food security and investigates the inverted U-shaped relationship using the extended environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) on 1980-2013 time series data. The results found to be robust across different methods including vector autoregressive (VAR) model, impulse response function (IRF), and Granger causality test. The main findings of this study are (1) an inverted U-shaped relationship exists between Chinese food security and main factors (economic growth, agricultural trade, and CO2), (2) there is a positive impact of economic growth on food security but negative impact of agricultural trade and CO2 on food security with respect to the linear relationship, and (3) there is Granger causality between the main factors and food security. Based on the analysis, this study suggests that the Chinese government needs to continue investment in agriculture, environmental regulations, and the expansion of domestic agricultural production base to improve its food security.