China is an eating culture. Although today’s Chinese don’t eat the huge quantities of meat the average American does, China accounts for half of global pig production because pork is the popular meat to eat. Small farmer producers raise ninety-nine percent of pork in China.
Even when grain production falls in China that does not translate into a shortage since China has historically kept large food-grain stockpiles and those individual small farmer/producers help ensure food security. – China through a Lens
As China continues to grow a consumer middle class, food demand and eating habits are changing along with waistlines. To meet this demand, Chinese have set up large pork and chicken operations in Australia to meet the growing demand for meat on the mainland. – Food Crisis
To insure a dependable supply of food to feed its people, Chinese companies have also bought or leased land in Africa sending Chinese laborers to produce crops for sale on the world market and back home. The Guardian.com reports, “Africa’s population is expected to match or overtake China’s by 2050, but the paper says China will soon need to develop deeper trade ties with key African countries to help feed its 1.3 billion population.”
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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