Growing consumption rates and disruption of global supply chains have led China to eye a sustainably focused circular economy and to search for reliable agricultural imports. This give Russia a major chance to expand trade relations with China beyond oil and gas exports, and to assert itself as a reliable, even indispensable, partner for China’s food security.
 
During the past few decades China has demonstrated a spectacular shift in consumption habits. Grain consumption more than tripled from 125 million metric tons in 1975 to 420 million in 2018, while currently the average Chinese person eats 63 kilograms of meat a year, six times the meat-eating rate in 1978. With the world’s largest population, this has established China as the biggest consumer of meat globally.
 
Beijing recently announced plans to increase productivity in its US$1.7 trillion agricultural sector, but food security still raises concerns. Although China’s agriculture sector logged robust performance in the first quarter of 2020 and recorded a 3.5% year-on-year increase in the added value of the planting industry, there were multiple signs of weaknesses in China’s agricultural sector.
 
In August, President Xi Jinping raised the issue of food security when he spoke about “shocking and distressing” wastage, called for better public awareness and the promotion of a social environment where “waste is shameful.”
 
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