3.2.1 Ecosystem services of food production
Since the land use change from 1989 to 2000 is much weaker than that after 2000, the calculation of ecosystem services is mainly focused in the period from 2000 to 2018. Based on the data of three time nodes (2000, 2010, 2018), it can be seen that among the four service categories, the supply service is always in the smallest compared with other services. Among all kinds of ESV components, food production accounts for the smallest proportion, indicating that food production services are seriously insufficient (Fig. 3).
PS = Production Service; RS = Regulation Service; SS = Supply Service; CS = Cultural Service;
AQR = Air quality Regulation; CR = Climate Regulation; WR = Water Regulation; SFR = Soil Formation Reserve; WT = Waste Treatment; BD = Biological Diversity; FP = Food Production; RMP = Raw Material Production; CS = Cultural Service.
3.2.1 Comparison of per capita production of crops
Figure 5 shows the trend of production per capita of food stuff for whole world, China, Fujian province and Xiamen city respectively from 1980 to 201821,23,24,25.
It can be seen in Fig. 4 that the per capita production varied greatly for different regions. The world value remained basically stable and China's value fluctuates slightly. However, both of Fujian and Xiamen shows a downward trend. The data of Xiamen city has been lower than that of the world since 2000 and keep dropping all years long, finally even decreased to 6kg in 2018, which is only 1.7% of the world value(355kg), 4.7% of the Fujian value(127kg), and 1.3% of national value (473kg).
Obviously, the food stuff supply in Xiamen is insufficient. While, is it easy to import from surrounding regions in Fujian province? Fig. 5 shows the comparison of per capita production in all regions, Fujian province 25. In order to show the contradiction between urbanization and food security, this figure comprised more data of urbanization rate and basic food demand (180kg for each person).
In Fig. 5, it can be seen that the urbanization rate of Xiamen city arranged top 1 among all the regions in Fujian Province. Yet has the lowest per capita production contrastively. Moreover, the per capita production of Xiamen’s neighbor regions like Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, Putian and Fuzhou, all these coastal regions has a per capita production that lower than the basic demand (180kg). This means that, Xiamen's per capita production of food stuff no longer meets the basic demand and it’s hard for Xiamen to import food from surrounding regions. There are certain risks for Xiamen's food security.
In order to obtain the availability for Xiamen to import food stuff from other province in whole nation21, Fig. 6 makes a comparison for all provinces similarly.
It can be seen in Fig. 6 that the per capita production of Fujian Province is only close to the basic demand, less than half of China's average level. The data of its neighbor Province Zhejiang and Guangdong is also lower than the basic level, indicating the availability for Xiamen city to import food stuff from Fujian or neighboring Zhejiang and Guangdong province cannot run for long-term. For top three provinces with the highest per capita production in China, Heilongjiang, Jilin and Inner Mongolia, which locate in the northernmost part of China, the availability would be still in discussion for bigger transportation cost and other risks, especially in situation of COVID-19 with related lockdown and restriction.
By comparison of per capita production and urbanization rate, it can be seen that the urbanization rate of Xiamen in 2021 (89.4%) arranged NO. 1, a little bit higher than Shanghai (89.3%), and much higher than any other provinces in China. Such situation in Xiamen with very high urbanization rate but extreme low per capita production indicates that the rapid urbanization from 1989 to 2018 with related large amount of transition of arable land to built-up land and population boosting indeed create risks to food security19.
3.2.2 Food price increase and threats to food security
Net import of food stuff
In order to obtain the availability for Xiamen to import food stuff from other provinces or cities in China to alleviate food insecurity, this research checked more data about China's import and export of food stuff from 2000 to 202021, as shown in the figure below.
In Fig. 7, the net import of food stuff in China was up-rising all the years from 2000 to 2020. In 2010, the net imports reached 60.5 million tons, which will be enlarged to over 142 million tons in 2020. This data illustrate that the food stuff in China needs a long-term import, this bring potential food insecurity risks to Xiamen city for its sustainability and availability of importing food from abroad. Such risks usually become obvious as a reaction to the unstable social-economy situation, such as regional conflicts, economic crisis and export restrictions. For instance, the US financial crisis in 2008 triggered the global reaction and led to a panic rise in global food prices index (major crops: wheat, maize, soybeans and rice) of 100% higher than that in 2000 2728. In addition, from January 2007 to March 2011, 33 countries implemented 528 export restriction policies of food stuff to balance domestic food supply and demand. The price of almost all food products reached the highest level in 1980-200829.
Global Food Price Index
Global COVID-19 has caused the stagnation of trade in major rice exporting countries. Meanwhile, various countries have increased the demand for rice to cope with the crisis and ensure food security. The change of supply and demand pattern has formed an international food shortage situation, with inflation by excessive currencies issuing, promoting up-rise of the international rice price30. For corn, main export countries, like the US, Brazil, the European Union, Ukraine, and Argentina, got heavily shocking by the COVID-19 epidemic. What’s worse, Brazil experienced its worst dry spell in 90 years at least in 2020; the main export countries of Ukraine and Russia are still in the most deteriorated regional crisis. All these situations resulted in increasing fears of food security, making the trade being in short-term closure, interruption risk of logistics transportation, leading to the rise of food prices.
As FAO described, its Food Price Index (FPI) including a basket of food commodities is used to measure international prices of the monthly change 26. This FPI made an increase of 172.7% from 53.3% in 2000 to 145.4% in 2022, as shown in Fig. 9. In the Fig. 8, it can be seen that the FPI rise much faster than ever before since 2020, especially after the January 2022.
National Food Price in China
In China, initial influence from COVID-19 epidemic on domestic logistics has led to panic among consumers and increased consumer purchase. The main possible factors including the expected reduction of production caused by natural disasters, producers’ reluctance to sell and purchasers’ rush to buy, poor market circulation, finally rose up the price of rice in 2020 (Fig. 9). The rising price of corn may also lead to an increase in the demand for forage rice and the surge of the rice market. For national food index in this research, it was rising sharply from March 2020 (Fig. 9). While for Xiamen city, the food index has been rising even faster since the end of 2021.
In Henan province of central China, very important grain-producing area, more than 0.97 million hectare crops suffered extreme rainstorm at the end of July 2021. What’s worse, a new version of COVID-19 already outbreak again in few cities from March 2022, especially in Shanghai, the biggest and most developed city in China. The data of Shanghai Bureau of Statistics show that the Vegetables price in March 2022 is 131.7% of that in March 2021. While, there’s web news shows that the cabbage price rise up to more than 5 times in lockdown period (https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1728781496711714009). For Xiamen, its urbanization rate is 89.4% in 2021, which is even a little bit higher than that of Shanghai (89.3%). What if Xiamen city lockdown due to COVID-19 for long term?
Measures to ensure food security for Xiamen
Based on the analysis above, it’s obvious that in order to assure food security for Xiamen, it is necessary to achieve effective food self-sufficiency locally, that means its food production capacity should meet people's basic living security with long-term stability31. Possible policies include:
The first but most important priority for food security, strictly protect the basic arable land, especially high-quality, contiguous and stable arable land11,16;
For the second, it’s necessary to strengthen and improve the policy system to support agriculture, such as supporting subsidy measures and raising the rice subsidy standard, increasing the maximum compensation of rice insurance, or setting up a planting support fund to encourage the farmers for farming and growing grain.
Thirdly, pay attention to grain and seed reserve as response to natural disasters and food supply tension, especially set up Strategic Grain Reserve for emergency disaster relief. In addition, the rational allocation of grain reserves should be considered carefully based on the population distribution of each district in Xiamen, so as to guarantee smooth distribution in emergency supply under the background of COVID-19.