As a large country with a population of 1.4 billion and the world's largest food producer, China has always attached great importance to agriculture and rural development. Since 2003, annual "policy document No. 1" had agriculture and rural development as its top priority for 17 years. Over the years, China has already made remarkable achievements in agricultural productivity and poverty reduction.
In 2016, the goal of "establishing a 'Greater Food Approach'" was written into the "policy document No. 1" for the first time. The concept of “Greater Food” is to replace old conceptual frameworks which mainly focus on staple foods and take into account multiple strategic goals such as food security, rural revitalization, the Healthy China initiative, and sustainable development. The “Greater Food Approach” was proposed in response to the need for Chinese residents' diets to become more diversified, balanced, and healthy, as well as the need to promote the structural reform of the agriculture sector from the supply side under the pressure of limited environmental resources.
Also in 2016, the United Nations officially launched the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Issued in 2019, the first quadrennial Global Sustainable Development Report stated that "Upscaling current food production practices to meet the projected food demand of the world's population in 2050 would be completely incompatible with meeting the Paris Agreement as well as many of the Sustainable Development Goals." In the same year, the UN Secretary-General announced that a Food Systems Summit would be convened in 2021 to launch bold new actions, solutions and strategies to deliver progress on all 17 Sustainable Development Goals and transform the way the world produces, consumes and thinks about food.
In 2019, as the earliest non-profit organization in China to focus on food system transformation, the Good Food Fund (China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation) launched the Good Food Pledge, listing eight key principles - including Plant Forward, Animal Welfare, Healthy Eating, and Reduce Waste - as an action guide to achieve a healthy and sustainable food system. Two years later, the Good Food Fund was heavily involved in the preparation for the Food Systems Summit, launched a Good Food - China Food Systems Action Hub and piloted the Practice Case Collection campaign, which aimed to bring China's food system best practices to the international stage.
In 2022, the Good Food - China Food Systems Action Hub once again launched a Practice Case Collection campaign, receiving more than 50 submissions from food system practitioners all over China. The Action Hub selected outstanding submissions as Best Practice Cases and those with development potential as Model Cases and promoted them at the 6th Good Food Summit, providing examples and references for other practitioners to follow.
Boosting the small and rural revitalization
At the Main Forum of the 6th Good Food Summit, Chen Mengshan, a national political adviser and the Director of the State Food and Nutrition Consultant Committee, pointed out that China's agricultural development is still relatively unrefined. The surface pollution caused by the excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, as well as the persistent problem of poor maintenance while overexploitation, has led to numerous soil degradation problems. At the same time, the imbalance between production systems and consumer demand is increasingly prominent, and the supply of high-quality and diverse agricultural products could not meet the demand.
Creating a new paradigm is no easy task - it requires not only years of agricultural experience to cope with the complex and ever-changing ecology of the land, but also strong capital support to get through the difficult startup period.
Beijing Fengguichao Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd. has withstood these trials and created an organic industrial chain integrating growing, processing, warehousing, marketing, and service, therefore shortened the distance from the farm to the table. Practicing organic agriculture on over 150 acres of farmland has not only significantly improved the ecology of the cultivated areas, but also positively impacted the local community by creating employment opportunities for local residents. For those who would otherwise leave their children and elderly parents to seek jobs in cities, they can now stay in their hometown, work on the organic farm, and spend more time with their family.
To make high-welfare animal products affordable for more families, the founder of Tangshan City Fengrun District Free Eggs Farmers' Cooperative developed a fully automated free-range chicken roost management technology that greatly reduces labor costs for their free-range chicken farm. These savings are passed on to the consumer, reducing barriers for consumers to choose high-welfare animal products more often. Besides the quality of the eggs, Free Eggs Farmers' Cooperative also cares about the ecological sustainability of the farm. Traditional poultry farming usually leaves the ground unable to grow new grass. The Cooperative adopted rotation grazing method - a regenerative farming technique - to their chicken farming operation, so that the land is fertilized and enriched rather than depleted, created a biodiverse farm environment.
Transforming food production
There are 210 million small-scale farmers in China, each of whom plays a small but important role in supplying the population with food and ensuring that this food is of high-quality, diverse, and produced in a sustainable manner. But it is not enough to focus on small-scale producers; we also need to transform industrial agriculture - especially animal agriculture, which has a greater impact on the environment in terms of both water and soil resource use and greenhouse gas emissions.
According to the Academy of Global Food Economics and Policy, China Agricultural University (AGFEP), in 2019, the consumption of meat in China's urban and rural areas, respectively, was 3.2 times and 2.5 times the amounts recommended by the Chinese Food Guide Pyramid. Behind the prosperity that allows the population to consume meat, eggs and milk on a daily basis is an intensive and high-loaded animal agriculture industry, which brings many challenges in terms of animal welfare and environmental protection. In the Good Food Summit's "Animal Product Selection and Consumption" forum, AGFEP Assistant Professor Meng Ting pointed out that for China's agriculture industry, expanding the scale of production is no longer the most urgent development goal; rather, ensuring safety, improving quality, and promoting the transformation and industry upgrading should be the top priorities. The government and various market players can encourage technology and business innovation to explore new alternative protein sources and optimize the nation's dietary habits.
As one of China's earliest adopters of high-welfare animal agriculture, Heilongjiang Dong Nong Animal Husbandry Co., Ltd. has developed localized high-welfare animal farming technologies, such as low-stress technology and intelligent interactive environments, to improve animal health and productivity, reduce problems presented by feeding, and attract more enterprises to learn from their experience.
NOIX Foods (Tianjin) Co., Ltd. has been working with Germany's Fraunhofer Institute to develop plant-based foods since 2017 and introduced its flagship plant-based yogurts to the market in early 2020. NOIX uses precision equipment to grind almonds into a puree that's perfectly smooth without filtration, which means no materials are wasted and no nutrients are lost. Compared to dairy-based yogurts, NOIX's plant-based yogurt produces 75% fewer carbon emissions and uses 90% less land. Using almonds as the main ingredient also makes the yogurts highly nutritious. NOIX's exploration of plant-based alternatives aligns with the vision of the “Greater Food Approach”, which is why it was selected as a Model Practice Case.
In addition to obtaining protein from plants, the “Greater Food Approach” also calls for accelerating the development of a new food manufacturing industry focusing on cultivated meat and proteins from microbial sources. As a new industry waiting to be developed, the alternative protein space has a shortage of professional talents. GFIC's Alternative Proteins Academy learning platform aims to provide a suite of educational resources about alternative proteins, which includes but not limit to technological knowledge popularization, skill training workshop and research findings sharing. By building bridges across the whole industry chain, the Academy promotes collective effort to change the industry.
Shaping healthy food environment
We are optimistic that adopting new policies and developing new technologies can transform the way we produce food. However, we simply cannot solve the enormous challenges of our food system unless we all change one basic thing: our diet.
At present, China's overweight and obesity rate among adults has exceeded 50%, and poor diets and sedentary lifestyles have become the leading causes of chronic disease. Creating a good food environment is crucial to guiding consumers to practice healthy eating habits.
Food retailers are the hub connecting the supply and demand sides of the food value chain and the main channel for mass consumers to purchase food products. China Resources Vanguard's OLE' Boutique Supermarket chain has selected 2,000 "good for you and good for the environment" products and incentivized consumers to purchase them through an exclusive rewards program combined with promotional campaigns. This program stimulates demand for healthy and sustainable products, encouraging upstream suppliers to expand their healthy and sustainable product selection and increasing the number of such products in the supply chain.
The Meatless Monday Veggie Wednesday student group at Tsinghua University High School International (THSI) helped to initiate a partnership between Sodexo, the school's canteen operator, and Zrou, a plant-based meat brand. Every Wednesday, the student canteen opens a special plant-based section, offering students the option to try a tasty, nutritious, and environmentally friendly vegetarian meal one day a week. The program has been well received by the students. The student group hopes to use this program as an opening to more healthy and sustainable lifestyle promotion campaigns within school campuses. Participating students can also indirectly influence their families and the surrounding community to be more receptive to environmentally friendly plant-based foods.
Exploring food education among children and youth
Just like the members of the Meatless Monday Veggie Wednesday student group, many youths are entering the food system transformation movement and injecting fresh perspectives and ideas. Change requires courage and vision to break the status quo; it requires the vitality and creativity of young changemakers. Empowering more youth to understand food system issues and take action will be a major contributor to advancing food system transformation.
A senior community located near Suzhou Industrial Park invited social workers from the Green Light Year Environmental Service Center to coordinate the creation of an urban farm in the residential compound's common area, helping community residents to achieve their dream of growing their own vegetable gardens. The program also engages children to participate in the community garden with the mentorship of the senior residents and offers a variety of educational programs, such as food waste composting, plant identification, and ecological planting. The community garden project provides elderly residents with healthy organic produce, enriches their lives, and strengthens their relationships with their neighbors. It also gives children in the community an opportunity to get close to nature and learn about where their food comes from.
At Suzhou Industrial Park Chefang Experimental Primary School, Green Light Year and the school developed a course called "the many values of prickly waterlily" based on the environmental and climatic characteristics of the Chefang area. The course led students to interview local residents, conduct research about local Suzhouness' awareness of the eight types of local edible water plants and their conservation, and investigate the tracks of wild animals in the edible plants' ecological environment. The program gave students a chance to explore the issue of sustainable food systems from multiple dimensions and improve their food literacy through a problem-based learning experience.
Brought together, these dozens of food system actors paint a scroll of picture scroll of China's food system transformation: the Leishan County Manyou Ecological Family Farm sowing heritage crop varieties under the southern Guizhou sun, farmers in Jiangnan canal towns picking prickly water lily in the early morning mist, Longnan fruit farmers harvesting olives at the autumn equinox with the support of a Certified B Corporation, and white swans flying from the north every year to overwinter in the rice fields of Wuxue, Hubei...
A transformation is not a gradual improvement of an existing system, nor is a revolution that upturns everything in its way. A transformation is the result of countless individual changes taking place in different parts of the system at the same time. From farm to table, these actions are all aimed at building a more equitable, inclusive, healthy, and sustainable food environment. The vendors bustle around at wholesale markets before dawn; the school canteen cooks who start their shift early to prepare plant-based dishes for Veggie Wednesday; the hosts of the "Eatoclock" podcast who accompany your daily commute; the students who go grocery shopping at closing time to pick up discounted day-old bread - it is these food actors and their hard work and actions that make good food accessible and benefiting to everyone.
As we've seen in the Practice Case Collection and the Good Food Summit, people from around the globe - farmers, food companies, retailers, restaurants, schools, food educators, and youth communities - have already started on this journey of food system transformation. One meal at a time, parents can change what younger generations consider to be a normal diet. Businesses can focus their activities to contribute to making the global food system as sustainable as possible and encourage their supply chains to do the same. Like so many societal changes in the past, transforming the global food system only requires that enough of us feel the urge to make a difference. So, are you ready to join them?
