The Ministry of Agriculture estimated that domestic demands per capita will exceed 420 kg through 2010, and that the whole nation needs 588 million tons of crops by then; while the figure of 2030 will reach 440 kg per capita, and thus total demand will be 704 million tons. But our current maximum output capacity is 500 million tons. On the other hand, agricultural techniques contribute less and less to output increase. In addition, the diet of Chinese people has changed. To follow the trend, farmers will have to raise more cash crops and domestic animals, taking up part of the original farmland for crops. That's the reason why the 120-million-hectare minimum line is being threatened and may be broken if the situation deteriorates.

Deng Yuwen (Oriental Morning Post): Over the past three decades, China's shrinking farmland and increasing population have never moved its determination to ensure grain self-sufficiency. This self-sufficiency is preconditioned by increasing rural productivity and technical advancement. But now these conditions seem increasingly powerless to drive yields higher.

Some say that global purchases may bridge the gap caused by domestic shortages, but it is feared that food-rich nations may use grain exports as "a strategic weapon" to control hungry nations, especially at wartime. Even though in a world of peace, speculation may result in a food crisis. The most recent one in 2007, for example, lasted for more than a year through 2008 and troubled millions of people around the world. Most governments subsidize farmers to ensure enough food supplies, and the United States, crop-rich as it is, is such an example.

Ye Zhijun (China Youth Daily): As we know, the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization-sponsored multilateral trade negotiations consistently plunged into deadlock, and a major reason behind this lies in the absence of a concession over agricultural safeguards. Those developing nations argued that, if they cannot reach an agreement under which their rural markets can be protected once they open to developed nations, they will lose ground to the latter.

For those farmers who have been urbanized, their contracted plots of land were seized. At the same time, however, they have not been fully or even partially included in the nation's social security system. As the global economic crisis spreads, more migrant workers will be seen to return home, where farmland is vital for them to survive.

Yang Xuan (www.xinmin.cn): In the eyes of Professor Mao, an over speculated housing market is attributable to the present farmland policy, and therefore the authorities should open the market by increasing land supplies.

The truth is the opposite. Many developers profit from cheap land costs and amassed land at first. When housing prices rocketed, they earn big profits. But when the bubble eventually burst, they would have to suffer a shortfall of cash and abandon acquired land, which in turn exacerbates market depression.

Urbanization should not be achieved at the expense of wasted farmland. According to the authorities, urban dwellers each consume 130 square meters of land, while that number is merely 80 square meters internationally. The solution is not to seize farmland for property development, but to improve land use efficiency.

Mao's assumption to solve food shortages through global markets is unrealistic. The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization has warned that grain reserves worldwide dropped to the lowest level in more than two and a half decades in 2007, creating a widespread food crisis across quite a few nations. Since the beginning of 2008, rice prices soared 20 percent in the global market as was predicted, and the crisis is believed to deepen until 2010. As one of the world's largest food consumers, less farmland will certainly lead to severe shortages in populous China.

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