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15 September 2023

Climate Change Could Drown China’s Food Security

Christina Lu

China is reeling from a record-breaking summer of rainfall and flooding that submerged furrows and destroyed crops, offering a window into how climate change-fueled extreme weather will complicate Beijing’s long-standing quest for food security.

China’s leaders have long agonized over how to feed the country’s sizable population—nearly one-fifth of the world—when it is home to just 9 percent of the world’s arable land, territory that has been shrinking as a result of excessive fertilization and overuse. For Chinese officials, those fears stretch back thousands of years, when issues of hunger and food insecurity sparked protests and imperiled regimes; more recently, food shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic sparked unrest in cities.

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