ABSTRACT
There is an old Chinese saying that ‘food is the first necessity of the people, and food security comes first!’ However, today in China, food as the basic necessity is no longer safe (Zhang, 2011; Yan et al., 2016). In recent years, the mass media exposed many food scandals. To local Chinese people, food safety has become a major concern (Liu and Ma, 2016). Recently, food security has been listed as the first major issue to be tackled by the Chinese government at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s Economic Work Conference, the Central Rural Work Conference as well as in the published No. 1 Central Document (Ghose, 2014). At the CCP Economic Work Conference which was held 10–13 December 2013, ensuring effective food security was listed as the top of six major tasks. The CCP has come up with a slogan to illustrate its goals – ‘guwu jiben ziji, kouliang juedui anquan’ (‘grain self-sufficiency, absolute security of food rations’) ( China Daily, 2013). What happened to Chinese food security? What caused this problem and how have Chinese people responded to this food security crisis?
