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The planting industry is crucial in ensuring food security in China. The development of the planting industry has underpinned the country’s historic transition from merely achieving food sufficiency to enjoying high-quality diets, consequently promoting the gradual improvement of dietary quality among residents. In the new era, the development of the Chinese planting industry faces challenges from internal and external risk factors, such as resource environment pressure, extreme climate impacts, and unstable international geopolitical situations. This study predicts the food supply and demand situations in 2035 and 2050. Results show that net imports of grain in China will mainly focus on soybeans and corn, while the self-sufficiency rate of rapeseed and sugar will continue to decline, the self-sufficient rate of peanuts and fruits will rise after declining first, and the vegetables will be more than self-sufficient. Thus, this study provides an overview and summary of the challenges faced by China’s planting industry regarding food security and proposes strategic ideas and policy recommendations for ensuring food security in the new era. These recommendations include improving the planting industry’s production capacity and structure, promoting low-carbon production and the efficient use of resources , optimizing residents’ consumption structure and health concepts, encouraging agricultural technology innovation and equipment development, and innovating new business entities. Major projects regarding technology innovation, quality improvement, ecological protection, and protein substitution are also proposed. Furthermore, we suggest adhering to the overall strategy of “ensuring basic selfsufficiency of grain and absolute security of staple food”, clarifying the industry development priorities by regions, improving the agricultural infrastructure and technology shortcomings, and perfecting the strategic system for responding to major crises, thereby enhancing the level of agricultural development and effectively ensuring food security in China.

Food security in China is facing new challenges, including instability of the international supply chain, transformation and upgrading of the food system, and increased pressure to further reduce carbon emissions, making the future supply and demand situation of food in China unoptimistic. Therefore, it is imperative to deepen research on national food security strategies. As is predicted using the China Agricultural Sector Model, China’s grain supply and demand gap will reach the peak (1.66 × 108 t) in 2030 and its food self-sufficiency rate will continuously decline; however, the gap is expected to drop from 2035–2050. From 2020–2050, the total demand for livestock products, aquatic products, rapeseed, and sugar will continuously grow while their net imports will maintain growth. To address the prominent problems regarding food security in China in terms of farmland, supply chain, nutritional structure, systemic risk, and technological innovation, we propose the establishment of an all-encompassing approach to food. Additionally, food security should be maintained by relying on domestic production and supported by moderate imports and technological innovation. An overall food-security strategy that features self-sufficiency of grains, self-reliance of major agricultural products, and national food sovereignty should be implemented. We should hold on to the bottom line of maintaining a selfsufficiency rate of 97% for staple grains, 90% for grains, and 80% for overall grain supply. Focusing on the goals of revitalizing the seed industry, boosting land capacity, preventing and mitigating disasters, and achieving high efficiency and low carbon, we suggest a series of major projects for upgrading the seed industry, constructing high-standard grain fields, guaranteeing regional food security, promoting green and low-carbon development of agriculture, and substituting conventional feed protein. Furthermore, major measures should be adopted to strengthen food demand management, expand food supply chains, and enhance risk control, thereby ensuring the quantity, quality, and nutritional security of national food.

Food concerns national livelihood and food security is vital for national security. In the context of “dual circulation” (i.e., domestic and international economic circulation) in China, clarifying the basic situation and challenges of food security and exploring effective strategies for food development are crucial for ensuring stable national development. Using national macro statistics, we first analyzed the basic situation of food security in China and the challenges it faces in the context of “dual circulation”. Subsequently, we made a macro study on national food security and proposed the goals, strategic paths, major projects, and feasible countermeasures for ensuring national food security. Our study indicates that there exists a large gap between food supply and demand, a high degree of external dependence, and a large amount of imports of feed protein in China, as well as challenges including the difficulty in substituting feed protein domestically, rigidness of environmental restrictions on soil and water resources, low incentives for farmers to grow grains, and insufficient risk-resistant capabilities of the food security system. Moreover, we proposed a series of major projects, such as demonstration for upgrading grain production capacity, new protein resource substitution, green and lowcarbon planting and breeding circulation, development and utilization of international grain resources, and research and development demonstration of future foods. Several development strategies were further suggested, including the establishment of a food security guarantee system, moderate expansion of cultivated land areas, sustained increase in oil-bearing plant production, steady resumption of a multiple cropping system in South China, and sustained advancement of a rotational cropping system in North China.

The operation parameters for the supercritical carbon dioxide (ScCO2) evaporation method greatly affect the properties of the prepared drug-loaded micelles. In this study, the effects of those key parameters on the drug-loading content (LC) and drug entrapment efficiency (EE) are discussed. It is observed that EE and LC of the micelles are slightly increased with the enhancing temperature and the copolymer molecular ratio of hydrophilic/hydrophobic segment, while decreased with the enhancing ScCO2 evaporation rate. The pressure and volume ratio of ScCO2 to H2O are observed the optimum condition. In addition, the verification experiment is carried out under the obtained optimizing parameters. The prepared micelles exhibit relatively regular spherical shape and narrow size distribution with the EE and LC value of 70.7% and 14.1%, respectively.

Seed enterprises are crucial for ensuring national food security, the driving force behind the seed industry's advancement, and the core entity in constructing a modern seed industry system. At the micro and macro levels, agricultural seed enterprises face challenges and pressures in earning excess profits, enhancing their competitive edge, and resisting the incursion of multinational seed enterprises. This article selects panel data from 49 listed seed enterprises in China from 2015 to 2022 and uses methods such as global principal component analysis (GPCA) and Q-type cluster analysis to measure and evaluate the competitiveness of Chinese seed enterprises. Research has found that: (1) From 2015 to 2022, the overall competitiveness of listed Chinese agricultural seed enterprises has shown an upward trend. The competitiveness of agricultural seed enterprises can be further decomposed into operational capabilities, growth capabilities, production efficiency, technological innovation capabilities, etc. (2) The top ten agricultural seed enterprises in China have obvious advantages in operational and technological innovation capabilities, but their growth capabilities and production efficiency are insufficient. (3) Regarding the vertical comparison of the seed industry, the ranking of the competitiveness of Chinese listed agricultural seed enterprises from strong to weak is wheat seed enterprises > other seed enterprises > melon and vegetable seed enterprises > corn seed enterprises > rice seed enterprises. (4) Compared with international seed industry giants, there are various reasons why China's top agricultural seed enterprises have weaker competitiveness, specifically reflected in research and development investment, scale and market share, industrial layout, and other aspects. The findings of this research offer empirical evidence to bolster the competitiveness of seed enterprises and advance the seed industry, while also aiding in fortifying the nation's strategic oversight of the seed sector, bearing profound implications for safeguarding food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study employs panel data and a dynamic Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) model to investigate the habit formation effect of food consumption among Chinese rural residents and its consequential impact on nutritional intake. The dataset, spanning from 2012 to 2018, encompasses nine provinces in China and involves 5390 rural households. The findings reveal that, excluding beef, mutton, and poultry, there are significant habit formation effect on the consumption of food categories, notably grains, vegetables, and edible oils. Lower-income and younger demographics demonstrate a more pronounced reliance on established dietary habits. Influenced by the habit formation effect, there is a substantial reduction in the income elasticity differences across various food types. Overlooking the habit formation effect in food consumption would lead to an underestimation of the income elasticity of energy, fat, and carbohydrates. This suggests that, over the long term, food consumption habit formation is a pivotal factor in enabling the enhancement of residents' dietary structures, amplifying the incremental energy intake associated with income increases, and accelerating the transition towards nutritional surplus. The conclusions drawn from this study offer valuable insights for ensuring food security and nutritional balance. Policy-makers of food and nutrition strategies should duly consider the habit formation effect on residents' food consumption, and seek to optimize dietary patterns and promote nutritional transformation by food consumption habit intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food security is a national priority and a cornerstone for maintaining national and regional stability. Focusing on cropping structure directly related to food security, this paper estimates the causal effect of urbanization on cropping restructuring in China. We use provincial panel data between 2000 and 2019 and threshold regression models to identify potential structural mutation characteristics. This study is an attempt to fill the cognitive gap for the nonlinear relationship between urbanization and cropping restructure. Urbanization formed agricultural labor supply constraints that significantly increased the share of sown area of grain crops, but with obvious threshold characteristics, and the effect of urbanization on cropping structure was no longer significant after crossing the threshold. Urbanization in the main grain-producing regions and main grain-selling regions promoted the adjustment of cropping structure in the direction of grain but was not significant in balanced production and marketing regions. Short-distance urbanization did not bring significant effects on cropping restructuring. We propose several suggestions for cultivated land planting structure, urbanization, and food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Part-time farming is a common characteristic of smallholder farmers in China at present, which is expected to persist in the long term. If China is to promote sustainable agricultural development, it is important to consider the impact of part-time employment characteristics on the grain-growing decisions of smallholder farmers. To analyze the impact mechanisms of smallholder farmers' part-time employment on their grain-growing decisions, we used data consisting of 14,539 samples collected by a survey of the former Chinese Ministry of Agriculture National Rural Fixed Observation Point from 2009 to 2015 to empirically analyze the effect of the extent of smallholder farmers' part-time employment on their grain-growing decisions using a dynamic panel regression model. Then, we constructed a mediating effect test model using the dynamic panel regression model as the benchmark model in order to empirically test the mediating effect of the adoption of agricultural production services. The results are as follows: as the extent of smallholder farmers' part-time employment grows, smallholder farmers significantly reduce the sown areas of wheat and corn; furthermore, the adoption of agricultural production services is an important mediating variable to curb the negative effects of the extent of smallholder farmers' part-time employment on their grain-sowing areas, and the "Extent of Smallholder Part-time Employment (EPE)→Adoption of Agricultural Production Services→Grain-Planting Decisions" is an important path by which the extent of smallholder farmers' part-time employment affects their grain-growing decisions. Notably, all of the findings passed the influence mechanism test and, after a robustness test, remained valid. Based on the research findings, we propose policy recommendations, suggesting that the construction of agricultural production service systems should be improved with the orientation of high-quality agricultural development; the minimum purchase prices of wheat and corn should be appropriately increased in order to ensure that smallholder farmers receive reasonable economic returns from growing grain; and the attractiveness of growing grain to smallholder farmers should be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vitamin C (VC) and folic acid (FA) are the important nutrients and antioxidants in human body. To protect them from pro-oxidant elements and reveal their co-operation effects, VC-loaded liposomes (VC-Lip), FA-loaded liposomes (FA-Lip), and their coloaded liposomes (VCFA-Lip) are prepared using the modified ethanol injection method in this study. The properties of the prepared liposomes including morphology, encapsulation efficiency, DPPH radical scavenging activity, hydrogen peroxide scavenging activity, and stability are determined and discussed in detail. The experimental results show that the vesicle size of the prepared liposomes are about 100–150 nm. The encapsulation efficiency of VC- and FA-coloaded liposomes is higher than that of the individual loaded ones. In vitro antioxidant activity study shows that the prepared liposomes have excellent antioxidant activity and the co-operation of VC and FA are better than the individual ones. Furthermore, the stability experiment reveals that the coloaded liposomes have a good stability in the relatively low temperature. These results indicate that VC- and FA-coloaded liposomes could be used as an effective antioxidant and it could be applied as a promising delivery system for the antioxidant defense system to food industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]