a landmark policy is realigning food production around what people actually eat
As the PRC faces dietary change at home and ever more uncertain food trade abroad, the 2026 Central No. 1 Document elevates the ‘Big Food’ concept from broad aim to core daily operations. It keeps the grain floor in place—output stays around 700 million tonnes—but promotes the food basket rather than just grain. It calls for greater supply across farming, forests, livestock and fisheries, with specific targets such as deep-sea farming, forest foods, and steps to lift dairy intake.
from ‘big grain’ to ‘big food’
The 2026 Big Food concept builds on Xi Jinping’s earlier ‘big grain’ view, which for the first time framed grain as part of a wider food agenda, not the whole agenda. In 2015, a central rural work meeting put this into national policy language, calling for a ‘big agriculture view’ and launching the Big Food concept. Cheng Guoqiang 程国强 National Food Strategy Institute, Renmin University, describes the concept as expanding the food base beyond arable land to include forests, grasslands, oceans, and microbes. In 2016, the Central No. 1 Document wrote it into farm work, urging a shift from a grain-only lens to food drawn from all land and seas.
From 2023 to 2025, the Central No. 1 Document sharpened the idea. 2023 stressed a broader supply mix across farming, forestry, livestock and fisheries, and flagged new sources such as under-forest output, deep-sea farming, fungi and algae. 2024 kept the focus but added a new task: tracking and counting the broader food basket, not just grain. 2025 made it more hands-on, with a clearer list—open ocean aquaculture, a larger ‘forest food store’, algae foods and bio-agriculture—plus more stress on healthy diets and less waste.
In 2026, the link is now made to ‘new quality productive forces’. The Document calls for bringing AI into the field, rolling out more drones, sensors, and robots, and speeding and scaling up bio-production and bio-breeding. The thrust shifts from ‘find more sources’ to ‘use tech to turn sources into a steadier supply and better food’.
how 2026 doc changes the basket
The main breakthrough in the 2026 Document is that it moves a decade of often rhetorical build-up into a core part of everyday operations. The primary driver comes from the obvious shift in what people are eating in the PRC. Over the past 30 years of rapid change, Per capita grain intake fell from ~145 kg to ~97 kg, while meat intake has risen from ~20 kg to ~56kg, and edible plant oil intake from ~5 kg to ~26 kg. More of the food bowl is now meat, eggs, milk, fruit, veg and fish. That means food security can no longer mean ‘keep staples safe’—the literal translation of the Chinese term for ‘food safety’. It has to mean ‘keep the whole food basket safe’.
key food consumption in China 1991–2022
As Zhang Hongyu 张红宇 China Agriculture Risk Management Research Association, notes, 2026 is the first year of the 15th 5-year plan, so the Central No. 1 Document plays a linking role. It must lock in the gains from the earlier poverty alleviation campaign, while setting the tone for the next stage of building agricultural power.
The key message is: do not take more land from staple grain; rather, draw more calories and protein from forests, grasslands, oceans, and bio-tech.
draw from all land and sea
Based on dietary changes, the Document backs a shift in how the PRC sets its food mix. It calls for ‘drawing food from all land and sea space’. The PRC has some 2.3 million km2 of forests, close to 3 million km2 of sea, and 4 million km2 of grasslands. For a long time, these had far less weight in the food supply than they could.
The ‘forest food store’ is now set to grow fast. The text calls for ‘active growth in the forestry and grassland cultivation’. There is hard data behind this. Output from economic forests is now about 2.2 trillion yuan a year, and under-forest work helps about 34 million farmers find work. Fujian gives a clear case. Under its ‘forest food store’ plan, it aims by 2030 to lift forest food output to 3.9 million tonnes and expand oil-tea area to some 16 million mu, while keeping both ecology and food supply in view.
agri-food output metrics: 2015 vs. 2024
At the same time, old crops are taking on new roles. In 2016, the PRC proclaimed the potato a ‘fourth staple’, but take-up ran into headwinds. Many buyers still treat it as a vegetable, and deep processing can cost more than wheat or rice. The 2026 Document’s call to lift farm tech results aims to clear such blocks. With better processing, potatoes can turn into buns and noodles and slot into everyday diets. This fits the point experts make that nutrition and health demands should encourage supply to upgrade.
feed grain is weak link
The main weak spot in food security is in feed grain. Huang Jikun 黄季焜, Peking University China Agricultural Policy Research Centre, argues that soy security is, in fact, ‘protein security’. The PRC imports close to 100 million tonnes of soy each year, mainly to meet protein feed demand for livestock and poultry. Domestically grown protein feed sources provide only 19–21 percent of demand. Soy import reliance is above 80 percent, and 90 percent of that comes from Brazil and the United States. Maize imports are also tied to a small set of sources, and import links for barley and sorghum are tight, too.
trends in animal-source calories and feed grain sowing in China 1990–2020
The risk runs deeper than it looks. By a ‘land area need’ method, the PRC food self-supply rate fell from some 103 percent in 2000 to 68 percent in 2022. In effect, close to one-third of food supply now draws on farm land outside the PRC. That kind of risk is harder to manage than a one-off shortfall. As Cheng Guoqiang 程国强 stresses, a fall in local supply is not the key fear. The real fear is a skewed risk mix. A sound strategy is to keep staples fully safe, while still using global markets in a measured and planned way.
The No. 1 Document puts ‘protecting and lifting farmer will to grow grain’ as the first step in raising farm incomes. It aims to do so through jointly addressing prices, grants, and coverage. Qiu Huanguang 仇焕广 adds that the PRC should move from ‘grain security’ to ‘feed security’, and then to ‘protein security’, with protein supply as a top-line goal.
lift production at home, spread risk abroad
First domestic supply must be lifted. The text calls for shifting planting and farm tech in main grain areas towards higher-yield feed crops, to ease the ‘enough staples, not enough feed’ gap. It also links ‘new quality productive forces’ to three levers: bio-breeding, smart machines and digital tools. It adds a fresh angle on biomass. The PRC produces about 800 million tonnes of straw a year, much of which goes to waste. Firms are now turning it into bio-based goods and protein feed, pointing to a wider ‘future food’ pool.
Second, is to spread risk abroad. Beijing wants more import sources, wider Belt and Road links, and a shift from spot buying to deeper reach into global agri-food value chains, so the PRC is less tied to a few suppliers.
from pilots to wide roll-out
The path is set, but the work is hard. As Wei Houkai 魏后凯, CAAS Rural Development Institute, notes, the 2026 document lifts the aim from ‘farm modernisation’ to ‘rural modernisation’. This implies that cities and rural areas must be planned as one, and rural revitalisation must shift from dispersed pilots to wide roll-out. It also points to the hard parts of putting the Big Food concept into real work.
First, control of forests, seas, and grasslands is spread across more than one branch of the state, so goals do not align on their own. Next, farm grants were built over decades around the three staple grains, so widening the scope and shifting aim means a full redesign. Then, tech is still skewed, with most R&D in staples and clear gaps in forestry, fisheries, and microbial food. Last, local roll-out must avoid rush work and ensure farmers gain in real ways. That is a test of how well local cadres can plan, pace, and carry out the work.
forage variety gaps in major crops
These issues link together. They rule out quick fixes. Policy, tech, and funds must align. Only then can Big Food shift from paper to real food gains.
big food team
Ye Xingqing 叶兴庆 | Department of Rural Economy general director, Development Research Centre of the State Council
Boosting supply remains the core task, argues Ye, but securing it long term means system reform. Grain and livestock output must rise, but so too must resilience: from disaster readiness and input efficiency to trade-production coordination and food source diversification.
The current model has structural risks, including rising imports, volatile markets, and weak producer incentives. Reducing post-harvest losses and unlocking non-arable food resources, from forest oils to offshore aquaculture, will be key to easing pressure on land and cutting emissions at the margins. In a volatile climate and trade environment, Ye sees flexibility and coordination as the foundation of sustainable food security.
Ye focuses on agricultural trade policy, food security strategy, and rural reform. He has held visiting or adjunct positions at China Agricultural University and Jilin Agricultural University and serves several national agricultural and rural-economy associations. His policy work focuses on strengthening domestic production, improving the structure and resilience of agricultural imports, and shaping national strategies that balance openness with food security priorities.
Fan Shenggen 樊胜根 | China Agricultural University chair professor China Agricultural University
First mentioned in 2015, the ‘greater food strategy’ was little discussed until 2022, when it was frequently mentioned by senior officials after Xi Jinping invoked it at the 2022 Central Rural Work Conference. It was cited in the 2023 No.1 Document. The growing prominence of the strategy reflects significant changes in the national diet—from a grain-centric to one that includes diversified food sources, such as horticultural products and eggs, as well as aquatic and dairy products, suggests Fan Shenggen 樊胜根 China Agricultural University. The concept of ‘grain’ has also been broadened beyond staple crops to include a range of other plants like beans and coarse grains.
Fan maintains that such a dietary transformation could not only ease current food supply pressure but also improve the sustainability of the food system and utilise broader food resources by leveraging R&D capacity building. Non-farm food from grasslands, forests, wetlands and even deserts could become options, he argues, pointing out that future foods, including synthetic meat and microalgae, deserve attention at the national level.
Celebrated ag economist Fan spent over 20 years with the International Food Policy Research Institute, including as Director General for the ten-year period until his current appointment at China Agricultural University. Working at high levels with a range of stakeholders, Fan has dealt with agriculture, food, health, climate change, natural resource management and information technologies.
Chen Mengshan 陈萌山 | former Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences Party Secretary
The ‘greater food’ approach entails a thorough study of the state’s food supply potential and people’s food and nutritional demands, according to Chen. Priorities must also go to action to build resilient agrifood supply chains that facilitate distribution, he suggests. Grain subsidies fall short of international levels in the PRC, responsible for a mere 20 percent of farmers’ incomes. Those in the US, the EU, South Korea and Japan rely on subsidies for 40, 50 and 60 percent of their income. Central government transfer payments to granary counties, he added, should increase. On field trips to several counties, Chen found that while contributing 4 percent of the national grain output, they received a minute 0.1 percent of fiscal revenue.
Formerly Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences Party Secretary, Chen’s career was built in the agriculture ministry. He headed the Crop Production Department and was later chief economist. On retiring, he took up directing the National Food and Nutrition Consulting Committee and China Ag Tech Economic Society.