| During the past3decades, China has successfully transferred to be a free market, and achieved a huge economic gain. The argument of that large population will block China’s economic development, get rid of development horizon. However, the discussion of the great challenge on sustainable development and resource consumption because of big population still lures more attention. Scholars, China’s government and food trade countries are worried about China’s food security in the future for big population.Most studies about food demand are based on economic factors, like income, price and dietary structure, but it is noted that physical demand for food is the basic demand, and it is determined by age, gender and physical activities. Any change of these factors will lead to the change of food demand. In this paper, we take the perspective of energy requirement for the metabolic and physiological functions of humans. It is believed that although consumers in each social/demographic group increase their food consumption following income growth, the weighted average consumption level may still decline if a large portion of consumers has shifted away from demographic groups requiring higher calorie intake to that require less energy intake. And the change of energy intake would make the further movement of food demand.Our research can be divided into three parts:the first, empirical analysis the impact of demographic and professional structure change on energy intake by using the concept of equivalent scale; we use the CHNS data to reveal the mechanism of the change of demographic/occupational structure to energy requirement; the second, using Natural statistics we analyze the food demand for dietary structure change at the given energy requirement; the last, we predict China’s population in2010-2050, and forecast the food demand, by using<China’s dietary introduction2007> and the result of empirical studyAccording to our analysis, the results are following: 1. Economic factors, like income and price, still have positive impact on food demand, but it has limited influences. In the fourth and fifth chapter, the empirical results shows that price still have significantly negative impact on energy requirement. It means that in China, people are sensitive to food demand, if the price increase1%and per capita food demand could decrease0.39%. The income has a limited influence on food demand. The elasticity of income is0.0454,0.0422, without or with the demographic variable, and the former is bigger than the latter. This implies that analysis of food security without demographic characteristics overestimate the influence of income.2. The structure change of population has a positive impact on per capita food demand based on human physical needs. When the weights of people who need higher energy intake by their age or gender increase, it means more food demand would be taken, the opposite is also correct. According to empirical analysis by CHNS, the elasticity of AMES is0.59, which implies that:on the one hand, the change of a demographic structure of one group, like a country or an area, has a significant influence on per capita energy requirement, it could lead to the change of food demand for the chemical energy bound in food and its macronutrient constituents. On the other hand, as the value of AMES has reduced by0.0287percentage points from2000to2009, representing roughly4%decrease in9years, the total energy intake demand might have been reduced by3%. Therefore, one percentage point increase in AMES is likely to result in roughly one percent increase in per capita energy intake. This result suggests that the FAO/WHO study is quite consistent with our sample, and may be considered reliable in future studies.3. The empirical evidence of impact of professional structure change on food demand also proves that the weight of people who need higher energy requirement increase/decrease result in the per capita energy intake increase/decrease.4. Based on the empirical research, we use China’s residents’survey data to figure out the relationship between energy intake and food demand. The result of chapter6shows that energy intake of rural people are devised from more carbohydrates, and lower protein and fats than urban residents. To urban residents, every1000kcal energy intake needs523.56-569.64gram food per day, while rural only need370.36-406.82gram per day. If taken the2007consumption level to be an example, rural one, who he migrates to urban, and change his dietary structure as a urban, need another22.34kilogram per year, when he wants to keep his original energy level. Assuming that the total population will be14/14.5billion in2015/2020, and the level of urbanization will be at52.59%/57.59, then the total food demand will reach5.88/6.12billion ton in2015/2020.5. The total food demand will increase in the future, but the speed of the increasing will slow down. As the population prediction in2010-2050, the peak will be in2030, and is about14.57billion; after that, the number will decrease, and the total population in2050will reach the same scale as in2010, but aging will be deepen. With or without AMES, the peak of total food demand will reach6.5billion ton, but the later is higher than the former, and the difference is1.05million ton. Meanwhile, as the weight of aging increase, the difference will increase and about2.8million ton.This paper focus on per capita food demand in the perspective of demographic and occupational structure change, it modifies the traditional demand model. The empirical analysis not only explains the decreasing per capita energy intake and food demand, it also contributes to strengthen food demand system. According to our research, we also provide a practical suggestion to our government.Population has a dynamic characteristic, not only the number of the national population, but also the structure of population, as been proved that the dynamic of population has an impact on the per capita food demand, it means that when the population goes on, the characteristic of population may not be stable, and this potentially change the demand for food. So, in the future the analysis of food security should consider all factors which have impacts on food consumption. |
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