Study On Impact Of Demographic Changes On Food Consumption Demand And Import In China

In the context of economic globalization,the scale of China's food imports has been expanding,and the rate of food self-sufficiency has been decreasing.In this context,the future development of China's food imports and self-sufficiency rate and the factors affecting future changes in food import have become an important issue.In the future,the size and structure of China's population will undergo key changes,the population will continue to grow and the aging process is accelerating,which will have a significant impact on food demand,directly related to food import and self-sufficiency.If we neglect the influence of population structure change,the forecast of China's food demand may be biased in the future,which will lead to inaccurate forecast of net food import.Therefore,it is necessary to simulate the impact of population structure on future food demand and net imports on the basis of empirical study on the impact of demographics structure on food consumption.Therefore,the concept of adult equivalent is introduced and the adult equivalent of different populations is constructed by combining the cubic spline function.Then,the comprehensive variables which represent the population structure are introduced to consumption function to measure the population structure,and measure different population equivalent level,in order to be used to simulation and application of population equivalent scale changes in the future.Based on the measurement of food self-sufficiency and the analysis of the characteristics of food import sources,this study used adult equivalent method to study the effects of population structure on food expenditure and nutrition intake.Then,this paper simulates the change of food demand equivalence scale based on the change of population structure,and modifies the future food demand and net import according to the change of per capita equivalence,so as to analyze the change of net food import caused by the change of population structure in the future.The main conclusions are as follows:Firstly,most of China's food self-sufficiency is at a high level.The shortage of food self-sufficiency is mainly in oilseeds,and its self-sufficiency rate has dropped to 37.79%.From the nutritional point of view,the self-sufficiency rate of energy,protein,fat and carbohydrate in China has decreased in varying degrees since China joined the WTO.In 2016,the energy self-sufficiency rate was 82.03%,the protein self-sufficiency rate was 77.35%,the fat self-sufficiency rate was 74.62%,and the carbohydrate self-sufficiency rate was 92.03%.Compared with the energy self-sufficiency rate of other countries,China's energy self-sufficiency rate is at a relatively high level,but since the beginning of this century,the overall trend is downward.In terms of food and nutrition imports,China is highly dependent on the United States,Brazil and ASEAN,and there is a certain competition and complementarity between China's food imports sources.Secondly,population structure has a significant impact on food expenditure and nutrition intake.The elasticity of food equivalent scales to food expenditure is 0.066,which indicates that the gender and age structure of a family can affect the level of food expenditure.The empirical results of nutritional intake showed that the elasticity of energy,protein,fat and carbohydrate intake to the nutritional equivalent scales of family population was 0.446,0.351,0.376 and 0.390,respectively.Thirdly,food consumption analysis without considering population structure often exaggerates the impact of income on food consumption and energy intake.The income elasticity of food expenditure without considering population structure is 0.321,and the estimated income elasticity considering population structure is 0.269.According to the income elasticity of energy intake,the income elasticity of energy intake will increase from 0.217 to 0.389 if the demographic factors are not taken into account.Fourthly,the food expenditure equivalent scale,energy equivalent scale and population number of urban residents in China increased with the year 2000-2016.However,considering the change of population structure,there is a difference in the increasing extent between the energy equivalent scale and the size of population.The simulation results show that the change of population structure will lead to the population rate calculated by the standard person growth faster than the population growth,which means that the change of population structure will be the key to the change of food demand in China.Fifthly,the future demographic structure change has a positive impact on net food imports.During the period 2020-2025,changes in population structure have brought about a considerable increase in net cereal imports.The difference between the revised net cereal imports and the unrevised cereal imports in 2025 has reached 12.321 million tons.By 2030,the accumulated difference may be close to 100 million tons,which will inevitably consume domestic inventory and have an impact on food prices in the international market,warning us that we need to continue to strengthen food security and enhance our ability to respond to demographic structure changes.The contribution of this study is to measure the food self-sufficiency rate and analyze the characteristics of food import sources from the nutritional point of view,which provides a multi-angle scientific reference for understanding China's food imports and self-sufficiency situation.More importantly,an adult equivalent model is constructed,and the adult equivalent of different populations is calculated by using Chinese food consumption and nutrient intake data,which provides a reference tool for studying the impact of population structure on food consumption.Based on population structure changes,this study revises China's food demand and net import according to the change of per capita equivalence,providing a reference for further research and analysis.Based on the conclusion,the following suggestions are put forward:to upgrade the food security strategies based on nutrition perspective,to establish food and nutrition security mechanism based on the evolution of population structure,and to construct a diversified global food supply system to ensure food supply.