Annie Zhao
Coll 150 Human development and Data Science
27 February 2021
Anotated Bibliography
Article 1
Du, T., Kang, S., Zhang, J., & Davies, W. J. (2015). Deficit irrigation and SUSTAINABLE Water-resource strategies in agriculture FOR China’s food security. Journal of Experimental Botany, 66(8), 2253–2269. https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erv034
It is true that China has sufficient food supply, however, people should never stop their progress on improving food security. It will be a long term issue for not only Chinese people but also for the whole world to work together. As the passage said before, food sustainability is a critical part of food security. And sustainable water supply is the decisive factor for it. Around the world, about 70% of water is used in agriculture. It is for sure that the food security sustainability is based completely on water supply sustainability. People can even say that water is the most critical factor of the food supply chain. As the article focused on, some regions of China are suffering from water scarcity, however, overuse of water in agriculture can also cause serious environmental problems. All kinds of false water usage can bring harm to human society. Not only on food security but also can negatively affect the living environment. In order to efficiently the water application technology is needed. In this article, the author is trying to build an integrative system to control the water use in agriculture during different cropping stages and regulate the plant’s growth, productivity, and development based on physiological responses by analyzing the extent of use and impact of deficit irrigation within China. In this study, the researchers define different factors such as photosynthesis, dry biomass, harvest index, and so on with different characters, which enable people to transfer them into data forms and employees equations to digitize them. Data can help people understand the information more directly and effectively. After the data analysis, how to improve agricultural water productivity becomes a prime question to solve, and China applies the water-saving agriculture. Deficit irrigation methods, which means maintaining yield with less water, is a sustainable strategy of agricultural water resources for food security in China. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to precisely know the drought tolerance varies considerably by genotype and by phenological stage, which requires a huge database for study. In addition to that, optimal allocation of water, high efficient agricultural water usage, prevention and control of water pollution, countermeasures to climate disasters and other potential environmental impacts are all indispensable. At this moment while traditional irrigation needs improvement, deficit irrigation is worthy to be discussed. Although there are many impactive factors that are hard to predict such as rainfall, applying data science and the mechanisms that plants already have to maximize carbon gain and growth in virus environments are enough for people to apply those cut down irrigation strategies in order for a much more effective allocation of water resources.
Article 2
Jiang, T. (2008). WTO accession and food security in China. In CHEN C. & DUNCAN R. (Eds.), Agriculture and Food Security in China: What Effect WTO Accession and Regional Trade Arrangements? (pp. 183-202). ANU Press. Retrieved February 27, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt24hd73.15
This passage brings out a worth studying topic by starting with the exceptional accession commitment of China joining WTO (World Trade Organization). It agreed to lower the average statutory tariff on industrial products, cancel agricultural subsidies, and limit domestic support to farmers. From the commitment, it seems very likely to be adverse for Chinese agriculture and raise the concern on the problem of food security and farmer’s income. When talking about China, which is known as the third largest country all over the world and has the greatest population, there is a topic that always cannot be avoided is the per capita resources question. And one of the extremely significant parts of per capita resources is food security. And the food security problem can also be separated into different layers. People can think about the quality of food only in addition to the quantity of food supply being secured. However, both food quantity and quality problems can be severe for China. In fact, considering as preconditions of China, how to ensure sufficient food and maintain a stable food supply chain is a huge basic problem for not only China but also the whole world. China suffered from a great famine from 1959 to 1961. It was because of several wrong decisions on agriculture and continuous nature disasters. Fortunately, starting from 1978, China has made great and effective progress on its food security. Through the developments of recent years, nowaday Chinese people have sufficient food supply for themselves. This achievement is not only significant for China, but also for the whole world. As people know, Chinese population is extremely large. So assume that China has no food self-sufficient, it has to rely on the world food supply market and severely consume the world food supply and even brings a great harm for those developing countries. The Chinese food supply security problem deserves worldwide attention. Considering China’s specific condition, a huge amount of people are farmers. And their income situation is closely related to the agriculture policy. The impact on producers will definitely impact their products. Although after joining the WTO, some regions of China gain a huge amount of benefits, the problem of income inequality problems also needs attention. So the passage further discusses the possible solution. The free market is necessary for China, and trade liberalisation should be promoted globally. From the data model and chart, it clearly shows that further liberalisation can effectively solve those adverse problems and improve the agricultural productivity of China.
Article 3
Long, H., Ge, D., Zhang, Y., Tu, S., Qu, Y., & Ma, L. (2018). Changing man-land interrelations in China’s farming area under urbanization and its implications for food security. Journal of Environmental Management, 209, 440–451. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.12.047
This passage is a typical geospatial data research case. It starts by deeply analyzing the Huang-Huai Hai-Plain, which is a typical Chinese agricultural area, to bring out the urbanization problem and how it will affect food security. In this passage, it uses data to state out the relationship between per capita construction land transition (PCCT) and per capita farmland transition (PCFT) in the HHH and how to develop an appropriate agricultural scale management, and establish a better social security system to deal with the problem of floating rural population in the city while reduce inefficient occupation of farmland resources. According to the data resources, Chinese urbanization rate increased from 36.22% to 56.1% from 2000 to 2015. As more and more population moved from rural to urban, a phenomenon of “decreasing population vs. increasing rural housing land” occurred. The efficiency of rural housing land use is getting lower and lower, combined with more and more abandoned farmland. The research is focusing on the issue of rural hollowing. Because of the social trend, urbanization is an unavoidable topic for human development. Based on this situation, the land use transitions become extremely significant. HHH, as the study area which is a main grain-producing area of China, is experiencing a rapid urbanization process. The key material of this research is the data processing of PCCT and PCFT. After multi-layer buffer analysis and spatial econometric regression analysis, the result becomes obvious. The relationship between PCCT and PCFT graphically expresses the impact of urbanization. In order to conquer the strict challenge brought by urbanization,optimizing the utilization of land and exploring the value of stock land resources is the primary task for people. In order to achieve this goal, the government should improve the exploitation level of stock land resources for both rural and urban areas. In addition to that, improving the urban and rural social security system is an effective way to stabilize the rural floating population settled down in the city. Urbanization is a constant topic associated with food security. People should never stop promoting the development of the grain production scale management and modern agricultural production system in favor of ensuring food production security and the food supply sustainability that is based on the effective usage of land.
Article 4
Qi, X., Liu, L., Liu, Y., & Yao, L. (2012). Risk assessment for sustainable food security in China according to integrated food security—taking Dongting Lake area for example. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 185(6), 4855–4867. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-012-2908-2
For this passage, the author clearly states the three significant aspects of food security at the beginning. The integrated food security must include three factors: food quantity security, food quality security, and sustainable food security. Among those factors, sustainable food security is kind of different from the other two. It cannot be simply measured, but needs a future analysis which is influenced by many potential elements. Data and index can be an effective tool for sustainable food security problems. This passage focuses on Chinese food security problem. Since China is a huge nation with a great amount of population, the food security problem of it can even impact the whole world, especially for some developing countries. However, although today’s China has a self-sufficient food supply, the problem that is associated with shortage of cultivated land and water resources can never be ignored. Because of rapid population growth and industrial pollution, the arable land and water resources are under threat. In ordering to figure out the possible trend of Chinese food supply and risk assessment of sustainable food security, the passage employed an index system and chose Dongting Lake as a representative research area. Since sustainable food security risk varies due to different land resources and eco-environmental conditions, choosing a suitable research area will greatly improve the representation of the final result. The whole process of research includes risk identification, risk analysis, and risk characterization in order to accurately analyze the risk assessment of sustainable food security of this area and achieving integrated food security. Data is a great way to effectively show the result of study. More than that, the most important usage of data and index is to predict future trends. From the study of this passage, the data results indicate an increasing trend of risk assessment, and based on that, the situation of land resources and environmental conditions can be visually recognized. So it makes possible the construction of a regional food security early warning system. People can use the huge database and through research from representative land such as Dongting Lake in this case to monitor the future food security. Although the current situation is not bad in Dongting Lake, the index and data still warn people about the gradual increase of food security risk in future. It is a good sign for people and enables them to improve food security sustainability.
Reflection
China’s food security issues can impact not only China, but also the whole world because of its huge population and acreage. The most difficult point of this problem is not how can people achieve food security but how to maintain the food security. For the sources above, they focus on several significant factors of food supply, such as Arable land and water supply for irrigation. In order to ensure the sustainability of food supply, data science and index analysis are good ways to find out the critical problems, make a predicting to future trend, and define the direction and way of improvement.