ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the ways that could help China to achieve its food security and to avoid the recurrence of famines, especially like the Great Famine that took place during 1958–1962. It surveys the key literature which deals with China's food security. These studies include major ones conducted by both Chinese and non-Chinese scholars, published both inside and outside China and both in Chinese and English. The book highlights China's food security practice and status since 1950 and presents China's food scarcity prior to the 1980s with emphasis on food shortages during the 1958–1962 Great Famine and the 1966–1976 Cultural Revolution. It identifies major challenges facing China for achieving a higher level of food security, including environment pollution, resource degradation, unsafe foods, large and widening income inequality and food wastes.
