Challenges to Food Development in Global Perspectives

Abstract

Despite having only 7% of the world's arable land, China manages to feed roughly 22% of the world's population. Large-scale environmental pollution throughout the country as a result of agriculture casts a shadow on this remarkable achievement. China proposed the Green Food Strategy in the 1990s and established a specialized management agency, the China Green Food Development Center, complete with a monitoring network for policy and standard creation, brand authorization, and product inspection to guarantee nutrition security and environmental sustainability. In 2019, 15,984 green food companies offered 36,345 unique products, all of which adhered to these 140 environmental and operational standards. 8.2% of China's total farmland area and 9.7% of the country's annual agricultural GDP were devoted to growing green food, respectively. In this work, we provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of green food regulation, standards, and authorization in China, as well as its environmental benefits, challenges, and potential strategies for optimization and scaling in the future. The rapid growth of China's green food industry may point to a replicable, win-win strategy for protecting the environment, boosting agro-economic growth, and enhancing human nutrition and health in other developing countries and regions.