Analysis of Current and Qualified Major Grain Producing Areas in China in the Last 30 Years

Abstract

China’s grain production has been on a pathway parallel to urbanization in the last 30 years. When the balance between the grain supply and demand is considered, contradiction between farming suitability and actual deviation provides warning of a crisis regarding China’s food security. In this study, we constructed a set of topologic maps to summarize the basic distribution of the farming conditions in China, and Kernel density and Local Moran’s I analyses were con-ducted to investigate the spatial-temporal pattern of China’s regional grain production based on the grain output at the county level from 1985 to 2019. The results show that the high-output zones were concentrated in the regions with superior physical conditions in 1985, and by 2019, the high-output zones had increased in the northern regions (i.e., Northeast China Plain) and decreased in the southern regions (i.e., Southern China). The surplus zones of per capita grain output were concentrated in the regions with high total outputs during 1985–2019. The shortage zones were distributed in the regions with low total outputs and low total outputs or large populations. Based on the above three results, several typical commodity grain bases have lost their dominant role (i.e., the Pearl River Delta); furthermore, the qualified commodity grain bases were compiled at both the national and regional level based on overlay analysis (i.e., the Tarbagatay Prefecture as well as eastern and central Inner Mongolia).