中国粮食安全问题备受关注,与城镇化背景下耕地资源的减少有关。近年来,中外粮食价格“倒挂”引致的粮食进口量增加进一步加剧了未来中国可能发生粮食安全危机的担忧。与之相关的一个问题是,随着城镇化的推进,中国人能否养活自己?借用广泛使用的耕地压力指数,并对其进行修正,在此基础上,从人均耕地压力的角度重新审视了耕地资源的变动对粮食生产的影响。研究显示:修正耕地压力指数对粮食产量的影响显著为负。不仅如此,这种影响在粮食主产区表现得比非粮食主产区更为明显。同时,通过对修正耕地压力指数的时空演变趋势考察后发现,2000-2012年,中国粮食主产区的修正耕地压力指数始终处于安全压力区并呈下降趋势,表明现阶段耕地资源的减少并没有显著地威胁中国的粮食安全。从长期看,城镇化与保障粮食安全不仅目标是兼容的,如果农地政策调整得当,中国人不但能够养活自己,还能够为全世界的粮食安全做贡献。为此主要建议:耕地保护要以发挥耕地生产力比较优势为原则;农地政策的调整以农业规模化经营为目的。
China's food security has been a major concern of academic community and governments. The loss of farmland caused by rapid industrialization and urbanization is worrisome. At the same time, the Chinese government upholds the principle of "ensure basic self-sufficiency in grain and absolute security in ration" with the largest population in the world. So how serious a threat is farmland loss to China against the backdrop of continued growth both in grain output and food imports? And how should China respond to the challenge of food security? This paper will provide strong evidences for these issues. With the consideration of labor flow and regional difference, the paper modifies the farmland pressure index properly. Then using a modified farmland pressure index, this paper employs two-step GMM to estimate farmland pressure index on grain output based on the provincial panel data during 2000-2012. We find that farmland pressure index has a strong negative effect on grain output. Moreover, the effect is more obvious in the main producing areas than in non-producing areas. However, by exploring the temporal-spatial variations of China's farmland pressure index, we find that the farmland pressure is declining, and it remains in a safe range. This indicates that there is no serious risk of food security in China under the current urbanization background, and the goals of urbanization and food security are compatible. In the long run, if land policy adjusts properly, Chinese will not only feed themselves, but also will make a contribution to world food security. Therefore, our suggestions are as follows: (1) farmland protection should be combined with the comparative advantage of farmland use: the high quality cultivated land in some regions may demand special protection, such as controlling the scale of urbanization in normal and small cities (towns) properly, promoting the large-scale agricultural operations by subsidies in these areas. And to follow the direction of the agricultural labor flow