Grain for Green versus Grain: Conflict between Food Security and Conservation Set-Aside in China

SummaryThis paper examines the conflict that may exist between conservation and food security. In China, policymakers and scholars are debating whether or not conservation set-aside programs threaten food security. To address the debate, we describe China’s conservation set-aside program known as Grain for Green and compare it with similar programs outside of China. We then use data that we collected to measure the production and price impacts of the program on China’s grain economy since 1999. Our simulations find that Grain for Green has only a small effect on China’s grain production and almost no effect on prices or food imports.