Internal spatial fix: China’s geographical solution to food supply and its limits

Abstract

Over the past three decades, China has managed to maintain and even increase grain production in the context of rapid industrialization and urbanization through a process of internal spatial fix in which grain production is relocated to and concentrated in less developed inland regions. However, the fix created political and environmental problems that will undermine it in the future. Using national statistical data and two case studies, the paper demonstrates how the fix has been a result of complex interactions between central and local actors and is a key factor shaping China’s trajectories of food politics and agrarian transitions. It also reveals that confronting the underproduction crisis of food under capitalist accumulation China has first sought to produce sufficient grain within its national border rather than rely on overseas resources.