China overseas food push not realistic

By Niu Shuping

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's private firms are pushing to invest in farms overseas, but policy debates over whether this is in China's strategic interest have so far stopped the trend becoming an explicit government policy, a senior official said on Friday.

China ultimately has to rely on its own farmland to feed its huge population, Xie Guoli, deputy director of the agricultural trade promotion centre at the Ministry of Agriculture, said in an interview on Friday.

"It is not realistic to grow grains overseas, particularly in Africa or South America. There are so many people starving in Africa, can you ship the grains back to China?" Xie said.

"The cost will be very high as well as the risk."

In recent years, Beijing has pushed resource firms to invest overseas to help supply a rapidly growing economy.

Oil and mining firms have been the most active investors, but private agricultural companies are slowly heeding the call.

"It is the government's policy to encourage all companies to go abroad, including agricultural firms, just like the mining and oil companies," Xie told Reuters.

"But as far as I know, the government is not working on any detailed plan to support such investment. It's too early, we need to wait and see how the investments mature."