Since the reform and opening-up in 1978, China’s income distribution gap has widened. The Gini coefficient of national residents’ income rose from 0.31 in 1981 to a historic high of 0.49 in 2008 and has continued to hover at a high of 0.46 in the recent years (Molero-Simarro, 2017; Li and Zhu, 2018; Luo et al., 2021). Narrowing the income gap between urban and rural residents is the key to reducing China’s Gini coefficient. The ratio of per capita income between urban and rural residents exhibited an overall growth trend before 2009, despite the increase in disposable income per capita of rural residents from 134 yuan in 1978 to 18,931 yuan in 2021. In 2007, the urban–rural income ratio exceeded 3:1 for the first time and contributed over 50% to the Gini coefficient of the national income distribution (Li and Wan, 2013). Since 2009, the urban–rural income gap has decreased; however, the decline has nearly halted post 2014. In 2021, the urban–rural income ratio was still as high as 2.5:1, almost equal to that in 1978 and larger than that in developed countries, which have a level of approximately 1:1 or lower.

During the past several decades, significant progress has been made in reducing global hunger and malnutrition. The number of people suffering malnutrition, however, is rising again. The hidden costs and externalities in the agrifood systems are among the major contributors to various economic, social, and public health crises including food insecurity, zoonotic diseases, climate change, and malnutrition. Compounding the ongoing challenges facing the global agrifood systems, the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning in 2020, has intensified food insecurity and malnutrition in many parts of the world. Global food price indexes increased by more than 27.3 percent from the second half of 2020 to March 2021. Moreover, with many people losing their jobs during the COVID-19 outbreak and therefore facing a dramatic income decrease, the number of people confronted with food crises and extreme poverty increased significantly. Furthermore, the outbreak and prevalence of COVID-19 also increased regional inequalities in global food security, especially in Africa and the Middle East.

China's economy has developed rapidly in recent years, achieved historic reductions in poverty, and has met the ambitious goal of creating a moderately prosperous society. In this new stage, the Chinese government has announced multiple development goals, including improving national nutrition and health, achieving green, low-carbon, and sustainable development, and achieving common prosperity, and made commitments to reach its carbon emission peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. Great changes have taken place in China's agrifood systems in this process, with a significant increase in agricultural productivity, extension of supply chains, an increased supply of agricultural products, and a significant improvement in residents’ food consumption, nutrition, and health. Agricultural support policies have played an important role in promoting agrifood systems transformation, increasing agricultural production, ensuring food quantity, and providing residents with abundant and diverse food.

Agrifood systems are both a contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and an important sector for achieving China’s 2060 carbon neutrality goal and mitigating climate change. Rising global temperatures and frequent extreme weather have greatly weakened agricultural production capacity (IPCC, 2021). The need to mitigate climate change by reducing GHG emissions has global consensus. In 2020, the Chinese government made an important commitment toward peaking its carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. Under China’s 2060 carbon neutrality goal, the contribution of agrifood systems to GHG emissions reduction cannot be ignored. According to estimates by the Academy of Global Food Economics and Policy (AGFEP) at China Agricultural University (AGFEP, 2021), GHG emissions from agrifood systems reached 1.09 billion metric tons (t) of CO2eq in 2018, accounting for 8.2 percent of total national GHG emissions. While ensuring food security as the top national priority, the combined measures can reduce GHG emissions by 47 percent by 2060, compared to 2020 levels; these measures include improving agricultural technologies, reducing food loss and waste, and shifting dietary patterns. When coupled with the carbon sequestration of land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF), agrifood systems can contribute significantly to achieving carbon neutrality (AGFEP, 2021).

The current situation of global food and nutrition security is increasingly worrisome, and it is unfortunate that progress in eliminating hunger, food insecurity, and multiple forms of malnutrition has been hindered or even reversed by recent global events. It is estimated that globally, 702 million to 828 million people (8.9 to 10.5 percent) suffered from hunger in 2021, with 150 million added during the COVID-19 pandemic. Approximately 2.3 billion people are in a state of moderate or severe food insecurity, with 11.7 percent facing severe food insecurity. Nearly 3.1 billion people could not afford a healthy diet, which is an increase of 112 million from the last year. The causes of food insecurity are multifaceted, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis in Ukraine,and climate change. Simultaneously, income levels have been adversely affected, and prices have risen, reducing people’s ability to purchase food and making it unaffordable. Therefore, it is imperative for governments and other stakeholders to act collectively to improve the state of global food and nutritional health. Many countries, including China, have begun to pay more attention to the issue of agrifood systems and are proposing a transition to the multidimensional goals of nutrition and health, green and low-carbon, efficiency, resilience, and inclusiveness. At the international level, a series of high-level international conferences and action plans, such as the UN Food Systems Summit, the Nutrition for Growth Summit, and UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in 2021 and COP27 in 2022, have demonstrated the importance and urgency of promoting the transformation of agrifood systems. These conferences advocated for countries to work together to transform the way food is produced and consumed to build healthier, sustainable, and equitable food systems. At the domestic level, China has always regarded food security as a top priority for national development. In 2022, the total annual national grain output reached 686.53 million tons and has remained stable for eight consecutive years at more than 650 million tons. In 2022, the Chinese government emphasized the need to “establish a big food concept” and “strengthen the foundation of food security in all aspects” from the perspective of putting people first and better meeting their increasingly diversified food consumption needs. In light of the various risks and challenges posed by the contemporary era, safeguarding food security necessitates a shift from a narrow focus on food production to a more comprehensive consideration of the entire food supply chain. This entails promoting the development of a diversified food supply system and expanding the focus from mere quantity to encompassing multiple objectives related to the “quantity, structure, and quality” of food. Such an approach will serve to bolster the foundations of food security on all fronts.

In recent decades, agricultural support policies in many countries have played an active role in promoting food production and reducing hunger and poverty. Remarkable achievements have been made globally in agricultural production, with rapid growth in output of agricultural products outpacing population growth. Populations’ food consumption has increased and the number of undernourished people has decreased significantly. Particularly in China, agricultural reforms that were initiated in the late 1970s have increased farmers’ incomes and improved dietary quality. By 2020, China had achieved a moderately prosperous society in all aspects and had eliminated hunger and poverty. This chapter reviews domestic and international agricultural support policies and their impacts. China's experience of developing agricultural support policies has been summed up in order to, on the one hand, provide a reference for other developing countries. On the other hand, China is now implementing new national development goals of nutrition and health, green and high quality development, common prosperity, and institutional opening. The analysis of the challenges being faced in the course of implementing the corresponding new agricultural support policies can help optimize these policies.