英国《金融时报》哈维尔?布拉斯(Javier Blas)意大利希森迪瓦马瑞报道

中国表示，不会通过对海外农田投资（尤其是在非洲），加入到外包粮食生产这一逐渐增长的趋势中去，并对此类交易能够提高本国粮食安全表示怀疑。

中国农业部副部长牛盾昨日表示，中国政府倾向于依靠自有土地保证粮食自给自足，从而使中国与沙特和韩国等投资于海外土地的国家形成差异。

牛盾在八国集团(G8)首次农业部长会议期间接受英国《金融时报》采访时表示：“我们不可能依靠在其他国家（投资）来保障本国的粮食安全，我们不得不依靠自己。”这是中国政府高官首次就该问题发表评论。

作为世界上最大的农业经济体和最大的谷物消费国及生产国，中国对非洲可耕种土地的任何投资决定都将有很大的影响。但牛盾否认这方面会有任何举措。他称：“我们和韩国等其他国家的情况截然不同。”

对海外农田的追逐，表明各国是如何寻求提高本国粮食安全的。去年农产品价格飙升和贸易限制使得各国相信，他们不能依赖全球粮食市场。

中国做出上述评论之际，正值世界银行(World Bank)在会议期间向英国《金融时报》表示，计划最快在下月发布一份海外农田投资行为准则。在这种被一位世行高官称为“相当重大”的新投资趋势中，世行希望“避免错误”。

译者/君悦

China has said it will not join the growing trend of outsourcing food production by investing in overseas farmland, particularly in Africa, expressing doubts that such deals could improve its food security.

Niu Dun, China’s deputy agriculture minister, said yesterday that Beijing preferred to depend on its own land to maintain self-sufficiency in grain, distancing the country from nations such as Saudi Arabia and South Korea, which are investing in land overseas.

“We cannot rely on [investments in] other countries for our own food security,” Mr Niu told the Financial Times in an interview at the Group of Eight’s first meeting on agriculture. “We have to depend on ourselves,” he said in the first comments on the subject by a senior Chinese policymaker.

As the world’s biggest agricultural economy and its largest consumer and producer of cereals, any decision by China to invest in African arable land would have large implications. But Mr Niu rejected any move in that direction. “We are in a different situation to other countries, for example South Korea,” he said.

The pursuit of foreign farmland signals how countries are seeking to boost their food security after last year’s spike in agricultural commodities prices and trade restrictions led them to believe they could not rely on the global food market.

China’s comments were made as the World Bank told the FT on the sidelines of the conference that it planned to publish a code of conduct for investing in overseas farmland as soon as next month. It wants to “avoid pitfalls” in what a senior bank official described as a “quite significant” new investment trend.