Food self-sufficiency targets reshape climate trade-offs and synergies in China’s food system

Zhao, H., Zhang, H., Forsell, N., Havlik, P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5551-5085, Shi, Z., & Chang, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4463-7778 (2026). Food self-sufficiency targets reshape climate trade-offs and synergies in China’s food system. Environmental Research Letters 21 (13) e134014. 10.1088/1748-9326/ae8287.

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Abstract

China’s prioritization of food self-sufficiency is likely to reconfigure global agricultural trade and associated GHG emissions, yet its climate compatibility remains uncertain. Here, we employ a well-established food system integrated assessment model (GLOBIOM-China) to quantify how self-sufficiency targets alter domestic and trade-embodied GHG emissions through 2060. Our findings indicate that solely increasing food self-sufficiency rate would reduce China’s trade embodied GHG emissions by 50% (107 Mt CO 2 -eq yr −1 ), but increase domestic emissions by 7% (55 Mt CO 2 -eq yr −1 ). This results in a net reduction of 52 Mt CO 2 -eq yr −1 in overall emissions while intensifying domestic land competition. We uncover a market-mediated mitigation feedback that higher soybean self-sufficiency raises domestic feed costs, acting as an implicit constraint that limits the expansion of the high-emitting livestock sector. This upstream intervention delivers emission reduction elasticities comparable to directly targeting ruminant production. However, to prevent such passive mitigation, self-sufficiency must be coupled with production efficiency gains and dietary shifts. This combined pathway reduces overall GHG emissions by 211 (162–259) Mt CO 2 -eq yr −1 (20%) by 2060, aligning national food security with global climate targets.

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