How Does Energy Intake Change in China? A Life Cycle Perspective.

China's population is showing the characteristics of "fewer children" and "aging", which will have a long-term and far-reaching impact on the food and nutritional needs of China and the world. In this paper, adult equivalent scale (AES) variables representing the household population structure were introduced into the energy intake model to quantify the impact of population structure changes on energy intake and reveal the characteristics of energy intake changes in the life cycle of Chinese residents. It is found that the change in the population structure has a significant impact on the energy intake of urban households in China, and the elasticity is 0.446. The energy intake of Chinese elderly over the age of 60 shows a trend of first increasing and then decreasing, especially after the age of 65, which indicates that the aging will promote a decline in food consumption in China. The energy intake of 1-10-year-old children, 22-30 year old, and 40-45 year old women all showed a change of first a decrease and then an increase, which may be related to parents' care for young children and women with children's management of body size. The average household size expressed by the adult equivalent scales of energy consumption is 2.341, which is smaller than the 3.052 calculated by the population number. The conclusion indicates that the prediction of the food and nutritional demand should be adjusted according to the changes and differences in accordance with the intensification of "fewer children" and "aging", as well as the life cycle changes in residents' energy intake, which is conducive to the formulation of food and nutrition security policies.

Impacts of climate change on suitability zonation for potato cultivation in Jilin Province, Northeast China.

Global climate change is causing notable shifts in the environmental suitability of the main regions involved in potato cultivation and has, thus, changed the production potential of potatoes. These shifts can be mapped at fine scales to better understand climate change within areas of potato cultivation and to find infrastructural- and breeding-based solutions. As a case study, we have identified and mapped the structural and spatial shifts that occurred in areas suitable for potato cultivation in Jilin Province, China. We identified a discontinuity in climate change trends between 1961 and 2018 based on data for Jilin Province, and analyzed the averages and linear trends for six important climatic parameters. We used the averages of these climatic parameters to establish climate models for the province and determined cultivation using a multi-criteria, decision-based model that integrates Analytical Hierarchy Process Weighted Principal Component Analysis (AHP-PCA) and Geographic Information System (GIS). We mapped the environmentally suitable areas for potato cultivation at a 3-km resolution based on the geo-climate model for each time period and analyzed differences between them. We found that "Most suitable" areas for potato cultivation were mainly distributed in the central area of Jilin Province, "Suitable" areas were located in the northwestern plains, and "Sub-suitable" areas were located in the eastern mountainous areas. In contrast, "Not suitable" areas occur mainly in the high-altitude areas in the east. The areas of "Most suitable" and "Suitable" areas for potato cultivation in Jilin Province were increasing, with increasing rates of 0.37 × 1,000 km2 decade-1 (R2 = 0.58, P < 0.01) and 0.20 × 1,000 km2 decade-1 (R2 = 0.28, P < 0.01), respectively, while the extent of "Sub-suitable" areas is decreasing, with a decreasing rate of 0.58 × 1,000 km2 decade-1 (R2 = 0.53, P < 0.05). The area of "Not suitable" areas had undergone little change. "Most suitable" and "Suitable" areas for potato cultivation showed a trend towards northward expansion. Overall, our results suggest that global climate change has had a positive impact on potato cultivation in Jilin Province over the past 58 years.