President Xi Jinping's "Clean Plate 2.0" campaign has turned public focus on China's food security, with some people fearing that the COVID-19 pandemic and the floods across southern China may reduce food production and supply.

But the fact is China's summer harvest increased 0.9 percent year-on-year in 2020, with output reaching to 142 million tons, according to the news conference of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on Wednesday. Crops to be harvested in the fall are also in good health.

The novel coronavirus outbreak and the severe floods in the southern region will certainly have an impact on China's agricultural output, but it will not be significant. Barriers set up in the early stage of the pandemic for a short while, which hampered transportation of fertilizers and seeds, have been lifted.

And since China experiences drought conditions and floods in one place or the other almost every year, this year's floods, which are limited to the Yangtze River basin, will not significantly reduce the total output in China compared with the previous years.

China enjoys absolute food security, particularly in staples (rice and wheat).

Since grain rationing practice of food stamps was abolished nationwide in 1993, Chinese people have never faced any problem in purchasing rice and flour, whose prices, taking into account annual inflation, have stayed stable.

Yet a recent report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which said China is expected to face a supply gap of 130 million tons of food around 2025, has raised concerns over the country's ability to feed its people. But even if this projection is true, it will not be an abrupt increase, but a continuation of the trend in recent years. And the increased import will be feed, mainly soybean and some coarse grains.

China has imported on average 111 million tons of grains and soybean from 2015 to 2019, among which around 90 million tons were soybean, and the rest were rice, wheat, corn, barley and sorghum. With continued improvement in income, the demand for livestock products, including meat, milk and eggs, are increasing rapidly, resulting in a dramatic rise of feed demand. With 18 percent of global population and just 10 percent of world's cultivable land, China produced 25 percent of the world's meat in 2019.

Also, this is not the first time that Xi has emphasized thriftiness and highlighted the importance of reducing food wastage and losses. In fact, food waste has been significantly reduced in the last seven years since President Xi gave a similar call in 2013 to reduce food waste. This is especially true for events such as official receptions using public money. And many Chinese people have developed the habit of packing and taking home leftovers, if any, when dining out.

Yet extravagance and food wastage still exist. Ordering extra dishes and leaving food on the dining table, many times untouched, is a common way of showing respect to and honoring guests in China, especially for important family events, such as weddings and other celebrations. And instead of opting for buffet, popular in the West, Chinese people prefer a la carte when dining out, which also invariably leads to food waste.

The total estimated food waste last year was 17-18 million tons, which could feed 30-50 million people for a year, according to a study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the World Wide Fund for Nature.

China has seen consecutive bumper grain harvests and enjoyed high grain output in the past years. The abundant food supply is attributable to favorable policies, significant technical progress, and farmers' efforts over the past four decades of reform to improve agricultural production and national food security.

However, China should never be complacent where food security is concerned, and should take preemptive measures against food storage. With urbanization and rising living standards, people's demands for nutrients from animal-based products will continue to grow.

How to balance the gap between people's demand for more, better and safer food with relatively limited cultivable land, and declining underground water table and labor force, will remain a long-term challenge for China.

Wasting food is not just a waste of money, but more importantly, it is a waste of very scarce and priceless natural resources, which has high ecological and environmental consequences.

Therefore, no matter whether food supply is abundant or not, there is no excuse for wasting food. To save food is a traditional virtue in China, which we should never forget.

The author's views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.

The author is former president of China Agricultural University. The article is an excerpt of his interview with China Daily's Yao Yuxin.