MUCH has been made of population growth and the impact it is going to have on the agricultural industry throughout the world, but what does it mean for the biggest country in the world, China?
With a population of 1.33 billion people it has been predicted that could rise to as high as 1.45b by 2035 despite the country's one child policy.
York farmer, Nuffield scholar and Gavilon Grains accumulation manager Leon Ryan told the recent ABARES outlook conference at York there was massive potential for Australian farmers to export more products to China.
"I have found that we (the agriculture community) spend a lot of time and a lot of money on increasing our yields by one per cent but perhaps we should be focusing more on our end consumer," Mr Ryan said.
"One in every five people in the world is Chinese at the moment.
"We have all heard about the one child policy in China but I think most have only heard one part of the one child policy.
"It only applies to the urban or the ethnic Chinese but doesn't apply to minority groups.
"So we are seeing the children who are of the one child policy getting married and they are actually allowed to have two children to maintain the population growth."
Mr Ryan said China's growing population presented a great opportunity which Australian agriculture needed to explore.
He said China had a workforce of around 800 million people which was 36 times the size of Australia.
He said the biggest issue for China was its population was now getting older.
"Most of the people all live on the southern and eastern coastlines and by the year 2050 a third of China's population is actually going to be over the age of 60," he said.
Mr Ryan said Australia seemed to have the view that once China developed further it would become more westernised and in doing so be more inclined to eat similar meals to us, but that was not the case.
"China's diets are very different to ours and their style of eating is also very different," he said.
"There is a higher rice consumption than wheat consumption depending on which part of China you actually come from.
"Basically the southern areas of China will eat more rice and the northern parts will eat more wheat.
"The key growth market is in the meat production and the meat consumption.
"I think Australian agriculture has this thought that when China develops we are going to walk in there and we are going to sell them steak and lamb but in my experience that's not going to happen.
"If you take a chicken for example, the whole chicken gets consumed.
"The head will go into the soup for flavour and the feet will also get consumed because that is considered to bring good luck.
"Very rarely did I come across a chicken breast which is often the most popular piece of the chicken in western societies."
Mr Ryan said if Australian agriculture was going to break into the Chinese market it would need to accept China's different eating culture and offer something unique.
He said the average farm size in China was about 0.3-0.4 hectares and about 60pc of its production was consumed by the household which created it.
The other 40pc was traded for other food items.
"China is an absolute powerhouse in terms of agriculture production and produces almost a third of the world's rice and about 17pc of the world's wheat making it the world's largest wheat producer," he said.
"The consumers in China are becoming a lot more sophisticated and the population is becoming a lot more urbanised and so is its wealth."
He said there was a massive shift of population from rural to urban areas.
"The average person in China spends about 40pc of their income on food," he said.
"So as their wealth increases they will no doubt spend more money on better food.
"We cannot underestimate the purchasing power of China."
