Change traditional thinking about food grain production and use food equivalent in yield measurement

Traditionally the term “food” in China is synonymous with “food grain” and, thereby, “agriculture” with “crop production”. Consequently, this narrow perception of food and agriculture has contributed to the continuous expansion of crop lands for past centuries and the never ceased effort of many generations to improve their productivity, leading to, meanwhile, serious environmental problems, waste of resources and an imbalenced diet of people. Therefore, the traditional Chinese concept of “food” should be widened to cover all the edibles and, for this purpose, a tentative plan of “food equivalent” with its conversion formulas is suggested for using in production management. Some calculated food equivalents are listed as an annex.