Local food system resilience in China integrating supply and demand

The extent to which the food supply aligns with the food and nutrition demand is unclear, which is crucial during crises like the COVID pandemic. Here, we present a geospatial framework integrating 3.8 million road segments for evaluating the food system resilience in alignment with Chinese dietary requirements. Results reveal that China faces challenges in achieving complete local self-sufficiency in specific foods and heavily relies on large-scale transport in a north-south direction. When comparing actual consumption to the ideal dietary requirements, there is average increased pressure of 6.1% in food transport intensity (i.e., from 0.6% in staples to 11% in oilseeds). Nevertheless, China's diverse food supply chain is rich, and the food system in the southeastern coastal cities (46% of all) is highly resilient, but resilience decreases from east to west. In the future, policymakers should prioritize local food distribution by building a centrally coordinated-locally autonomous supply and marketing network.