A primary school student in Xianju county, Zhejiang province, harvests corn in a local cornfield during a volunteer activity on Oct 15 to mark the upcoming World Food Day. [Photo/CFP]

October 16 is World Food Day, an international holiday celebrating the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1945.

China has designated this entire week as the Publicity Week for National Food Security, during which Chinese authorities host a series of activities to promote awareness of food security among citizens.

East China's Zhejiang province maintains a stable supply of staple foods for its residents in three ways: raising productivity in the province’s agricultural sector, ensuring a reliable source of staple foods from outside the province, and managing its reserve of staple foods.

Zhejiang is expected to produce a total of 6 billion kilograms of staple foods this year, which is 80 million kilograms higher than in the previous year.

Zhejiang purchased 17.05 billion kilograms of staple foods from outside the province in 2019, 43 percent of which was rice and 31 percent of which was corn.

Zhejiang currently has the second largest reserve of staple foods among all Chinese provinces, enough to feed its residents for half a year. Rice and wheat, respectively, account for 68 percent and 29 percent of its food reserves.