Recent Chinese Agriculture

Changing agricultural policies during the past three decades in China reflect governmental efforts to improve production and to increase yields. The most recent policy, the responsibility system, allows farmers to participate in decision making about cropping and marketing. A goal is to stimulate overall commodity production. Regional variations in yields and per capita output persist. Multiple cropping remains the best indicator of crop yields. Current policy should raise rural incomes. AGRICULTURE has always been the foundation of the Chinese economy. Although industry now contributes more to the gross national product than agriculture, the latter still accounts for approximately three-fourths of the Chinese labor force. Important changes are under way in Chinese agriculture because, as one of the four modernizations in current development, it is expected to produce more foodstuff and fiber with increased efficiency.' A change is the shift of production from collective units to family farms.2 Shifts such as this one will affect the regional character of Chinese farming to reflect the increased freedom in local decision making. In this article I identify some of the recent shifts in agricultural policy and analyze some regional changes in farm production. Since the late 1970s the Chinese government has been making more data on farm production available.3 Much of the data pertain to the amount and the value of provincial production of various agricultural commodities. The data provide insight into recent, significant changes or policy shifts associated with the specific application and practice of socialism that affect the spatial organization of agriculture.4 The Maoist emphasis on food grains throughout China is being replaced by increased regional specialization as producers of foodstuff and fiber take advantage of local factors like climate, soil, labor supply, and access to markets.5 What will be the long-term effects 1 Anthony M. Tang, Agriculture in China: Problems and Prospects, in China: The 80s Era (edited by Norton Ginsburg and Bernard A. Lalor; Boulder: Westview Press, 1984), pp. 145-169; China, Socialist Economic Development (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1983), Vol. II, Annex C, pp. 794; State Statistical Bureau, Statistical Yearbook of China 1983 (Hong Kong: Economic Information Agency, 1983); Chu-yuan Cheng, China's Economy: Advances and Dilemmas, Current History, Vol. 83, September 1984, pp. 257-260 and 273; and China, Outlook and Situation Report (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1984). 2 Wan Li, Developing Rural Commodity Production, Beijing Review, Vol. 27, No. 9, 27 February 1984, pp. 16-21 and 25. 3 Zhongguo Nongye Nianjian [China Agricultural Yearbook] 1980 (Beijing: Editorial Board of China Agricultural Yearbook, 1981). 4Ziyang Zhao, Report on the Work of the Government, speech delivered at 2nd session of 6th National People's Congress, 15 May 1984, summarized in Main Points of Zhao's Report, Beijing Review, Vol. 27, No. 21, 21 May 1984, pp. 17-18. 5 Nicholas R. Lardy, Agriculture in China's Modern Economic Development (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 50-54. * DR. PANNELL is professor of geography at the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.112 on Wed, 07 Sep 2016 04:40:05 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms RECENT CHINESE AGRICULTURE of these modifications remains to be seen, but for now policy shifts that allow farm families to make decisions about production and marketing are changing the agricultural geography of China. Responsibility system is the term used to identify the renewed role of farmer participation in decisions and marketing. The system permits a family or individual farmers to contract with their collective or production team for the use of land after a state plan for production is devised for an area.6 Expense taxes and quotas must be met and are levied through the collective. It retains ownership of the land, although leases for its use are intended to be long-term. The collective is also responsible for machinery and water management. Any production above the level determined for the collective belongs to the family or individual for its own use and may be marketed. The goal for the system is to improve farm efficiency and production by incentives of an upgraded price structure for agricultural commodities and of profit from surpluses. The policy was initiated in 1979, and production figures for 1979-1982 provide a measure to evaluate the effects of the policy and its spatial consequences. EVOLUTION OF SOCIALIST AGRICULTURE Because a good, if not totally reliable, set of data for farm production exists for 1957, that year is a convenient benchmark for the first phase of socialization of Chinese agriculture. The data are a base to gauge later changes in production that were both structural and spatial.7 The period 1957-1977 was marked by considerable variation in agricultural policies. The Great Leap Forward in 1958 eliminated the use of price incentives, free markets, and private plots; they were replaced by state-directed land utilization and production. A key policy became local and regional self-sufficiency in grain production. This policy led to the abandonment of the principle of regional specialization based on comparative advantage and to stagnant or declining factor productivity. Overall, production declined sharply, and famine and starvation followed. Free markets, reinstituted in late 1959, were widespread again by 1961. Private plots were also restored, and prices paid to farmers were raised. Those modifications of the policy were sufficient to permit some sort of specialization, increased factor productivity, and higher output of grains and economic crops.8 The Chinese revolution with its strict ideological control brought another radical shift in agricultural policy in 1966. Local self-sufficiency in grain production was reemphasized as policy, while the state again planned, set goals for, and directed crop production and land utilization. The results were 6 Baifu Lu, The Way for Agriculture, Beijing Review, Vol. 26, No. 4, 24 January 1983, pp. 14-17. 7 Sen-dou Chang, China's Crop-Land Use, 1957, Pacific Viewpoint, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1971, pp. 75-87. 8 Lardy, footnote 5 above, pp. 42-45. 171 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.112 on Wed, 07 Sep 2016 04:40:05 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms TABLE I-SELECTED INDICATORS OF CHINESE AGRICULTURE 1979 GRAIN 1982 GRAIN PRODUCTION PRODUCTION 1979 1979 1979 GRAIN 1979 WHEAT (million (million CHANGE GRAIN INDEX OF 1979 CULCROPLAND 1979 GVAO ADMINISTRATIVE YIELDS YIELD metric metric PRODUCTION MULTIPLE TIVATED IRRIGATED PER CAPITA UNIT (kg/ha) (kg/ha) tons) tons) 1979-82 (%) CROPPING AREA (%) (%) (RMB) Beijing Shi Tianjin Shi Hebei Shanxi Nei Monggol AR Liaoning Jilin Heilongjiang Shanghai Shi Jiangsu Zhejiang Anhui Fujian Jiangxi Shandong Henan Hubei Hunan Guangxi AR Guangdong Sichuan Guizhou Yunnan Xizang AR (Tibet) Shaanxi Gansu Chinghai Ningxia AR Xinjiang AR 5,228 3,128 3,653 2,303 3,555 2,235 2,490 1,733 1,260 1,140 4,185 1,740 2,505 1,056 1,980 1,793 12,555 4,403 7,890 3,570 10,455 2,700 4,395 2,003 7,050 1,253 6,248 1,043 4,830 2,573 3,885 2,490 6,375 2,258 7,583 1,305 5,640 585 6,975 870 5,933 2,258 3,773 953 3,188 1,058 2,055 2,325 2,933 2,250 1,650 1,658 1,950 2,385 1,493 1,403 1,733 1,568 1.74 1.39 17.05 7.65 5.10 11.94 9.03 14.63 2.54 24.00 15.20 16.10 7.55 12.75 24.72 21.35 18.51 22.11 11.21

Agricultural economics · Agriculture · Agroforestry · Archaeology · Business · Economics · Geography · Agricultural Systems and Practices · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy · Environmental Science

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