Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0083/00833.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 27KB | 421 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00833}
$Pretitle{260}
$Title{China
Chapter 6A.   Agriculture}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Frederick W. Crook}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{agricultural
production
land
rural
china
areas
economic
grain
labor
crops}
$Date{1989}
$Log{}
Country:     China
Book:        China, A Country Study
Author:      Frederick W. Crook
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1989

Chapter 6A.   Agriculture

     China has the world's largest agricultural economy and one of the most
varied. The nation stands first among all others in the production of rice,
cotton, tobacco, and hogs and is a major producer of wheat, corn, millet, tea,
jute, and hemp. This wide range of crops is possible because of the country's
varied climate and agricultural zones. China participates on a large scale in
international agricultural markets, both as an exporter and as an importer.

     For over 4,000 years, China has been a nation of farmers. By the time the
People's Republic of China was established in 1949, virtually all arable land
was under cultivation; irrigation and drainage systems constructed centuries
earlier and intensive farming practices already produced relatively high yields.
But little prime virgin land was available to support population growth and
economic development. However, after a decline in production as a result of the
Great Leap Forward (1958-60), agricultural reforms implemented in the 1980s
increased yields and promised even greater future production from existing
cultivated land.

     A successful agricultural sector is critical to China's development. First,
it must feed more than 1 billion people, about 21 percent of the world's
population, using only 7 percent of the world's arable land. Second, it must
provide raw materials for the industrial sector. Third, agricultural exports
must earn the foreign exchange needed to purchase key industrial items from
other countries.

     Since 1949 China's political leaders have tried a variety of large-scale
social experiments to boost agricultural production. First, a massive land
reform program eliminated landlords and gave land to those who farmed it. Next,
farm families were progressively organized into cooperatives, collectives, and
finally people's communes. After more than twenty-five years of experience with
communes, officials abolished these institutions, which had become too
bureaucratic and rigid to respond to the flexible requirements of agricultural
production. Also, farm production incentives languished in the commune system.
In 1978 China's leaders began a program of far-reaching agricultural reforms.
Townships and villages were organized, and new incentives were incorporated into
contractual relationships tying farmers to economic cooperatives and businesses.

     Since the revolution in 1949, China has devoted most of its investments and
administrative energy to the industrial sector. Generally, the agricultural
sector received special attention only when the leaders perceived that the
sector was beginning to restrain China's overall economic development.
Agricultural output basically kept pace with the growth of population but did
not expand fast enough to raise living standards. Per capita consumption of
grains, fibers, edible oil, sugar, fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, eggs, and
dairy products remained low. The value of goods generated by the agricultural
sector has grown, but not as fast as output generated by other sectors in the
economy. In 1949 about half of the country's output came from the agricultural
sector. This ratio dropped to 41 percent by 1955, declined to 31 percent by
1965, and fell another few percentage points in 1975 to 25 percent. But
agricultural reforms initiated in the early 1980s brought a rise in agriculture
to 33 percent of GNP in 1985. At the same time, more than 60 percent of the
national labor force was employed in agriculture.

     China in the late 1980s was thus poised to confront growing demands for
agricultural production with a combination of time-tested farming methods and
modern agro-technology. The size and diversity of the country-in geography and
in population-however, presented a unique challenge to China's policy makers
and implementors.

Resources Endowment

     Arable land in China is scarce; little more than 10 percent of the total
land area, most of it in the eastern third of the country, can be cultivated.
This compares with more than 20 percent for the continental United States, which
is slightly smaller than China. Further agricultural expansion would be
relatively difficult because almost no land that could be profitably cultivated
remains unused and because, despite intensive cultivation, yields from some
marginal lands are low. Some possibility for expansion exists in thinly
populated parts of the country, especially in the northeast, but the growing
season there is short and the process of land reclamation prolonged and costly.

     China Proper (see Glossary) is divided by the Qin Ling range into highly
dissimilar north and south agricultural areas (see fig. 8). In semitropical
south China, rainfall is relatively abundant and the growing season long. Rice
is the predominant grain crop. The paddies can generally be irrigated with water
from rivers or other sources. Although much of the soil is acid red clay, the
heavy use of fertilizer (at one time organic but by the mid-1980s also including
a large proportion of chemical nutrients) supports high yields. Frequently two
or even three crops a year are cultivated on the same land. Food crops other
than rice are also grown, most frequently in hilly areas or during the winter.
These include potatoes and winter wheat. The highest grain yields in the country
in the mid-1980s were generally found in the Sichuan Basin, the lower Chang
Jiang (Yangtze River) Valley, and Guangdong and Fujian provinces, where multiple
cropping of rice and other crops was the typical pattern. Cotton, tea, and
industrial crops were also produced there.

     Wheat has traditionally been the main crop in north China, a considerably
drier region than south China. The winter wheat crop accounts for nearly 90
percent of China's total production. Spring wheat is grown mainly in the eastern
portion of Nei Monggol Autonomous Region (Inner Mongolia) and the northeastern
provinces. Other important grain crops include corn, sorghum, and millet. These
are usually dryland crops. Since the late 1960s, irrigation has been greatly
expanded, but water remains an important limiting factor. Compared with the
south, soils in the north are generally better; however, because of the shorter
growing season and colder, drier climate, yields per cultivated hectare tend to
be lower and irrigation less extensive. Labor is not as abundant in the north as
in the south, but cropping patterns tend to require less labor, and
mechanization (especially of plowing) is more advanced.

     The North China Plain, the most important growing area in north China,
extends across several provinces. Winter wheat and corn are the leading grain
crops; cotton is also grown, and Shandong Province produces peanuts. The North
China Plain, although fertile, was traditionally subject to frequent floods and
droughts, but water conservation measures ameliorated the problem (see Physical
Environment, ch. 2). Winter wheat is grown in the mountainous areas west of this
plain, but the climate is more severe and the danger of natural disasters even
greater. The fertile soils of the northeastern plains have been used to plant
corn, spring wheat, and even rice. High-quality soybeans are grown in the
northeast and are exported to many Pacific rim countries. Although Nei Monggol
Autonomous Region produces some spring wheat and other grain, it is best known
as a pastoral area.

     Much of China's vast and generally inhospitable northwest and southwest
regions is unsuitable for cultivation. Xinjiang-Uygur Autonomous Region in the
northwest, like Nei Monggol Autonomous Region, is also best kn