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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2009
Claims by the Chinese authorities that annual grain production has been in the region of 250 or more million tons in the past few years have been greeted with scepticism by some foreign analysts. However, this level of grain production is now possible because of agro-technical change in “high and stable yield” areas ana regions with improved agriculture.
1. Economists who have studied China's agriculture have, in general, argued that the social transformation of the 11950s could have had only a limited impact on production. The long-term problem of China's agriculture was that it was effectively utilizing traditional resources but that increases in production required new technology and industrially produced inputs. See Perkins, Dwight, Agricultural Development in China, 1368–1968 (Chicago: Aldine, 1969);Google Scholar and Chao, Kang, Agricultural Production in Communist China, 1949–65 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970).Google Scholar The reports of a distinguished group of American plant scientists confirm that China has made important agro-technical advances. The full report is Plant Studies in the People's Republic of China (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1975).Google ScholarPubMed Two excellent summaries by members of this delegation are those of Wortman, Sterling, “Agriculture in China,” Scientific American, Vol. 232, No. 6 (June 1975), pp. 13–21;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Sprague, G. F., “Agriculture in China,” Science, Vol. 188, No. 4188 (9 May 1975), pp. 549–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Perhaps because of this confirmation of agro-technical change, the Chinese claims in agricultural production are finally accepted by Erisman, Alva Lewis, “China: agriculture in the 1970's,” in China: A Reassessment of the Economy (Washington, D.C.: Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, 1975), p. 344.Google Scholar However, last year the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong was estimating a grain production of only 228 million tons for 1973. See Crook, Frederick, “PRC crop prospects,” Current Scene, Vol. 12, No. 6 (1974).Google ScholarMyers, Ramon and Schroder, Norma (“A comparison of foodgrain and cotton yields by county in China: 1929–31 and 1970,” Issues & Studies, Vol. 10, No. 7 (April 1974), pp. 2–17) have shown that the localities with high yields in 1970 are not necessarily the same localities with high yields in the 1930s. Unfortunately the report of their research does not specify the actual locations of high and stable yields nor the actual levels of yields. Hopefully these data will be reported in a future publication, and will add to this report.Google Scholar
2. For a detailed discussion of these various modern inputs, see my Making Green Revolution: The Politics of Agricultural Development in China (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Center for International Studies, 1974), Chap. 1, where there is also a map (p. x) of the location of the modernizing and traditional regions.Google Scholar
3. “How Chinese people control rivers (III),” New China News Agency (NCNA) (Peking), 1 November 1974. The number went up to 1–5 million by 1975; see “How China achieves good harvests for years running,” ibid. 9 September 1975.
4. 1965: Chao, Kang, Agricultural Production, p. 141.Google Scholar1971: “Agricultural development,” Peking Review, No. 45 (19 November 1972), p. 45.Google ScholarPubMed 1974: “Full-scale water conservancy improves farming conditions in China,” NCNA (Peking), 16 September 1974. See also: “Harnessing China's rivers,” Peking Review, No. 49 (6 December 1974), p. 19.Google Scholar
5. I am particularly indebted to Tom Wiens, Henry Munger and Sterling Wortman for sharpening my sensitivity to this aspect of China's agro-technical transformation.
6. This was done on 4,000 ha. in 1974 and total yields were as high as 22–5 tons/ha.; see “ Mass scientific experiments yield fresh results in China's country side,” NCNA (Peking), 29 December 1974.
7. For Hunan, see “How does central province develop production of grain and industrial crops? “ NCNA (Changsha), 30 December 1974. In the Shanghai suburbs, “ nearly 90 per cent of the total acreage sown to grain crops have been brought under a triple-cropping system as against only 2 per cent in 1965 “; see ”Farm mechanization on Shanghai's outskirts,” Peking Review, No. 40 (3 October 1975), p. 31.Google Scholar
8. “Most of the areas in northern China now reap two crops a year instead of the previous one …”; see “How China achieves self-sufficiency in grain,” NCNA (Peking), 25 September 1974. In the Peking region, about 120,000 ha. of the total 400,000 ha. had been planted to summer crops in 1965. This almost doubled to 210,000 ha. in 1974; see “Peking's rural outskirts win all-round good harvest,” NCNA (Peking), 21 December 1974. In Hopei, in 1975, summer harvested winter crops were planted oh 2.9 million ha. and autumn harvested crops on 4.7 million ha., giving a cropping intensity of. 1.62: see “How people in North China province have overcome serious drought,” NCNA (Shinchiachuang), 14 September 1975.
9. “Total grain output in 1974 topped the more than 250 million tons of 1973.” See Feng, Chi, “Thirteen consecutive years of rich harvests,” Peking Review, No. 1 (3 January 1975), p. 9. In his report to the Fourth National People's Congress, Chou En-lai said that grain output in 1974 had increased by 140% of the 1949 figure (of 108 million tons). This implies a 1974 production of 259 million tons. I suspect the figure of 140% increase may have been rounded upwards a little. If Chinese statisticians estimated a production of 259 million tons, they would probably have reported a round number of 260 million tons.Google Scholar
10. The Chinese reported that “ the total increase in wheat output in the past eight years [1965–73] is equal to that of the 16 years before the Cultural Revolution [1949–65]” See “Rich summer harvest,” Peking Review, No. 31 (2 August 1974), p. 3. Chinese statistics show wheat production at 13–8 million tons in 1949 and 23–6 million tons in 1957. An increase to 29 million tons in 1965 is likely, considering that 2–5 million ha. were sown to high-yielding varieties of wheat (with 1–5 to 2 tons per ha. increased yield, output would increase by 2–7 to 5 million tons), and considering significant mechanization which would increase yields somewhat. This would suggest an increment of about 15–2 tons of wheat from 1949 to 1965. The same increment is assumed from 1965 to 1973 (as the Chinese claim), so that wheat production in 1973 is assumed to have amounted to 44–2 million tons.Google Scholar
11. “How China achieves good harvests for years running.”
12. Ibid
13. The part of the model about which I am least confident is the estimate that 16–7 million ha. of wheat are safely irrigated and partially mechanized, having an average yield of 1–7 tons per ha. Continued Chinese imports of wheat may be taken as evidence that wheat production has not increased as rapidly as my estimates imply. I am inclined, however, to interpret imports of food grains as reflecting political problems of procuring grain for urban areas, combined with transportation and storage problems. See Donnithorne, Audrey, China's Grain: Output, Procurement, Transfers and Trade (Hong Kong: Chinese University, Economic Research Centre, 1970). It is of some note that China imported over 20,000 tons of high-yielding Mexican varieties of wheat seed during 1973–75; see Plant Studies in the People's Republic of China, pp. 56–57.Google Scholar
14. For a comparison of China with other countries in Asia from the point of view of production and distribution of food, see my articles “How China is solving its food problem,” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Vol. 7, No. 31 (1975);Google Scholar and “China's rural local institutions in comparative perspective,” Asian Survey, Vol. 16, No. 4 (1976).Google Scholar
15. In 1975 it was reported that “ since 1971, China has built some 0.67 million ha. of terraced fields every year” (“ How China achieves good harvests for years running “).