Agricultural Introduction of China
Agricultural Introduction of China
China is a country with a large population and less arable land.
Since 1978 when China adopted the policy of reform in its rural areas, China’s agriculture has developed rapidly. In the past two decades or so, the Chinese countryside, under the premise of adhering to collective ownership, has taken the market economy as guidance to break away from the traditional system and to pursue a new mode for the realization of the collective economy under the market economy. Reform has brought benefits to the farmers, emancipated and developed the rural productive forces, and promoted the rapid development of agriculture, especially the production of grains, and the constant optimization of agricultural structure. As a result, Chinese agriculture has made remarkable achievements.
In the 1990s, though China’s agriculture and rural economic development were confronted with many unprecedented difficulties and challenges, these areas still maintained a fairly good momentum of development. In the five years from 1996 to 2000, the total increment of agriculture in the GDP came to 7,129.18 billion yuan. Calculated according to constant prices, the annual average growth rate stood at 3.5 percent, showing a stable growth tendency. The production of grain and other major agricultural products had bumper harvests for many years running. In 1998, the grain output came to 512.3 million tons, the highest figure in history. Between 1999 and 2001, although China suffered from a serious drought and the sown area was reduced, the total grain output was still higher than the average level from 1991 to 1995. In 2002, the sown area for grain crops decreased by 2.19 million ha as compared with that of the previous year, but the per-ha yield increased by 132 kg, and the nation’s total grain output reached 457.06 million tons.
In 2002, the amount of grain per capita was 357 kg; and the amount of meat (pork, beef and mutton), milk and aquatic products per capita reached 40.8 kg, 10.2 kg and 35.6 kg, respectively, exceeding the world’s average levels. Meanwhile, fundamental changes have taken place in the supply and demand of most agricultural products, showing a qualitative change from chronic shortage to a new stage of overall balance, with surpluses in bumper-harvest years.
Following China’s entry into the WTO in 2001, the Chinese government restructured its approach to agricultural development, investing with funds and materials in speeding up agricultural science and technology progress to improve the international competitiveness of China’s agricultural products.
