Elements of Change 1995: Session IIIZhangWei

It is necessary to combine science and technology with policy in order to solve the long-term, large-scale problems of agriculture in China. Agriculture is key to sustainable economic development in China for many reasons. First, the population is very large (1.2 billion in 1995, expected to reach about 1.6 billion by 2030) and thus requires a great deal of food. Second, China's level of economic development is still relatively low and so the country lacks the hard currency necessary to buy large amounts of food on the world market. Even if it could afford to import food, the large quantities required could probably not be supplied by the world market. Third, social development is altering eating patterns, requiring ever greater amounts of agricultural products. Fourth, a significant portion of the funding China has available to invest in development comes from agricultural taxes.

China's agricultural system has undergone many changes in recent years. First, there is now a system in which families rent land and are in charge of their own production. However, according to regulations, when peasants rent land, they must sell some of their products to the government. Some may not have enough to sell or may not wish to sell to the government for a number of reasons (price, etc.). Local government officials or agencies are responsible for collecting these products from the peasants and these officials are under a great deal of pressure. Also, sometimes local governments don't have enough money to buy the products so they give the farmers a paper IOU; essentially the farmers are forced to make a loan to the local government, hoping to be repaid later for their goods. In addition, the price of materials needed for production is subject to enormous inflation.

Second, there is a trend toward scientific industrialization of agriculture. Scientists conduct research that can take ten or more years to develop new types of products, seeds or animals. The traders and merchants become rich but the scientists remain proletarians.

The crisis point for a country's basic food needs is 0.04 hectares per person. Today, one third of China's provinces are nearing this point.

The local agency does not have enough funds to adequately support such research, and there are no policies in place to protect researchers from unjust competition.

Third, people traditionally engaged in agriculture are moving to the cities in great numbers. Tens of millions of people are migrating to cities and towns in search of jobs. Some of them migrate to the suburbs of the big cities like Beijing. In one of these Beijing suburbs, Zhejiang Village, some 10,000 people, mostly from Zhejiang province, are making clothing. As a result of this tremendous wave of migration, the cities and suburbs are subject to rising levels of crime and associated problems.

Another set of problems has to do with the quantity of agricultural land in China. Though China's territory is very large, the amount of agricultural land per person is just one quarter of the world's average. Since 1985, with the acceleration of urbanization and development, 600,000 hectares of this land is converted to other uses each year, most of it fertile agricultural land. Once such land is converted, it is very difficult to recover.

The amount of agricultural land is falling while the population is rising, leading to a situation in which there will be just 0.04 hectares of agricultural land per person in 2030 when the population is projected to reach 1.6 billion. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the crisis point for a country's basic food needs is 0.04 hectares per person. Today, one third of China's provinces are nearing this point. The pressure of the population on the land becomes greater each year.

FAO reports say that in 1994, China produced 335 million tons of grain (others say it is actually closer to 450 million tons). Before the year 2000, this should be increased by 10 million tons each year to meet the food needs of the population. But the 600,000 hectares of land lost per year equates to the loss of 9 million tons of production each year. So the problem of land use seriously affects food production. Land degradation is another major problem. Some 16% of China is already desert and in the past ten years, 2,100 square kilometers per year of additional land is becoming desertified. This is expected to rise to 2,300 square kilometers per year if effective actions are not taken to reverse this trend. Soil erosion is also a huge problem.

It is useful to have a brief history of land ownership and management practices in China. Before 1949, 1 to 3% of the people owned more than 80% of the agricultural land. The peasants who worked the land owned nothing, not even their clothes. From 1949 to 1951, through land reform policies, many peasants came to own their own land, but the amounts they owned were very small. From 1951 to 1955, groups of 3 to 5 families organized into small production groups to help each other, share tools and domestic animal power, etc. From 1956 to 1978, local governments gathered these groups into larger units (generally one village) and then into communes (several to tens of villages). The commune was also the local government.

All of the land belonged to the commune. The commune told the peasants what to do and they did it. They were not free to choose some of their own activities. The agricultural products from this farming method were distributed to the peasants based on the number of people in each family. They more babies the family had, the more food they received, but the amount of food the peasants were given was not enough to survive on. It became clear that the society could not feed itself under this system and in the late 1970s, the land management and ownership system was reformed.

Since 1979, a new system of land management, known as family land renting and production, has been in place. Under this system each peasant household can apply to rent a small piece of land, generally 0.1 to 0.3 hectares per person, and each family may plant 0.7 to 0.8 hectares, depending on the region (in northeast China, the areas may be larger; in the south, they may be smaller). Many people considered this to be a great revolution for farmers in China. The peasants could choose what type of crops to plant on their land. They could sell whatever agricultural products they had left after paying taxes and rental fees. They could move from place to place at will and could take another job if they found one. This system proved to be good for both the peasants and the nation, and food production reached its 30-year high in 1984.

However, this system has proven to be a double edged sword. Because the rental period is only 12 to 15 years, the peasants have no incentive to care for the soil and keep it productive. The soil is "mined" in essence, and soil erosion and degradation is rampant. In addition, this system cannot fulfill the peasants desire to become wealthy. According to the government's plan, before the year 2000, the national average per capita income should be US$800. This would give an average peasant household of 5 people about $4000/year, but the small amounts of land they are currently allowed to farm can produce only a fraction of this amount.

If they used machines, tractors, etc., and were allowed to farm more land, they could farm 7-10 hectares, and have an income of $4000, but if this was done, there would be an even larger surplus labor force, the size of which is already a problem. Of the 0.9 billion people living in the Chinese countryside, 0.3 billion are engaged in agriculture, 0.2 billion in county factories, and 0.15 billion in third industries (service jobs), leaving 0.25 to 0.3 billion people without employment. With the population of the countryside expected to increase to 1.3 billion by the year 2030, the number of unemployed is expected to reach 0.4 to 0.5 billion in 2030.

The peasants, especially young men and women, are moving to the cities to find jobs which might pay $500-$600 per year. Older peasants are left to farm the land, reducing production substantially. The major current limitation is not one of agricultural land short age, it is more a matter of how much land is not planted because people want to go to the city instead. The local governments of some districts also have an incentive to convert farm land to other uses. Agricultural land converted to tourism use is taxed at 500 times the tax rate.

Because the rental period is only 12 to 15 years, the peasants have no incentive to care for the soil and keep it productive. The soil is "mined" in essence, and soil erosion and degradation is rampant.

In conclusion, the people living in the countryside hope to look for wealth outside of their local villages. With economic development proceeding, 600,000 to 800,000 hectares of agricultural land will be lost each year, with one-fifth of China's fertile land lost before 2030. In addition, there will be half a billion additional mouths to feed by the year 2030, nearly equal to twice the current US population. There is also the problem of the aging population. In the coming decades, about 30% of China's people will be over 60 years old, raising the issue of how to support an upside down population pyramid with so many old people and not enough young workers to support them.

The problems brought about by the migration of rural people to the cities, including abandonment of farm land, and how to accommodate all the new people in the cities, perhaps define China's most significant dilemma. One third of Beijing's population is now made up of immigrants from the countryside or small towns, according to reports. Solving this problem is very difficult for local governments; they cannot send enough peasants home, they just keep coming back. Air and water pollution problems, as bad as they are, are not as great a threat to China's economic development as this migration of people and the problems discussed above. Certainly, for long term development, we must pay more attention to these issues.

Zhang outlined work undertaken in the past decade to deal with some of these problems:

1 Establishment of the National Land Management Bureau in 1986 to take charge of administration, management, research, and application of new techniques.

2 Department of Agricultural Resource Management, Agricultural Ministry of China, in charge of plants, crops yield estimation, water, fish, and agricultural land.

The major current limitation is not one of agricultural land shortage, it is more a matter of how much land is not planted because people want to go to the city instead.