PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

China’s GDP (excluding Taiwan Province) and agricultural growth have been enjoying the rapid average yearly increase rates of 9.8% (6.8% from 1978 to 1995 as estimated by the World Bank) and 5% respectively from 1978 to 1998. With the 2 times’ doubling of the average personal income, China has, in essence, freed from the long-term difficult situation of “Shortage Economic ”. The world-striking achievements have been made in both social reforms and economic developments. The fact that China had gained a high-speed growth in economy on the conditions that population is big in size, the average personal resources is scare and comparatively backward in both economy and technology have put greater pressures on the originally scare resources and fragile environments. Agriculture is an industry that is extremely dependent on the regional environment, the non-movable, not easily-movable and not easily-replaceable natural resources. Any country is potentially limited on the production of the agricultural products, which is eventually decided by the quality and quantity of the natural resources for agricultural developments in the country. And among these natural resources for agricultural developments, the unmovable land resources, partially movable water resources and the partially movable botanical mineral nutritional resources are the decisive factors. China feeds 21% of the world’s population with its 7% of the world’s land areas (excluding Antarctica), 7% of the world’s cultivated land and 5.8% of the world’s water resource, which is extremely uneven in both spatial and temporal distributions. Furthermore, China has raised its average personal food supply to the world’s average level through 50 years, especially the last 20 years. All these facts show that on the basis of average personal allocations, China’s natural resources for agricultural developments are very scared; the China’s utilization and yielding rates of the natural resources of agriculture are quite high. The rather high investments in resources substituting land resources are the reasons why China can have gained such a high productivity out of the narrow and limited lands. Therefore the marginal productivity is comparatively low and the marginal production costs of the agricultural products are high.( production costs of many Chinese  produces have approached or even outnumbered the international markets prices ). And the further increase in the production of agricultural products would be of limited potentials, limited developing rooms, harsh conditions and high prices. Due to the once-ever great size of population, Chinese population will continue to grow, even under the strict control of birth, till the middle 2000s, the time when the Chinese population will grow from the present more than 1.2 billions to 1.6-1.7 billions. In a low-income country and with the rapid economic grow and the rising in the citizens’ incomes, the demand in the quality and quantity of the average food consumption will increase accordingly. Under the double pressures of both the resources shortage and the population explosion, the food security will become a great challenge in future China. And the prospects and methods to overcome the difficulties and the solution’s influence on Chinese society and the world’s situation have become the focus of the world’s attentions. The challenging difficulties have, in fact, included two aspects:

Food Demand and the Supporting Capacities of Land, Water, and Plant Nutritional Resources for the Food Supply;

The Conditions and Major Ways for China to Realize Food Security;

Before 1949, the year of Chinese liberation, more than half of the cultivated lands in Chinese countryside were owned by landlords, who collected rents of up to 30-50% of land outputs from tenant farmers, who toiled themselves on rented lands in an effort to supply their families’ bottom-line demands. Under the extremely low land productivity of that time, only when favorable weather conditions and sellers’ markets of land products were met, could they gain after-rent surplus grain. This kind of land propriety system had, in great degree, hindered both social advances and agricultural developments in China. To be gratified, from 1949 to 1952, China conducted nation-wide Agrarian Reforms except in Tibet and Taiwan Province and realized the mandatory transformation of the “Landlords’ Ownership System of Land Propriety” into the system of “Land to Tillers”. Successively, Chinese government directed farmers to cooperate in agricultural operations under their essential ownership over lands .The above two measures had once, to large extent, promoted the growth of agricultural productivity; and as a result, the national grain yield and cotton yield had been enjoying their average annual growth rates respectively by 8.4% and 22.74%. From 1955 to 1958, Chinese Arable Land Propriety Orders had undergone the change from the Individual Farmer’s Ownership System to the Collective Ownership System and the Agricultural Operation Patterns from Cooperation System to the People’s Commune Operated System under the organization by Chinese government and the representation by collectives. Later on, the Collective Ownership System remained the same while the operational system went through various kinds of changes; but it was more or less an operation and administration system under which, the countryside’ social administration and productive operation were integrated by local organizations integrating government administrations with commune management under the overall plans and administration system .The highly centralized system, even under the national condition that financial resources were very limited was once favorable for the constructions of public agricultural facilities (like water conservancy projects) ;for the overall national plans of productions and distributions of agricultural products so as to ensure the basic food supply for all citizens; and for the carrying out of the national policy of supporting industry with agricultural benefits and resources, developing industry, especially the heavy industry through the price lever of agricultural products. However, the establishment of the system was paid at the prices that the independent operation rights of the cultivated lands reserved by the farmers were deprived of and the farmers’ enthusiasms to farm together with their creativity in farming were seriously restrained. In other words, the system was paid at the price of the related low laboring productivity which resulted in the following two setbacks: (a) Economy in rural China was slowed down or even kept at a standstill;  (b) The unbalance between food supply and food demand resulted in the state of “Shortage Economy”. From 1978 and later on, Chinese farmers initially freed from the bindings of the overall operation system under the integration of government administration and commune management, practiced the Household Contract Responsibility System on the household-unit basis, realized the preliminary separation of the collective ownership over lands from their operation rights and later led to the disintegration from the People’s Commune System. The transformation of the system had greatly liberated the productive forces in rural China and realized a great leap in China’s agricultural development, which not only gave economic growth in rural societies historical changes, but also laid a foundation for the reforms and development of the whole national economy. However, under the national conditions such as big agricultural population, scare average personal land resources, limited non-agricultural related job opportunities and the policy originated separated administrations in cities from those in rural areas had necessitated the even allocations of operation rights over arable lands in the process of practicing Household Contract Responsibility System in order that the basic granted rights of the farmers holding collective ownership over cultivated lands and the basic need in their daily life were ensured.  Consequently, the even allocation had led to the formation of a scattering small-sized operation patterns of arable lands. With the economic growth in countryside, the increasingly deepening of work divisions and the establishment of socialist market economy; the scattering small-sized operational patterns of lands, similar to that under the Evenly-Allocated Land Orders System, had exposed its increasingly obvious limitations; which were represented by the following: it had, in large degree, hindered the further raising of agricultural labor productivity; the large-scale production of the agricultural products as commodities and slowed down the transformation of Chinese agriculture from traditional agricultural to a modernized one; and therefore restrained the further development of both agriculture and rural societies. This situation has confronted China with another challenge:

Reforms of operational and administrational systems over arable lands and the non-agricultural process in future China; Namely if China can and how China will change the scattering super small-sized farming household land order system in countryside, adopt the road if appropriate scale economy, increase agricultural labor productivity and transform the traditional agriculture into a modernized one.

These are the key points for Chinese agricultural to gain a leap and sustain further developments; and the fundamental social conditions for China to develop full and effective potentialities of the very limited land, water and plant nutrition resources and ensure a steady food supply for people in future China.

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