The Role of Agriculture in a Modernizing Society : Food, Farms and Fields in China 2030
China's success in addressing food problems after adopting the reforms in 1978 has been nothing less than remarkable. Grain output (rice, wheat and maize) has almost doubled and most hunger has been eliminated. Ever since China embarked on its...
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Format: | Working Paper |
Language: | English en_US |
Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/799991468220149896/The-role-of-agriculture-in-a-modernizing-society-food-farms-and-fields-in-China-2030 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26882 |
Summary: | China's success in addressing food
problems after adopting the reforms in 1978 has been nothing
less than remarkable. Grain output (rice, wheat and maize)
has almost doubled and most hunger has been eliminated. Ever
since China embarked on its reform agenda more than 30 years
ago, its economic growth and poverty reduction have been
nothing less than remarkable. Agriculture has been an
important contributor to these developments. Since 1978,
China has almost doubled its cereal production (rice, wheat
and maize) and it is now feeding 1.3 billion people, or 20
percent of the world's population, while having less
than 11 percent of the world s agricultural land and less
than 6 percent of its water. New challenges are presenting
themselves for China's agriculture, and old ones are
resurfacing. High (land saving) Total Factor Productivity
(TFP) growth and increasingly open domestic and
international markets, combined with grain self-sufficiency
targets, a multitude of very small, fragmented production
structures, and distorted land and labor markets have
defined Chinese agriculture over the past three decades. The
relative importance of agriculture s three problems in
policymaking thus evolves during the course of development
away from the food to the farm and field problems. This
shift has however recently been compounded by a resurgence
of the food problem, as global supplies struggle to keep up
with demand. China's agriculture anno 2030 will be
predominantly a modern commercial smallholder agriculture
that ensures self-sufficiency in cereal food (rice and
wheat), but not in cereal feed (maize and soybeans). The
sector will maximize rural employment opportunities in labor
intensive high value agricultural products and act as a
diligent custodian of its precious natural resources. |
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