IFPRI Report
Volume 19, Number 2
June 1997
Research Perspectives:
New Research Provides Insights on China's Future Agricultural Health
China's rural resources are under increasing pressure from both rising demand for agricultural goods and greater environmental stress. Many China watchers have raised questions about how China—with its largely poor, agricultural economy—will continue to maintain a stable and affordable supply of agricultural products. In the June 1997 special issue of the journal Food Policy, guest editors Mark Rosegrant and Roberta Gerpacio of IFPRI and Scott Rozelle of Stanford University bring together six articles that review how China has managed its agricultural resources in the past, how agriculture is performing at present, and what challenges lie ahead as China seeks to meet the food needs of its growing population.
The special issue documents the growth of agricultural productivity in China and describes how China's policies relate to the country's agricultural growth, institution building, and economic development. The issue also provides insights on the future supply of and demand for grains in China and the degree to which China will need to enter world food markets to satisfy future demand. It reviews environmental degradation in the light of agricultural production and describes the successes and failures of China's rural environmental protection system.
The authors note that China's central policymakers will be hampered in protecting the agriculture sector by chronic fiscal problems and restrictions that will be imposed when China joins the World Trade Organization. Without its traditional high rates of protection, China will be able to meet its food goals only by increasing its reliance on international markets, establishing stable trading relationships with the rest of the world, and exploiting its agricultural comparative advantage. The authors also suggest that China needs to invest in agriculture, especially in research on new technologies to raise agricultural productivity and on ways of mitigating rural environmental problems. To fully exploit future gains in agricultural productivity, Chinese leaders will also need to pursue policies that will encourage farmers to better allocate resources within agriculture and that incorporate the costs of environmental degradation and benefits of rehabilitation.
China's leaders agree on the need for economic growth and stability and on agriculture's key role in this process, according to the authors. The authors also suggest that in recent years China has been able to find solutions to its rural problems, especially when problems stand in the way of broader development concerns. However, they caution that solving the problems facing Chinese agriculture will require considerable investment in human capital. The issue concludes that the central government's commitment to gradual economic reform and the society's will- ingness to experiment with alternative ways of solving tough problems should help supply fresh ideas as leaders search for effective policies and institutions.
