Agricultural Development

China is a country with a large population and less arable land. With only seven percent of the world's cultivated land, China has to feed one-fifth of the world's population. Hence Chinese agriculture occupies an important position in the world. Some people once raised the question: "Who will feed China?" China's leaders and agricultural experts' reply was: "We Chinese people will feed ourselves."

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. Today China leads the world in the outputs of grain, cotton, rapeseed, leaf tobacco, meat, eggs, aquatic products and vegetables.

Along with the development of production, the amount of agricultural products per capita has been remarkably raised. 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.

Township Enterprises

Township enterprises are businesses run by farmers in the countryside. Thanks to the rural reform and scientific and technological progress in agriculture, the efficiency of agricultural production has been improved by a large margin, and a huge number of rural laborers have been emancipated from the land, thus laying the basis for the development of township enterprises. The products of township enterprises with their competitive prices sell well throughout the country.

Township enterprises are involved in various spheres, such as industry, agricultural products processing, transportation and communications, construction, commerce and catering. In 2002, China had more than 21.33 million township enterprises, with 132.88 million employees and generating 3,240 billion yuan in added value, a 10.32 percent increase over the previous year.

Now township enterprises have become the main source for the raising of farmers' income and rural economic development. At present the annual sales income of more than 10,000 township enterprises in China exceeds 50 million yuan, including nearly 4,800 township enterprises whose annual sales income exceeds 100 million yuan; and the products of 30-some township enterprises have been named China's famous-brand products.

The Contributions of Science and Technology to Agriculture 

In the sphere of science and technology related to agriculture, China year-by-year narrows the gap between its performance and that of the advanced countries. The contribution rate of scientific and technological progress to China's agriculture has increased from 20 percent in 1949 to 42 percent. Agricultural sci-tech departments have made much progress in biotechnology, new and high technology and basic research, and the cultivation of plant cells and tissues, anther culture, haploid breeding and the research on its application have reached the world's advanced level. Bilinear hybrid rice, hybrid corn breeding, and multi-crop planting technologies featuring intensive cultivation have reached or approached the world's advanced level. In addition, an important breakthrough has been made in the research of making use of the advantages of hybrid beans. Since 1949 Chinese agricultural scientists have cultivated more than 40 varieties of crops, and 5,000 high-yield, excellent-quality and strong-resistant new varieties and new combinations. The varieties of major crops have witnessed four to five renewals. In general, one renewal results in an increase of 10 percent to 30 percent in output. At present, the yield of crops has increased to 4.40 tons per ha from 1.16 tons per ha in 1950, or a growth of 3.8 times.

The research achievements in hybrid rice by the Chinese scientist Yuan Longping have rewritten the Chinese history of rice cultivation in the second half of the 20th century, making outstanding contributions to solving the issue of mankind's "grain ration." Currently, the sown area of fine varieties of hybrid rice makes up 51 percent of the nation's total area sown with rice, resulting in an increase of 20 percent of the output on average. In 2002, under the leadership of Yuan Longping, a team of scientific and technical personnel from more than 10 provinces and autonomous regions succeeded in growing super-class hybrid rice in a small area, with the per-ha yield reaching 12,000 kg. At present super-class hybrid rice is being introduced and grown in large areas on a trial basis.

The relevant state departments have organized sci-tech programs geared to rural economic development, such as the Spark Program, the Promotion Plan of Important Achievements, the Bumper Harvest Plan, and the Prairie Fire Program.

Meanwhile, agricultural departments have imported more than 100,000 farm crops and nursery stocks from different countries and regions of the world, and cultivated new varieties of rice, corn and wheat. Plastic film mulching, dry breeding of rice seedlings and their sparse planting, new farm tools and farm pesticides and other advanced technologies have been applied extensively in production.

International Market

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. The project of "intensively processing main agricultural products" put forward by the Ministry of Science and Technology has been listed as an important scientific and technological project during the 10th Five-Year Plan period.  The project aims at developing key technologies and equipment for intensive processing of primary agricultural products such as grain, edible oil, fruit, vegetables, animal by-products and forest products and conducting research into an integrated quality control system and the rapid testing of technology and equipment related to agricultural products.  After the completion of the project, China's technological level of processing agricultural products will reach the advanced world level in the mid-1990s, and some technological aspects will be brought into line with the advanced international level. Meanwhile, the two projects of "milk industry development," and "water-saving agriculture" have been include d in the 12 important scientific and technological application projects initiated by the Ministry of Science and Technology.  The state has invested 20 billion yuan in these projects.

In addition, the plan for the appraisal and transfer of national agricultural scientific and technological achievements formulated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Finance put forward 19 new projects in 2002, involving new technologies for producing grain, oil-bearing crops and fruits, and agricultural water-saving technology and large-scale breeding technology. This plan has been carried out for three years, and has built up a bridge between agricultural scientific research and the popularization of technologies.