the past decade is indicative of not only the comparatively low quality of the inputs but also the very slowly changing level of agricultural technology. Thus, initially at least, marginal returns from chemical fertilizer will probably be low. Returns could increase rapidly if more parts of the input package are made available, but the increase will probably occur after 1980. Even so, grain output by 1980 could be about 300 million tons, or roughly 18 percent above the level of 1974. The new fertilizer plants are scheduled to be fully operable in 1978 although this goal may be optimistic. Until production from these plants becomes available, Chinese agricultural development will more or less be a holding action. Meanwhile, China's population and hence domestic requirements for food and fiber will also increase. Thus, at this stage there is no guarantee that current programs to modernize agriculture will enable the PRC to attain self-sufficiency in both grain and essential nongrain crops by the end of this decade. As a minimum, China will continue to rely on agricultural imports to maintain consumption, especially in years of low normal harvests until the new fertilizer plants are in full operation. It is unlikely the PRC will return to the United States for agricultural commodities unless a string of calamitous harvests are encountered and alternative sources are unable to provide grain. Even then, the Chinese could have difficulty finding a trader willing to provide United States agricultural commodities with quality guarantees above those normally provided in the standard commodity contract.

CONSTRAINTS INFLUENCING CHINA'S AGRICULTURAL

PERFORMANCE

By DWIGHT H. PERKINS 1

1

The problems that Chinese agriculture will have to face over the coming decade differ markedly from those in other less developed countries. There are no obvious and gross inefficiencies in Chinese farming that could be quickly overcome if only the rural population would understand the need to do so or if an effective extension service could be created that could teach them new methods. The Chinese extension service based in the commune system appears to have been functioning well for a decade or more. Where in the early 1960's there was a considerable backlog of new technology waiting on government actions to supply the required inputs, there is no comparable backlog today. And therein lies the problem.

At no time since 1949 have increases in Chinese farm output been achieved with ease, but there is reason to believe that future increases will require even greater effort and an effort of a somewhat different kind from that in the past. Future expansion is not simply a matter of digging more tube wells or pouring on more chemical fertilizer although both will help. New breakthroughs are required in the basic agricultural sciences in China and in the harnessing of the irrigation potential of China's northern rivers. To understand why this is so, one must look back to what has been happening to Chinese agriculture over the past two decades.

FARM OUTPUT AND POPULATION GROWTH

In the 1950's, those responsible for agricultural policy in China attempted to achieve major increases in farm output by what amounted to the massive application of an essentially traditional technology. Tens and hundreds of millions of peasants were mobilized to work on building new irrigation and drainage systems and to improve old ones. Efforts were also made to expand multiple-cropping and to consolidate fragmented plots of land. These actions were in no way halfhearted and they did contribute for a time to modest increases in production. But the potential of these traditional techniques operating alone without complementary modern inputs was quickly exhausted. When the quality of farm management deteriorated during the Great Leap Forward and the weather turned bad in 1959, 1960, and 1961, farm output fell by 20 percent or more (see table 1).

By 1962 the communes had been thoroughly reorganized with the key change being the transfer of the basic accounting unit (the unit. responsible for most farm activities) from the 5,000-family commune

1 In writing this paper I am deeply indebted to the members of the Plant Sciences Delegation to the People's Republic of China led by Dr. Sterling Wortman and to the Water Management Delegation led by Dr. Maurice Albertson for sharing their experiences and insights at a meeting at the National Academy of Sciences, Feb. 20-21, 1975.

to the 30-family production team, a subunit of the commune. With an improvement in the weather, output recovered to the levels of the latter half of the 1950's. Grain, which had encroached on the acreage of cash crops during the crisis years, recovered first followed by less essential items. It would appear that the gross value of farm output may not have fully recovered until as late as 1964 (see table 2).

TABLE 1.-SELECTED FARM OUTPUT STATISTICS (RECONSTRUCTED OFFICIAL CHINESE ESTIMATES)

1 These figures are mainly from State Statistical Bureau, "Ten Great Years," pp. 119 and 132.

82.22
(1)

(3)
10 2.53

• 248

2 Official data for 1958-59 are unreliable because of the effect of the Great Leap Forward in the State Statistical Bureau, 3 The "official" grain series for the years 1960-67 has never been published by the Chinese, but various visitors to or residents in China were given figures which they subsequently published. These figures are consistent with a number of, published Chinese statements about the level of grain output. The cotton output series was reconstructed from rather imprecise statements by the Chinese about the level of each year's output. This reconstruction was done by Kang Chao, "Agricultural Production in Communist China" (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970), p. 270. Approximately.

Indicates that official estimates for these years are not presently available.

• The number of hogs in 1962 was said to be less than half of the number in 1971 ("Peking Review", Nov. 10, 1972, p. 17). The number of live hogs in 1964 was said to set a new record which probably means slightly above the level of 1957 ("PekReview", Sept. 24, 1965, p. 17).

ing

The 1970-73 grain output figures have been published by the Chinese in a number of sources.

"Peking Review," Oct. 13, 1972, p. 12 states that cotton output in 1971 rose fivefold over the level of 1949. J. K. Galbraith, "A China Passage," p. 129, on the other hand, was told that the increase was fourfold. The usual Chinese practice is to say fivefold when they mean that 1971 output was 6 times the level of 1949, but in this case they may have meant 5 times which, would make the two figures consistent.

The number of hogs in 1972 was said to be 330 percent above the level of 1949 "(Hyng-ch'i," Apr. 1, 1973, in "Survey of China Mainland Magazines").

10 Chou En-Lai in his Jan. 13, 1975 report to the National People's Congress, stated that cotton output was up 470 percent over 1949 and grain output was up 140 percent.

Chou En-lai in his Jan. 13, 1975, report to the National People's Congress stated that the Gross Value of agricultural output rose 51 percent between 1964 and 1974.

3 Chou En-lai told Edgar Snow that the gross value of farm output in 1970 was U.S. $30 billion and Snow implies that this figure was attained by applying the official exchange rate (2.4 yuan U.S. $1) to the figure expressed in Chinese currency (Edgar Snow, "The Open Door," The New Republic, Mar. 27, 1971, p. 21). For an argument explaining why this figure was probably calculated in constant 1957 prices, see D. H. Perkins, editor, China's Modern Economy in Historical Perspective, pp. 154-155.

This 1974 estimate was obtatined by assuming that the gross value of farm output between 1970 and 1974 grew at the same rate as grain output (which alone accounts for about half of gross farm output). This figure may slightly understate 1974 output in which case 1964 output would also be slightly understated.

By 1964, however, a dramatic shift in China's agricultural development strategy was already well underway. This strategy will be looked at in some detail in a moment. Here we can simply note that the strategy in its initial phase brought about a sharp rise in farm output. By 1967, in the short span of 4 years, grain output had risen 25.7 percent. Even if the somewhat more reliable 1970 grain output figure is used, the average annual rate of increase after 1963 was 3.9 percent. China's population totals have remained something of a mystery, and the figures in table 3 may overstate the true total. But there is no doubt that farm output between 1963 and 1970 was growing much faster than the number of mouths to be fed. In the 1950's, China estimated that the population was growing at around 2.2 percent a year and some observers such as Ma Yin-ch'u felt the rate might be even higher. In his January 1975 report to the National People's Congress, in contrast, Chou En-lai indicated that for the entire 25-year period since 1949, population has been growing at an average rate of 1.9 percent a year. The implication would appear to be that the population growth rate has been falling perhaps averaging only 1.8 percent in the 1960's and early 1970's. Recent visitors to China have also brought back scattered data that tend to support this view, but the visitor sample is too small and too biased toward urban areas to be considered reliable.

1 State Statistical Bureau. Ten Great Years, p. 8.

878.00

In his report to the National People's Congress, Chou En-lai said "population has increased 60 percent since the liberation of the country." The implied rate of population growth is 1.90 percent per annum for the entire 25-year period, suggesting a decline in more recent years from the 2.2-percent rate of the 1950's. Chou in his report said that China's population was nearly 800 million implying that either the 1953 census was too high or that China is still reluctant to release its best estimates and uses the above shorthand for a variety of political reasons. The Chinese have been referring to China's population as approaching or about 800 million since at least 1970 (see, for example, Edgar Snow's interview with Chou En-lai).

The accelerated pace of agricultural development meant that China. by 1970 and perhaps as early as 1967 had made up for the ground lost during and after the Great Leap in per capita as well as aggregate terms. But after either 1967 or 1970 the growth rate in agriculture once again slowed. There is always the danger in making comparisons of this sort that one will compare a peak year of the cycle with a trough or vice versa, but 1974 was clearly a good weather year and 1967 and 1970 probably were as well. The growth rate between 1967 and 1974 was 1.7 percent while that between 1970 and 1974 was 1.9 percent. This growth rate is half or less of that of the period immediately preceding and about equal to the rate of increase in population. The central question dealt with throughout the remainder of this essay is whether this slowed pace is only a temporary pause in preparation for a renewed surge or whether it is a harbinger of long-term difficulties ahead.

Prior to proceeding with an analysis of these output trends, however, two additional facts that bear on the implications of this discussion for the consumption levels of the Chinese people need to be noted. First, China seems to have succeeded in eliminating the most extreme fluctuations in farm output although several decades more of experi

ence will be needed to fully confirm this achievement. In the bad year of 1972, for example, grain production fell by only a little over 2 percent. Second, the rationing of essential foods means that all people are guaranteed their minimum requirements as long as nationwide supplies are adequate. One does not see the phenomenon in China of rich areas holding onto large surpluses while tens of thousands are dying elsewhere in a famine region. Because China has largely solved the food distribution problem both over time and between people, the nation could suffer through a fairly prolonged period of output stagnation before people began to suffer serious malnutrition. The same cannot be said of many other less developed nations.

SOURCES OF GROWTH, 1962-74

Grain output in 1974 was 74 million tons or 40 percent higher than in 1957. An increase of this magnitude was obviously caused by a rise in agricultural inputs, but which ones?

The amount of land under cultivation does not appear to have risen much since 1957. In fact in 1958, the cultivated area was actually reduced by 4 million hectares according to official estimates. Subsequently, however, commune members did attempt to open up new land in marginal areas and by 1970 it was reported that some 12 million hectares had been added in this way representing about 11 percent of the total land then under cultivation." Since 1970 efforts in this direction have been continued, but most of the activity appears to have been directed at improving existing land under cultivation, not opening up new land. For example, in late 1972 and 1973, some 3.33 million hectares of farmland were leveled and another 1.32 million hectares were terraced or otherwise improved, but no mention is made of a net expansion in acreage.3 In fact the figure for total cultivated acreage given to several visiting delegations in 1973 and 1974 was about the same as that published in 1958 (107 million hectares).

It may simply be that the figure given to visitors has never been updated since the late 1950's, but a more likely explanation is that new land opened up has been offset by alienation of existing cultivated acreage to industrial and mining uses. China's modern industry has been growing at around 10 percent a year, and many of these factories have been located on the edge of cities in areas formerly devoted to crops. Chinese planners have recognized the problem and have attempted to minimize its impact, but there is no way around the fact that good farm land (flat, located near transport, et cetera) often makes an excellent factory site.

No doubt there remain areas in China where the cultivated acreage can be expanded further. Some writers have spoken of a potential existing in China's underpopulated northwest. But the problem in the far northwest is that theren't much water and where water supplies are sufficient, the land is already in crops. Perhaps at some future date it will prove possible to greatly increase the supply of water to these desert regions, but such an undertaking will be very expensive and is a

2 Chou En-lai as told to Edgar Snow, The New Republic, Mar. 27, 1971, p. 21.

a Peking Review, Jan. 4, 1974. p. 10.

"China Saves Farmland in Building Industry." Peking Review, Feb. 28, 1975, p. 31. 5 This point was already being made in the 1930's by John Lossing Buck, Land Utilization in China (Nanking: University of Nanking, 1937), pp. 169-170.