Among the most pressing issues any government must face is its country's
ability to feed its people. Handled properly, a nation's ability to feed itself
can lead to new export opportunities; handled poorly, governments can fall on
the issue, and worse.
Felt most acutely in undeveloped economies, this concern remains a top priority
of China's leadership and nowhere is it easier to see China's status as a
still-emerging economy. While Beijing has made significant progress towards its
goal of "95% self-sufficiency" in its food supply, trends in water availability
and access to arable land suggest China has much further to go. Equally
problematic, in order to achieve this level of agriculture output, Beijing will
likely need further land reforms which could
potentially destabilize the 750 million Chinese who still live in and depend on
subsistence farming.
According to the Chinese government, by 2030, the country's population will max
out at approximately 1.5 billion people, an annual increase of around 7%
between 2011 and 2030. Beijing knows that in order for the Communist Party to
remain in power by 2030 it must meet two needs: economic well-being and access
to affordable food.
These two issues are intimately related, as an increase in access to affordable
food is likely to depend on additional consolidation of the existing, highly
fragmented Chinese network of farms into larger units where mechanized
agriculture can be used. As these new farms emerge, they will require less
manual labor to farm, which will release even more rural Chinese into the
workforce, a reality that only a booming Chinese economy can hope to absorb.
Feeding China is a historically sensitive problem. Many Western eyes were
shocking to read Jasper Becker's 1996 book Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine,
where Becker laid out evidence of, as he wrote "... at least 30 million people
[who] had starved to death, far more than anyone, including the most militant
critics of the Chinese Communist Party, had ever imagined."
Further back in China's history, famine was likely one of the factors which
caused the Ming Dynasty to fall in the 1600s. Of the 13 major famines China has
endured, six have been inexorably inter-related to political upheaval and
conflict. China's current leaders are aware of this part of their history,
which is why the government's stated goal of "95% self-sufficiency" is deemed
so critical.
It is not only Chinese who care about this question; those outside the country
who are aware of the historically enormous loss of life China has endured
during periods of famine, along with the disastrous politics which have
followed, deeply wish to see China properly manage its agriculture policies. In
this spirit, in 2008 the United Nations appointed Olivier De Schutter as
Special Rapporteur to report on the progress China has made towards its goal of
95% food self-sufficiency.
The resulting report, issued to the public in late December 2010, made note of
the significant progress China has made towards its goal, but sounded several
notes of caution as well. The final report noted that "... serious challenges
remain. These challenges include improving the situation of people living in
rural areas ... improving security of land tenure and access to land, making a
transition towards more sustainable agriculture, and addressing the areas of
nutrition and food safety."
No problem stands out more clearly than the fundamental concerns over China's
demographics. As the UN report notes, "With a population of 1.3 billion and a
surface of arable land of 121.7 million hectares, China has 21% of the world's
population, 8.5% of the world's total arable land and 6.5% of the world's water
reserves."
As Fred Gale, a Senior Economist at the USDA wrote in a 2002 report for the US
government, "In contrast with China, the United States is richly endowed with
farmland. While China's population is more than four times that of the United
States, the United States has about one-third more cropland than China." Gale
went on to write that, "China's strained natural resource base and high levels
of fertilizer and pesticide use mean that future expansion of agricultural
output through greater input use may not be sustainable. Water supplies in
northern China are dwindling, and pollution from industrial effluents and
agricultural runoff is worsening."
Eight years later, the UN report shows these problems have not gone away.
The World Resources Institute estimates that "China has some of the most
extreme water shortages in the world. Of the 640 major cities in China, more
than 300 face water shortages, with 100 facing severe scarcities." Their
research indicates that "considering per capita water resources, China has the
second lowest per capita water resources in the world, less than one third the
world average."
Ideas like the South-North Water Transfer Project owe their inception, at least
in part, to an effort by Chinese policymakers to come up with ways of
addressing the country's limited water supply.
Problems with predictable water supply have forced even more intensive farming
of parts of China where water can be more reliably found, resulting in
additional deforestation. China's policy of "Returning Farmland to Forest" was
developed as a means of halting this, with mixed results. The UN report makes
note of this when it writes that "Since 1997, China has lost 8.2 million
hectares of arable land due to urbanization and forest and grassland replanting
programmes ... the country's per capita available land is now at 0.092 hectare,
40% of the world average. This shrinking of arable land represents a major
threat to the ability of China to maintain its current self-sufficiency in
grain."
Along these lines, Worldwatch Institute's Yongfeng Feng has written that, "The
country's policy of returning farmland to forests is faltering, and many areas
are opting out of this activity in a push to protect local farmers. They are
recklessly expanding farmlands that should have been replaced with forests
under the policy, or they have simply allowed farmers to continue cultivating
steep hillsides."
Feng's comments illustrate the precarious nature of China's agriculture
policies: massive reforestation programs, diverting rivers and building dams
might prove to be the least of Beijing's challenges. Ultimately, the Party will
have to deal with transitioning an estimated 750 million Chinese whose
livelihoods are dependent on agriculture away from farming to another, more
modern way of living and working. Among the most pressing concerns are how to
deal with the matter of land ownership. Modern agriculture technology demands
the consolidation of farmland, a model that the current highly fragmented,
extremely individualized and poorly mechanized Chinese agriculture does not
provide.
China's leaders appear to have three choices: they can do nothing and hope that
agricultural gains elsewhere in the country offset lost efficiencies of small
parcel farming. This could be an attractive option as it keeps the majority of
those 750 million farmers on their farms and out of the cities. Another option
would be to allow a set of land reforms go forward following a market model,
where farmers could sell their land to farming conglomerates. The third path
would be to selectively force farmers in certain areas to give up their land to
the state, at which point the state could dispose of as it sees best.
As the UN report notes, Beijing understands it has already encountered
resistance through its "land takings" from farmers whose land is deemed in the
public interest. Land rights remain one of the final vestiges of Mao's era, a
right which grew out of the Communist revolution and continue to be widely
believed in throughout the Chinese countryside.
The UN report noted that Beijing appears to be pursuing a mixed approach,
advocating "contract farming ... [which] may be particularly well suited to the
characteristics of the Chinese organization of small-scale farmers into
collectives."
While the potential for land-takings might appear to be the most politically
sensitive topic, the UN report draws out a greater problem, namely the
significant differences in the social services available to urban versus rural
Chinese. According to the report, "rural residents receive on average less than
half the amount a month compared to urban residents" of the di bao, the
minimum living standard provided by the Chinese government. Nowhere is the gap
more obvious than in public health; the UN notes that "In 2005, only 25% of
public health resources were devoted to rural residents, although they make up
close to 60% of the total population."
This disparity of services is dangerous ground for Beijing: while the country's
cities are undoubtedly its future, they cannot overlook the needs of China's
rural farmers. One potential fix to this problem would be for Beijing to
allocate more of its revenues to local government. The UN report expands on
this idea when it reports that "One major reason for the widening of the
rural-urban gap resides in the fact that local government have insufficient
revenues to fulfill all the tasks assigned to them ... it is estimated that
local governments finance 80% or more of basic health and education
expenditures."
Perhaps government in Beijing has simply grown too fast and needs to
re-allocate revenue down to the more local level. It is also possible that
Beijing's consolidation of revenue reflects a concern over the integrity of its
local leadership and the transparency with which monies would be distributed at
a more local level. Regardless, unhappy villagers are among the country's
greatest fears, its leaders all-too-aware of China's revolutionary past, and
how far back a repeat of past national conflict would set the country.
As China considers the agriculture policies for the next decade, it confronts a
national dilemma which casts a penetrating light on the country's
still-developing status and the political and cultural tensions which remain
deeply seated in the complex tapestry of its rural life.
Benjamin A Shobert is the managing director of Teleos Inc
(www.teleos-inc.com), a consulting firm dedicated to helping Asian businesses
bring innovative technologies into the North American market.
(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
