For millennia, agriculture has played an important role in the Chinese economy and society. By the time the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, virtually all arable land was under cultivation; irrigation and drainage systems constructed centuries earlier and intensive farming practices already produced relatively high yields. But little prime virgin land was available to support population growth and economic development. However, after a decline in production as a result of the Great Leap Forward (1958–60), agricultural reforms implemented in the 1980s increased yields and promised even greater future production from existing cultivated land.
Ancient history Wheat entered cultivation in the lower Yellow River valley , followed by Gansu and Xinjiang (. By 1600 BC, wheat cultivation had spread to Tibet and the middle Yellow River valley.
Song dynasty, 960-1279 The Song dynasty period was a time of major growth in commercializedn agriculture, as well as economic growth mroe generally."
Ming dynasty, 1368–1644 The population doubled as new lands were settled in Fujian, Guangzhou, and Guangxi provinces, new crops were introduced, and irrigation systems were improved.Ma Junya and Tim Wright, "Sacrificing Local Interests: Water control policies of the Ming and Qing governments and the local economy of Huaibei, 1495–1949." Modern Asian Studies (2013) 47#4 pp 1348-1370. The mountainous areas in southeastern China were developed in the Ming-Qing period by migrants from overcrowded areas. They specialized in crops such as corn and tea, the latter having rapidly increasing demand in foreign markets.William S. Atwell, “Time, Money, and the Weather: Ming China and the ‘Great Depression’ of the Mid-Fifteenth Century.” Journal of Asian Studies 61 #1 (2002), pp. 83–113. onlineDwight H. Perkins, Agricultural Development in China 1368-1968 (1969) p. 185 online.
Beginning in the 1500s, Chinese farmers cleared land in the highlands to cultivate New World crops including maize and sweet potatoes. Centuries of these practices contributed to deforestation, erosion that worsened flooding and clogged waterways with sediment, and other environmental degradation.
Qing dynasty, 1644–1911 In the pre 1949 era 90% of the population lived by agriculture, from poor tenant farmers to rich landlords.Zhihong Shi, Agricultural Development in Qing China (Brill, 2017). Pp 425-434. Many were very poor tenants or day laborers, others especially in the southern provinces were better off and more secure by owning their land. Confucians who controlled China praised agriculturalists as honest men who provided the nation's food.
Famines and floods were serious risks. China generally experienced regional famines every few years beginning at least in the early 1800s. To forestall local rebellions the Qing government established an elaborate system to protect against famines and other disasters such as epidemics. It was built around a granary system that stores grain. It minimized famine distress by distributing free or low-cost grain. However the system was largely destroyed during the Taiping Rebellion of the 1850s, putting this large element of population at risk to flooding, droughts, pestilence, and other causes of famines. The introduction of a major new food supply in sweet potatoes sharply reduced the excess hunger and reduced the frequency of revolts.Ruixue Jia, "Weather shocks, sweet potatoes and peasant revolts in historical China." Economic Journal 124.575 (2014): 92-118 [htgtps://www.jstor.org/stable/42919302 online].Pierre-Etienne Will and R. Bin Wong, Nourish the people: The state civilian granary system in China, 1650–1850 (University of Michigan Press, 2020).Kathryn Jean, Edgerton-Tarpley, "From 'Nourish the People' to 'Sacrifice for the Nation': Changing Responses to Disaster in Late Imperial and Modern China." Journal of Asian Studies (2014): 447-469. online
After suppressing rebellions in the 1860s, the national government worked to relieve distress, stabilize society and improve farming. It reduced taxes and required corvée labor, reclaimed land, and promoting irrigation. During much of the 19th century, land tax was low and famine relief efforts were highly effective. There were millions of deaths in the late 1870s, resulting from factors including Qing borrowing for wars against Muslims in Gansu and Xinjiang, corruption, and indemnity payments to Western countries following the First Opium War and Second Opium War further affecting the availability of wheat and rice reserves. After 1900 the government set up rural associations that published newspapers and instructional pamphlets for farmers, set up agricultural schools, held local training sessions, as well as agricultural exhibitions. Programs to continue water conservation and forest station projects continued. The reforms in agriculture were one dimension of a vigorous last-minute effort by the Ching government to rapidly reform education, the military, and local administration.Jean Chesneux et al. China from the Opium Wars to the 1911 Revolution (Pantheon, 1976) pp. 344-359.
During the 1800s and 1900s, intensive farming systems in China caused the progressive loss of soil nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus.
Republican-era China generally continued to experience regional famines every few years.
Since 1949 Following the success of Land Reform, at the founding of the PRC in 1949, China could credibly claim that for the first time since the late Qing period that it had succeeded in feeding one fifth of the world's population with only 7% of the world's cultivable land. The 1949 Common Program stated that "the People's Government should organize peasants and all labor power that can carry out agricultural work to ... [develop] agricultural production ... Every step of land reform should be integrated with the revival and development of agricultural production." It addressed the need to raise agricultural yields through developing new crop varieties, fertilizer use, land reclamation, agricultural migration, and the repair and construction of waterworks.
At the time of the founding of the PRC, at least 80% of its people were subsistence farmers.
During the late 1940s, a collectivization effort began in the areas controlled by the Communist Party, with land being confiscated from landlords and redistributed to its former tenants. These efforts led to three operational systems of collectivization as the plans progressed, and initial successes indicated future potential returns. These systems were mutual aid teams, consisting of just a few families working the same land together, pooling their animals, tools, and labour to maximize the use of their land. Then there was the elementary cooperative, with between 20 and 30 families combining their assets and working in an area much larger than the smaller mutual aid teams. However, despite this pooling of resources, the land, tools, and animals were still privately owned by the various member houses and they were paid either through dividend payments for land or work materials, or remuneration for their work. The third and final type, the collective farm or advanced cooperative, differed from the other two models. Where in the first two systems there remained some level of private ownership of tools and produce, and a more capitalist payment structure for peasants, the advanced cooperative had all means of production collectivized and a radically different income stream for peasant farmers compared to the other two, with income instead being dependent on work points calculated by participation and shifting away from any form of private enterprise. The propagation of these models began slowly, with only 500 advanced cooperatives established by the summer of 1955 but successes of the model between 1952 and 1958 in increasing agricultural production by 27.8%, while the population grew by only 14.8%, drove collectivization further in a fervour known as the Socialist High Tide that occurred between 1955 and 1956. This resulted in the disappearance, by and large, of the mutual aid team by 1958 and radical draw-downs in elementary cooperatives in favour of advanced cooperatives and a broadening of collectivized farming such that by the end of 1957, there were now 753,000 advanced cooperatives containing 119 million households.
In the 1950s, programs encouraged young people to extend new agricultural technology and methods in rural China.
During China's First Five-Year Plan period (1953-1957), agriculture, including water conservancy, accounted for only 4% of the government's investment budget. Leading into the Great Leap Forward, China experienced a population boom that strained its food supply, despite rising agricultural yields. Increased yields could not keep pace with a population that benefitted from a major decrease in mortality (due to successful public health campaigns and the end of war) and a high fertility rate. Continued increases in food production would depend on additional agricultural infrastructure.
China's development policy modernized agricultural production during the first 20 years of the commune system. Agricultural science and technology likewise progressed significantly during collective production.
Over the period 1957 to 1979:
The amount of machine-cultivated land grew from 2.4% to 42.4% Irrigated land area grew from 24.45% to 45.2% Land irrigated with the help of electricity grew (as a percentage of all irrigated land) from 4.4% to 56.3% The number of small and medium sized tractors in use increased by a factor of 45 Horsepower per hectare of major agricultural machinery (irrigation or drainage equipment, tractors, and tillers) grew at an annual rate of 24%
China's grain production increased from between 163.9 and 181 million tons in 1952 to 285 million tons in 1977. Generally, grain production increased 3% annually, except for the period 1959-1961. During this period, grain output dropped from 200 million tons through the end of 1958 to a low of 147.5 million tons in 1961, and not fully recovering to pre-collapse production numbers until 1966. Improved varieties of grain helped raise yields during this period.
Collectivization was a factor in the most important change in Chinese agriculture, the dramatic increase in irrigated land during the early and mid-1950s. Collectivization also helped facilitate the labor-intensive practice of double-cropping in southern China, which greatly increased agricultural yields.
After the failure of the Great Leap Forward, China radically increased its use of chemical fertilizers.
By 1965, a plastic film (dimo) was in use in every Chinese province to lengthen growing seasons and reduce the need for irrigation water. Dimo is rolled out newly-planted seeds to preserve moisture and warmth, which enables the planting season to begin earlier.
In 1965, the State Council began the "agricultural scientific experiment movement," which further developed various local agricultural practices. One of the highlighted praft5ices was the "three-in-one" system in which farmers, cadres, and technicians worked together to increase agricultural outputs.
From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, various rural localities created "four-level agricultural scientific experiment networks". These networks connected scientific institutes and units across various levels of government to promote the spread of new policies, technology, and successful local experiments. By 1974, the Chinese Academy of Science and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry were working to further develop these networks.
In 1970, rice and other crops in Zhejiang were found to be contaminated by organic mercury compounds from chemical pesticides. A provincial ban resulted, with a national ban following in 1973. China banned DDT and BHC in 1983.