Agricuture in China's modern economic development
Lardy, Nicholas R.
Agricuture in China's modern economic development - Cambridge Cambridge Univ. 1985 - 285p.
This study arises from an effort to understand several paradoses in Chinese agricultural development. The first of these is the puzzling intertemporal path of output and productivity growth. Even after recovering quickly from the disruptions of the civil war by 1952, agricultural growth continued to be rapid from 1953 through 1957, when there were few industrial inputs used In farming and little evidence of technological change. After the mid-1960s technical change was impressive. Due to considerable investments in water control in the 1950s and the development of a chemical fertilizer industry in the early 1960s, China independently developed and began to disseminate high-yield short-stalk rice varieties on a significant scale several years prior to commercialized production of comparable varieties developed by the In ternational Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. By 1977 these fertilizer responsive high-yield varieties were cultivated on 80 percent of all China's rice area, while adoption was limited to about 25 percent elsewhere in Asia. Significant though less rapid technical innovations were achieved in the development of new varieties of wheat, corn, sorghum, and some other crops. Paradoxically, however, the rate of growth of cereal production from the mid-1960s to 1977-78 was no more rapid than or even somewhat below the pace of development in the First Five-Year Plan (1953-57). Even more surprising, calculations of total factor productivity in agriculture reveal that the costs of additional units of agricultural output actually rose after the mid-1960s, whereas they had fallen in the 1950s a path precisely the opposite from what one would expect based on the evidence on technical progress. Since 1977 or 1978 growth has accelerated and productivity im proved markedly, but on the basis of technology that previously had been widely used.
A second paradox is the persistence between the mid-1950s and mid- to late 1970s of chronic malnutrition and low income in a significant share of the rural population despite a doubling of per capita national income be tween these two periods. Although trends in per capita national income are an unreliable guide to changes in either the level or distribution of personal income in market economies, it has been believed that one of the strengths of China's list system is its capability to distribute broadly income gains and in provide hastc needs for all members of society. Finally, and in some way's most puzzling, is the paradox of Mao Tse-tug He was willing to inflict enormous political, economic, and personal hard shi on the Chinese population during the Cultural Revolution (1966-77), in
what he perceives to be an effort to reduce the bureaucratic power of the entrenched state apparatus and the Chinese Communist Party. At least in rural China, however, the stultifying hand of the bureaucracy was strength vard during those years, inhibiting growth and efficiency in the allocation of resources. Moreover, while Mao led a rural-based Party to power on the premise of improving the welfare of the peasantry, in retrospect many of the policies pursued by the Party after 1949 appear to have fundamentally undervalued agriculture and have left a large share of China's rural popula tion enmeshed in extreme poverty even today.
521252466
Agriculture and state-China
338.10951 Lar
Agricuture in China's modern economic development - Cambridge Cambridge Univ. 1985 - 285p.
This study arises from an effort to understand several paradoses in Chinese agricultural development. The first of these is the puzzling intertemporal path of output and productivity growth. Even after recovering quickly from the disruptions of the civil war by 1952, agricultural growth continued to be rapid from 1953 through 1957, when there were few industrial inputs used In farming and little evidence of technological change. After the mid-1960s technical change was impressive. Due to considerable investments in water control in the 1950s and the development of a chemical fertilizer industry in the early 1960s, China independently developed and began to disseminate high-yield short-stalk rice varieties on a significant scale several years prior to commercialized production of comparable varieties developed by the In ternational Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. By 1977 these fertilizer responsive high-yield varieties were cultivated on 80 percent of all China's rice area, while adoption was limited to about 25 percent elsewhere in Asia. Significant though less rapid technical innovations were achieved in the development of new varieties of wheat, corn, sorghum, and some other crops. Paradoxically, however, the rate of growth of cereal production from the mid-1960s to 1977-78 was no more rapid than or even somewhat below the pace of development in the First Five-Year Plan (1953-57). Even more surprising, calculations of total factor productivity in agriculture reveal that the costs of additional units of agricultural output actually rose after the mid-1960s, whereas they had fallen in the 1950s a path precisely the opposite from what one would expect based on the evidence on technical progress. Since 1977 or 1978 growth has accelerated and productivity im proved markedly, but on the basis of technology that previously had been widely used.
A second paradox is the persistence between the mid-1950s and mid- to late 1970s of chronic malnutrition and low income in a significant share of the rural population despite a doubling of per capita national income be tween these two periods. Although trends in per capita national income are an unreliable guide to changes in either the level or distribution of personal income in market economies, it has been believed that one of the strengths of China's list system is its capability to distribute broadly income gains and in provide hastc needs for all members of society. Finally, and in some way's most puzzling, is the paradox of Mao Tse-tug He was willing to inflict enormous political, economic, and personal hard shi on the Chinese population during the Cultural Revolution (1966-77), in
what he perceives to be an effort to reduce the bureaucratic power of the entrenched state apparatus and the Chinese Communist Party. At least in rural China, however, the stultifying hand of the bureaucracy was strength vard during those years, inhibiting growth and efficiency in the allocation of resources. Moreover, while Mao led a rural-based Party to power on the premise of improving the welfare of the peasantry, in retrospect many of the policies pursued by the Party after 1949 appear to have fundamentally undervalued agriculture and have left a large share of China's rural popula tion enmeshed in extreme poverty even today.
521252466
Agriculture and state-China
338.10951 Lar