Agriculture in China
Changes of Chinese agriculture
The era Maoist
- the agricultural shutter of the Large Step ahead: the Chinese leader Mao Zedong implements a political volunteer of 1958 at 1962 which affected in-depth rural world. The objective was in record time to stimulate the production by the Collectivisation and the agricultural Planification.
- At the end of the years 1970, the government forsakes the objectives Maoists and introduces reforms for agriculture. Planning and collectivization are partly abandoned. The priority is not any more the cultivation of cereals.
Challenges of the beginning of XXIe century
- To improve the productivity: in the years 1960,80% of the Chinese worked for the Primary sector. Today, agriculture still occupies a big part of the active population. A great number of family exploitations are tiny. The farms of state always exist and take part in the policy of Colonisation Han in Xinjiang or in Mongolia-Interior.
- Erosion of the grounds
- Pollution of the grounds and the ground water
- Turning into a desert: the deserts cover 1/3 of the Chinese territory, in the north and the west of the country. The turning into a desert progresses and threatens 90% of the pastures.
- a variation growing between the poorest cities and campaigns: the exceptional Chinese growth of the years 2000 does not benefit all the areas. The agglomerations of the littoral and their area of influence develop quickly, whereas the campaigns of the interior remain poor. This difference causes the surge of a labor of rural origin in the cities. According to the official statistics, the great agglomerations are three times richer than the rural areas.
- To nourish the multitude: with universalization and the Chinese population growth, the question of the provisioning of food arises with acuity; the more so as the taste of the Chinese evolves/moves: the townsmen consume meat more and more, whereas Chinese civilization rests on the Céréaliculture. The production of cow's milk remains very limited. The cattle is employed like draft animal. The rise of the breeding (pig, poultry) involves a new need for fodder.
In addition, it is difficult to put in culture new soils, so much the natural constraints seem important. Chinese agriculture is modernized and mechanized (Motoculteur S, Tracteur S) to increase the outputs, but many efforts remain to be provided: the social structure and productive residence that of a poor country. Beijing arranges new irrigated perimeters
by a policy of great work (Barrage of the Three Throats on the
Yangzi Jiang). The improvement of harvests also pass by the use of artificial fertilizers and GMO: the surface cultivateds in GMO strongly increased (150 000 hectares at the end of the years 1990; 3,3 million hectares in 2005).
Agricultural areas in China
- Traditionally, China is a cereal country.
- the distribution of the agricultural areas depends on several factors. The natural data determine the productions partly. One can first of all observe a difference between the west and is country: 90% of the agricultural productions concentrate in half is.
- interior China is marked by several constraints related to the provision of the reliefs and the climates. The Western provinces suffer from the aridity or the dryness (inner basins, Gobi Desert, Désert of Taklamakan). The mountains (the Himalayas, Tian Shan, Qilian Shan…) or the plate X of high-altitudes (Tibet) reduce the agricultural potentialities considerably. These areas are the field of the not very productive breeding; one meets also some Oasis in the North-West. Some irrigated perimeters produce Coton in the Xinjiang. The mountains of the south are exploited for their wood. The slopes can be arranged in terraces.
- the Grande Plain of North represents one of the most extended agricultural areas of the country. It produces especially corn, corn and Gaoliang.
- China of Changjiang: corn, rice, fishing, Aquiculture
- China of the South: rice (up to three harvests per annum), tropical plants, aquiculture
See too