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This paper tries to address policy issues with China's grain marketing system in historical perspectives, and provide a political economy analysis to the objectives, implementations of and constraints facing the system. Finally, a brief discussion on possible further reform of the system is presented.

Since the end of 1996, Chinese agriculture has produced a surplus of many major products, which has led to sharp decreases in farm prices and the stagnation of farmers' income. To deal with these problems, the Chinese government has called for a 'strategic adjustment' in the structures of agriculture and the rural economy. The goals of this strategic adjustment are to meet changing market demands and increase farmers' incomes by improving efficiency in resource allocation among regions and sub-sectors, and by increasing the variety and improving the quality of farm product. A major component of the strategic adjustment is the restructuring of the grain sector, which still accounts for a lion's share of the crops sector in general. Re-allocation of the production of each major grain crop among the regions on the basis of regional comparative advantage is likely to increase average yields and decrease average costs. Thus, improved efficiency in resource allocation will bring about increases in farmers' incomes. Also, since competition in the world commodity market is largely based on price, any significant reduction in China's grain production costs will improve its position in the world grain market. It is widely agreed that years of government intervention and underdeveloped infrastructure have prevented regional comparative advantages in the grain sector from being realised. For the same reasons, inter-regional trade and international trade also do not reveal yes regional comparative advantages. Thus, domestic resource cost (DRC) is used as a measure of underlying, but not yet realised, regional comparative advantages in the Chinese grain sector. The purpose of this study is to make suggestions regarding the desired direction for structural adjustment of grain production in each province, and to discuss the implications of the proposed restructuring.

The paper is aimed to analyse the impact of grain policy on the structure and growth of grain sector in China. The study applied econometric analysis to test empirically the impact of grain policy on the structure and growth of grain sector in China. The study revealed that agricultural policy, especially grain policy, has had a great impact on agricultural production in China. In periods of government mandating increase in grain production, policy has diverted resources, especially land, into grain production, which could otherwise have been used to produce higher value crops. This inevitably results in lower growth in agriculture, as well as in farmers' income. Such policy might be justified by the long history of grain shortage in China, as efficiency in resource allocation is overweighed by the goals in the national security in food supply and in social stability.

AbstractIn the past thirty years, China has made great strides in terms of boosting food production while simultaneously reducing the number of its rural poor. This success was largely accomplished through agricultural policy and trade reform, food market liberalization, and public investment in agricultural infrastructure and agricultural research. However, there is much more economic development work to be done in rural China, as issues such as an aging agricultural workforce, land‐use rights, and water shortages persist. At the same time, increased urbanization and the rising middle class are changing the demand for food in China. This article outlines the issues facing Chinese agriculture and connects those issues to the global marketplace.

1 China's Agriculture in the 1930s: An Overview -- 2 John Lossing Buck and Land Utilization in China -- 3 Calamities and Conflict Affecting Rural China 1929–1933 -- 4 The Discovery and Restoration of Buck's Original Data -- 5 Reliability of John Lossing Buck's Land Utilization Survey Data: A Preliminary Test of Grain Yields -- 6 Tenancy Issues in Northwest China During the Republican Era -- 7 Regional Differences in Surplus Agricultural Labor During China's Republican Era, Based on Buck's Rural Survey Data -- 8 Agricultural Poverty and Inequality in 1930s China: Estimates of Gini and Engel Coefficients from Buck's Data -- 9 An Analysis on the Inverse Relationship between Yield and Farm Size in Rural China in the 1930s -- 10 The Relationship Between Farm Size and Land Productivity in Early Twentieth-Century China -- 11 Farm Credit Demand and Supply in 1930s China -- 12 The Change in China's Cropland Utilization and Productivity Over Nearly a Century in China: A Comparison Study Based on Buck's Survey -- 13 A Comparison of Certain Changes in Chinese Agricultural Operations between Buck's Republican Era and Modern China -- 14 Concluding Thoughts

AbstractChina has long struggled to achieve food security. In the era of a planned economy, local self‐sufficiency was dictated by policy. With China's transition to a market economy, however, different policy schemes have been utilized, with greater emphasis placed on the role of market forces, especially in conjunction with China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. Nevertheless, self‐sufficiency in grain production remains a deeply rooted goal, and interventionist measures geared towards its achievement are still viewed as the most direct and effective means of food security. This paper examines how the well‐being of China's rural population, proxied by measures of food consumption, is affected by the promotion of grain production. Our findings suggest that targeted households bear a disproportionate burden of food security policy, as it is currently implemented.

IFPRI4; CRP2; DCA; 3 Building Inclusive and Efficient Markets, Trade Systems, and Food Industry; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance ; PIM; DSGD; ECAO ; PR ; CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)