and thus she has a significant influence to future food demand. According to the UN estimates, although the Chinese population growth rate has been low (an annual rate of 0.9%) compared to the other developing countries due to 'the one child only policy' it has increased from 680 million to 1.2 billion during the period 1958-92, and will continue to increase to 1.5 billion by 2020. This rapid population increase will cause a rapid increase in her grain need. The economic reform which allows free decision by individual agricultural managements brought a rapid increase in grain yield and production in China in earlier years. The grain supply per person increased quickly from 230kg in 1961 to 354kg in 1995. However, it has remained static since 1985 due to the fast population growth, reduction of cultivated area and the slowdown in the increase rate of grain production as previously mentioned. Although the five year moving average of annual increase rates of grain yield has been increasing at an annual rate of over 5% during the period 1980-84, it fell to between 0.3%-3% afterword until 1992. This trend is likely to continue in the future.
The per capita GNP in China has seen super-high growth rate of 8.2% per year from 1980-93, and explosive growth rate of around 10% from 1992-95. This high economic growth in China will be maintained in the future as China has planned her economic growth rate at 7-8% until 2010 at the People's National Congress on March 5th, 1996. This recent rapid income increase brought a rapid increase in demand for meats, mainly pork which is the most popular meat for Chinese, at an annual rate of 10%. The grain prices have also rapidly risen through the explosion in the demand for feed grains reflecting the fact that the 4kg of grains required per kilogram of pork produced. Corn prices doubled within one year in 1995. The domestic free market rice price increased 3.2 times between January 1993 to June 1995 and it has became more expensive than the export price of the low grade 35% Thai rice which is almost equivalent to the domestically available rice in China from May 1994. 33) The Peking government prohibited the export of corn in November 1994 and soy beans from April 1995 to ease the domestic shortage. Grain exports from China (including soya beans) fell to almost nil in 1994 and 1995 as shown in Chart 4,
