日本財団 図書館


The agricultural Situation in China and

Countermeasures

 

Shen Siying

Lecturer, Population Research Institute,

Northeast Asian Studies College of Jilin University

 

1. Soil Enrichment and Expansion of Farmland

 

China is a large country of 9.6 million square kilometers in area, a large part of which, however, consists of mountains, cold wastelands, deserts, and arid or semi-arid areas. The arable land area is, therefore, relatively small, constituting only approximately 94.9 million hectares or 0.085 hectares per capita, equivalent to only a quarter of the world average level.

Arable land does not only provides a base for agricultural production, but is widely indispensable for constructions of cities, roads, factories, mines, etc. As the Chinese economy is in the midst of high economic growth, with its scale and the total volume of the economy continuously expanding, the uses of arable lands for non-agricultural purposes is creating very difficult problems. The farmland area in China has been decreasing by an average of 300,000 hectares every year, and the major cause is the use of the land for non-farming purposes. Since the population has increased while the farmlands have continued to decrease, the per-capita farmland area in China has considerably declined. The country had 98.5 million hectares of arable land, or 0.187 hectares per capita, in 1949, and arable area increased to 111.3 million hectares or 0.173 hectares per capita in 1957. In 1993, the area fell to 94.9 million hectares of arable land or 0.085 hectares per capita, a mere half of the 1949 level.

China's farmlands have not only declined in area but in quality as well. The organic content of the soil is already as low as 1% on average, which is far below those of farmlands in Europe and the United States, i.e., 2.5% to 4.0%. The Changjiang and the Huai Basins, which are important bases for agriculture, have less than 1% organic content generally, and in some places the rate is even 0.3% or less. The results of a sampling survey by the Province of Heilongjiang in 1989 showed that the organic contents of the soil in the northeast fertile soil zone, called "The Northern Granary", was 1 to 5%. It used to be 8 to 10% in the 1940s and 1950s. In addition, the farmlands have been constantly eroded by natural disasters such as alkalinization, desertification, or washing-away of soil.

 

 

 

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