Issues in Implementing Food Security in China

McBeath, Jenifer Huang; McBeath, Jerry

doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-9180-3_9

Jenifer Huang McBeath³ &
Jerry McBeath³

Part of the book series: Advances in Global Change Research ((AGLO,volume 35))

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Abstract

This chapter begins by analyzing the basis in knowledge of China’s food system – the intellectual establishment, research and development expenditures in the agricultural sciences, and training to improve farming practices. A second challenge is administrative coordination, both vertically and horizontally. The third challenge concerns modernization of the infrastructure for food production, emphasizing transportation and storage. The fourth area concerns access to food and poverty. It describes the significant reduction of absolute poverty from the late 1970s to the present, examines recent poverty alleviation programs, and assesses work remaining to be done – made difficult by the lack of agreement on the number of poor in China today. The fifth challenge is public participation, and discussion centers on media reportage of food security issues and citizen protests. The pattern indicates limited growth of civil society. The chapter concludes by describing changes in agricultural trade and issues related to China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization.

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Notes

1.
Lynn T. White III with Cheng Li, “Diversification among Mainland Chinese Intellectuals,” in King-yuh Chang, ed., Mainland China After the Thirteenth Party Congress. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990, 450.
2.
See Maurice Meisner, Mao’s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic. New York: The Free Press, 1986, 387.
3.
Quoted in Roger Garside, Coming Alive: China After Mao. New York: Mentor, 1982, 64.
4.
Meisner, 1986, 388.
5.
Jeffrey Schultz, “Conclusion: The Four Modernizations Reconsidered,” in Richard Baum, ed., China’s Four Modernizations: The New Technological Revolution. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1980, 269.
6.
Qiaoqiao Zhang, ed., Directory of Chinese Agricultural and Related Organizations (in Chinese), cited in Scott Waldron, Colin Brown and John Longworth, “State Sector Reform and Agriculture in China,” China Quarterly, no. 186 (June 2006), 287n41.
7.
Ibid., 280.
8.
Ibid., 286.
9.
Ibid., 281.
10.
See P. G. Parday and N. M. Beintema, “Slow Magic: Agricultural R&D a Century after Mendel,” IFPRI Food Policy Report. Washington, DC, 2001.
11.
Lubiao Zhang, “China’s Campaign on New Socialist Countryside and Agricultural Policy Reform,” Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Beijing: September 20, 2006.
12.
For information on spending in science and technology, see Ministry of Science and Technology, 2006 Report on Technological Development of China’s Villages (in Chinese). Beijing: China Agricultural Publishers, 2007.
13.
Kang Chao, Agricultural Production in Communist China, 1949–1965. Milwaukee, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1970, 89.
14.
Xinhua, “Farming Losing Its Appeal,” China Daily, February 22, 2008, 3.
15.
Zhiming Xin, Jing Fu, and Ping Zhu, “Security of Food Calls for Serious Thought,” China Daily, January 16, 2008, 7.
16.
For an overview of recent rural education and training programs, see Chenggui Li, “Reform of China’s Agricultural Technology Structure.” Unpublished paper. Beijing: 2007.
17.
Frederick W. Crook, “China’s Extension System,” Journal of Extension, Vol. 30, no. 3 (Fall 1992), 3.
18.
Jianmin Cao, Ruifa Hu, and Jikun Huang, “Agricultural Technology Extension and Farmers’ Modification of New Technology,” China’s Soft Science (in Chinese), no. 6 (2005), 60–66.
19.
Lin Zhen, Jayant K. Routray, Michael Zoebisch, Guibao Chen, Gaodi Xie, and Shengkui Cheng, “Three Dimensions of Sustainability of Farming Practices in the North China Plain,” Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, Vol. 105, no. 3 (2005), 507–22.
20.
Kenneth Lieberthal, Governing China. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995, 169.
21.
Ibid., 169–70.
22.
Liangshu Lu, Zhicheng Liu, Dongyan Wang, and Lizhi Zhu, “Agricultural Administration System Reform for Acceleration of Modern Agriculture Development,” cited in Waldron et al., 2006, 282.
23.
Personal interview with division director, Ministry of Environmental Protection, Beijing, May 21, 2008.
24.
See Zhe Zhu, “Food Safety Law Debate Goes On,” China Daily, August 21, 2008, 2; Tian Lan,”China Needs Better Food Safety Laws: UN Report,” China Daily, Octobere 23, 2008, 3; Xiaohuo Cui, “Thorough Food Check System Urged,” China Daily, October 28, 2008, 4.
25.
Xiaoyang Ma & Leonard Ortolano, Environmental Regulation in China: Institutions, Enforcement, and Compliance. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000, 154.
26.
Xiaohua Sun, “Environmental Watchdogs to Sharpen Teeth,” China Daily, April 16, 2008, 14.
27.
Bryan Tilt, “The Political Ecology of Pollution Enforcement in China: A Case from Sichuan’s Rural Industrial Sector,” China Quarterly, 192 (December 2007), 915–32.
28.
For a sophisticated treatment of the agricultural supply and distribution chain in China, see Jhihua Wu, Research on China Food Logistics (in Chinese). Beijing: China Agricultural Publishers, 2007.
29.
Linxiu Zhang, Renfu Luo, Chengfang Liu, and Scott Rozelle, “Investing in Rural China,” The Chinese Economy, Vol. 39, no. 4 (July-August 2006), 65.
30.
Edward Anderson, “Food Security in China,” in Gerard J. Gill, John Farrington, Edward Anderson, Cecilia Luttrell, Tim Conway, N. C. Saxena and Rachel Slater, Food Security and the Millenium Development Goal on Hunger in Asia. London: Overseas Development Institute, 2003, 12.
31.
Jiao Wu, “More Efforts to Protect Grain Crop,” China Daily, December 15-16, 2007, 2.
32.
See: www.rockwelllautomation.com
33.
Personal interview with grain storage specialist, State Grain Administration, Beijing, May 16, 2008.
34.
Hong Yang, “Trends in China’s Regional Grain Production and Their Implications,” Agricultural Economics, Vol. 19, no. 3 (December 1998), 309–25.
35.
Ibid., 2.
36.
Linxiu Zhang, Jikun Huang, and Scott Rozelle, “China’s War on Poverty: Assessing Targeting and the Growth Impacts of Poverty Programs,” Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, Vol. 1, no. 3 (September 2003), 302.
37.
World Bank, World Development Report, 2000/2001: Attacking Poverty. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2001.
38.
Jing Fu, “Call for New Definition of Poverty,” China Daily, September 26, 2007, 14.
39.
Ibid. See also Jing Fu, “Work Needed to Better Livelihoods,” China Daily, October 15, 2007, 3.
40.
Howard W. French, “Lives of Poverty, Untouched by China’s Boom,” The New York Times, January 13, 2008, A11.
41.
Xinhua, “Poverty Line to be Raised to International Standard,” China Daily, April 14, 2008, 2.
42.
Jiao Wu, “Poverty Line May be Raised,” China Daily, September 3, 2008. By year’s end the poverty definition was adjusted. Those earning less than 786 yuan were in “absolute poverty,” and those earning between 786 and 1,067 yuan were “low income.” The total poor (all those in these two categories) then numbered 43.2 million. See Zhuoqiong Wang, “New Poverty Line Raises Number of Poor,” China Daily, December 23, 2008, 2 and Xinhua, “Bumper Harvests Lift Farm Incomes,” China Daily, December 29, 2008, 1.
43.
World Bank, From Poor Areas to Poor People: China’s Evolving Poverty Reduction Agenda, 2009.
44.
Albert Park, Scott Rozelle, Christine Wong, and Changqing Ren, “Distributional Consequences of Fiscal Reform on China’s Poor Areas,” China Quarterly, 147 (1996), 1004.
45.
Zhang et al., 2003, 306. Also see Zhong Tong, Scott Rozelle, Bruce Stone, Dehua Jiang, Jiyuan Chen, and Zhikang Xu, “China’s Experience with Market Reform for Commercialization of Agriculture in Poor Areas,” in Joaquim von Braun and Eileen Kennedy, eds., Agricultural Commercialization, Economic Development, and Nutrition. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1994, 119–40.
46.
Zhang et al., 2003, 306.
47.
Ibid., 307.
48.
Anderson, 2003, 13.
49.
Zhang et al., 2003, 307. Also see Albert Park and Sangui Wang, “China’s Poverty Statistics,” China Economic Review, Vol. 12 (2001), 394–98.
50.
Zhang et al., 2003, 308.
51.
Ibid., 313.
52.
Ibid., 314.
53.
In 2009, agricultural subsidies were increased on major crops, such as wheat, by 15.3%. This was one of several means to cushion poor against the global recession expected to affect rural areas more adversely than urban ones. See Xu Wang, “Agricultural Subsidies Increased,” China Daily, October 21, 2008,1; Tingting Si, “Global Slowdown to Hit China’s Hinterland Hard,” China Daily, November 27, 2008, 16; and Zhuoqiong Wang, “Help-Poor Policies on Anvil,” China Daily, December 8, 2008, 2.
54.
For reform elements, see Lubiao Zhang, “China’s Campaign on New Socialist Countryside and Agricultural Policy Reform.” Beijing: Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 2006. Also see Yinan Hu, “Minimum Allowance,” China Daily, January 30, 2008, 2. Also see Jiao Wu, “Rural–Urban Divide Targeted,” China Daily, October 13, 2008, 3.
55.
Xinhua, “Countryside, Rural People a Top Priority,” China Daily, October 8, 2007, 1. Reduction in agricultural taxes increased greatly the fiscal burden on local governments, for which tax revenues constituted the greater part of income. Some economists estimated that governments at the county level and below had accumulated about 1 trillion yuan in debt. In early 2008, the Ministry of Finance pledged that it would increase transfer payments to these local governments. See Zhiming Xin, “Transfer Payments Set to Rise,” China Daily, April 17, 2008, 13.
56.
Ibid., 314.
57.
Anderson, 2003, 7.
58.
Dingding Xin, “Farmers Earn More, but Still Lag Behind,” China Daily, September 14, 2007, 3. The vice-minister referred to ministry figures showing that at least 210 million rural laborers had migrated to cities or townships in 2006; in the first 6 months of 2007, the number of migrant workers had increased by 8.1 percent: “This migration has caused problems, such as leaving just women and old farmers to cultivate farmland.”
59.
Ibid., 6.
60.
Fangchao Li, “Basic Stipend for Rural Areas,” China Daily, August 14, 2007, 2.
61.
Editors, “Leading State Adviser Offers Frank Assessment of Rural Challenges,” China Development Brief, Vol. X, no. 7 (July/August 2006), 3–5.
62.
Zhe Zhu, “Narrowing Wealth Gap High on Party’s Agenda,” China Daily, October 16, 2007, 5.
63.
Ibid.
64.
Ying Wang, “Poorest Rural Students to get Government Financial Aid,” China Daily, December 22–23, 2007, 2.
65.
Jiao Wu, “50% of People to be Middle Class,” China Daily, December 27, 2007, 3.
66.
Xinhua, “Farmers’ Income to be Doubled,” China Daily, October 13, 2008, 1.
67.
Jing Fu, “Insurance for 80% Farmers in 7 Years,” China Daily, November 17, 2008, 3.
68.
Yingzi Tan, “20 Million Migrants Lost Jobs: Survey,” China Daily, February 3, 2009, 1.
69.
Bo Wen, Greening the Chinese Media. Washington, DC: China Environment Series, no. 2., Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1998, 39.
70.
Elizabeth Economy, The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China’s Future. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004, 163n50.
71.
Xinhua, “Nation has Largest Number of Netizens,” China Daily, April 25, 2008, 1, and Baijia Liu, “Chinese World’s Top Netizen Group,” China Daily, July 25, 2008, 1. Yet, given China’s large population, the proportion of Internet users is below the global average.
72.
See Jonathan Sullivan and Lei Xie, “Environmental Activism, Social Networks and the Internet,” China Quarterly, no. 198 (June 2009), 422–32.
73.
For an analysis of how state-controlled media influence popular understanding of issues, see Alex Chan, “Guiding Public Opinion through Social Agenda-Setting: China’s Media Policy since the 1990s,” Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 16, no. 53 (November 2007), 547–59.
74.
Wan Xiao, “People More Aware of Environmental Issues,” China Daily, May 4, 2008, 3.
75.
See, for example, David Da-Hua Yang, “Civil Society as an Analytic Lens for Contemporary China,” China: An International Journal, Vol. 2, no. 1 (March 2000); Ian Johnson, “The Death and Life of China’s Civil Society,” Perspectives, Vol. 1, no. 3 (2003); Rebecca Morse, “China’s Fledgling Civil Society: A Force for Democratization? World Policy Journal, Vol. 18, no. 1 (2001); and Jude Howell, “New Directions in Civil Society: Organizing Around Marginalized Interests,” in Jude Howell, Governance in China. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.
76.
For example, E. Knup claimed that the number of grassroots organizations was larger than 200,000, without providing evidence for this number. See “Environmental NGOs in China: An Overview,” China Environment Series, no. 1.
77.
See Jennifer Turner and Zhi Lu, “China’s Environmental NGOs,” in Yisheng Zheng, ed., China Environment and Development Review (in Chinese). Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2007, 349–69.
78.
Susan Martens, “Public Participation with Chinese Characteristics: Citizen Consumers in China’s Environmental Management,” Environmental Politics, Vol. 15, no. 2 (April 2006), 225.
79.
See Jing Jun, “Environmental Protests in Rural China,” in Elizabeth Perry and Mark Selden, eds., Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance. New York: Routledge, 2000, 144.
80.
Cited in Yongshun Cai, “Civil Resistance and Rule of Law in China,” in Elizabeth Perry and Merle Goldman, Grassroots Political Reform in Contemporary China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007, 176.
81.
Sun Liangruo, People’s Daily, December 17, 2007.
82.
Howard W. French, “Plan to Extend Shanghai Rail Line Stirs Middle Class to Protest,” The New York Times, January 27, 2008, A12.
83.
Edward Wong, “China Petrochemical Project Opposed,” New York Times, Mayi 6, 2008, A19. As in the previous cases, Chinese media also featured the protest. See Zhiling Huang, “Chengdu People Walk to Express Concerns,” China Daily, May 6, 2008, 4.
84.
See, for example, Kevin O’Brien and Lianjiang Li, Rightful Resistance in Rural China. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
85.
Peter Oosterveer, Global Governance of Food Production and Consumption: Issues and Challenges. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007, 4.
86.
Lee Ann Jackson, “Food Safety Standards Harmonization in the Asia-Pacific Region,” in Reba Carruth, Global Governance of Food and Agriculture Industries. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006, 328.
87.
Ibid., 329.
88.
Lester R. Brown, Outgrowing the Earth. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004, 146–47.
89.
Jikun Huang and Scott Rozelle, China’s Accession to WTO and Shifts in the Agriculture Policy, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics Working Paper No. 2. Davis, CA: University of California Davis, 2002.
90.
Zhiming Xin, “Farmers Help Cut China’s Agro-trade Deficit,” China Daily, January 9, 2007, 4.
91.
Huanxin Zhao, “Food Imports to Stay Steady,” China Daily, March 11, 2008, 1.
92.
Xinhua, “$147b of Food to be Imported in 5 Years,” China Daily, December 17, 2008, 3.
93.
Hongxing Ni, “Agriculture Trade Promotion in China.” Beijing: Agricultural Trade Promotion Center, Ministry of Agriculture, 2007.
94.
Based on personal interview with grain policy specialist, State Council, May 19, 2008. See also “Major State Trading Companies – Food Exports” at http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/7y5109e/y5109e0g.htm (retrieved 7/23/2008).
95.
Ying Wang, “Customs Officials Nab Illegal Exports,” China Daily, May 5, 2008, 3, and Jiao Wu, “Stiff Grain Export Rules to Remain,” China Daily, June 20, 2008, 3.
96.
Yinan Hu, “Researcher Defends Wheat Policies,” China Daily, February 19, 2008, 3. Also see Zi Chong, “China Not to Blame for Food Price Rise,” China Daily, June 14–15, 2008, 4.
97.
Jing Fu, “Pledge Not to Stop Rice Exports Lauded,” China Daily, April 25, 2008, 1.
98.
Ying Diao, “China’s Trade Surplus Large but Slowing in ’07,” China Daily, May 8, 2007, 17.
99.
See Rural Development Institute, Green Book on China’s Rural Economy. Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 2007.
100.
Wei Jiang, “More Cuts in Farm Tariff ‘Not Feasible’,” China Daily, June 20, 2007, 2.
101.
Oosterveer, 2007, 73.
102.
Fengxia Dong and Helen Jensen, “China’s Challenge: Conforming to Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures for Agricultural Exports,” Iowa Agricultural Review, Vol. 10, no. 2 (Spring 2004), 2.
103.
Ibid., 4.
104.
USDA, Foreign Trade Barriers. Washington, DC: 2002, 54.
105.
Personal observation of the authors.
106.
Xinhua, “Firm Will Grow Rice in Africa,” China Daily, May 9, 2008, 13.
107.
Deborah A. Brautigam and Xiaoyang Tang, “China’s Engagement in African Agriculture: ‘Down to the Countryside’,” China Quarterly, no. 199 (September 2009), 686–706. Also see Deborah Brautigam, “Land Rights and Agricultural Development in West Africa: A Case Study of Two Chinese Projects,” Journal of Developing Areas, Vol. 25, no. 4 (1992), 21–32.
108.
Xiaokun Li, “China Denies Hoarding Overseas Farmland,” China Daily, July 4, 2008, 3.
109.
See Gerald Chan, China’s Compliance in Global Affairs. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2006, 166–67.

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University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK, USA
Jenifer Huang McBeath & Jerry McBeath

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McBeath, J.H., McBeath, J. (2010). Issues in Implementing Food Security in China. In: Environmental Change and Food Security in China. Advances in Global Change Research, vol 35. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9180-3_9

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