China Law Blog

"# Rising rural wages
# Return of China’s farmers "

Hard to do with severe water shortages and the water that is available is unfit. China is already a net food importer and its dependency will only continue to grow.

@nhyrc
China can still be a net food importer and enjoy a steadily booming agriculture sector. The shift to labour intensive rather than land intensive products-highlighted by booming fruit exports-is an example, although the government is not of course playing a positive role in that transition with its (admittedly quite politically justifiable) grain self sufficiency obsession. Water issues I'd agree are important, though they don't seem to have held back agricultural production much to date.

nanheyangrouchuan --

I disagree. As China's urban wealth increases, food prices will rise and farmers will benefit. Farming technology will also improve and that will also lead to increased farmer earnings.

Duncan --

I concur.

automated harvesters can't make up for a lack of water or unusable water and there is no technology that can produce enough water to irrigate crops on enough of a scale to feed a population.

It's not difficult to see how China would become a net food importers looking at the WTO arrangement. Agriculture subsidies in the developed countries (Europe and America) are exempt from the China (and most Asian countries) WTO agreement. The developed countries are free to subsidize agriculture as much as they want to and they do subsidize farms up to the neck while developing countries like China are banned from subsidizing its agriculture under WTO.

China imports rice from the America to provide its people with cheaper food while America is borrowing money from China to subsidize the rice farmers to produce the cheap rice for the Chinese. With incorporated farming in the US, the bottom line seeking management try to cut cost at the farms and raise the demand for illegal immigrants in the farms. And as China import more rice from the US, it will gain more bargain power of the rice price. Which in term makes America have to borrow more money to sustain the farm subsides and corporate to cut deeper into the cost which will further increase the need for illegal to work in farm. This is a vicious cycle which probably harm US more then China and with Iowa being the first primary, touching the farm subside issue is political suicide.

On the good side, China only has about 30 days food reserve while US has about 1 year. So, if China ever goes to war with US, it will likely to lose because of the problem with food shortage.

Automated harvesters aren't useful in China anyway as most have been designed for large flat lands in American mid-West instead of mountain slope farms in China.

The development in biofuel may be a way out. It is interesting that China is not jumping on the trend of biofuel development as it may be a good way to solve its energy craving and farm problem at the same time. But again, it seems the countries active in the filed are also countries with strong farm subside.

For those of you interested in the scientific research behind the agricultural issue:

-Agricultural Sciences in China
http://www.chinaagrisci.com/V2/En/Index.asp

Dan, i hate to put in the URL for the sites because it is so inelegant. Is there a way to insert a hyperlink in the comment? Tried doing it in Word and then inserting, but it didn't work.

nanheyangrouchuan --

The sky has yet to fall and science usually finds a way. I am not minimizing the problems, but I am also not going to emphatically proclaim doom and gloom either.

Mr. Li --

Thanks for checking in and providing those numbers. My knowledge of food and agricultural economics is too lacking even to respond.

Mr. Li --

I have to believe that if biofuels prove truly viable, China will jump in.

Benjamin --

Inelegancy aside, I thank you for the links.

David:

US and EU farm subsidies are used to support farmers for domestic sales. Much of the US food surplus goes for 1. programs for the poor 2. food shipments to drought and famine stricken countries and 3. the rest usually rots.
Subsidies are not used for exports and they don't need to be.

CLB:

Science has its limits and one of those limits is cost. That is why water treatment plants often are underutilized or left off and emissions cleaning equipment is not installed or bypassed.

And I'm sure you are aware of the sting the enforced environmental laws can provide.

nanheyangrouchuan --

I am guessing you are right about US farm subsidies, but not so sure that is true of the EU. Of course science has its limits and its costs, but when the alternative if starvation and a country has money, things usually get done.

Nanheyangrouchuan,

I come from a farming background in New Zealand and occassionally write some articles about China for one of the farming magazines back there.

You're right that water scarcity is a big issue in China but I think they could produce a lot more with the resources they have. I still remember taking a train through Henan a few years ago and seeing the primitive, wasteful techniques they used for irrigation - flood irrigation or a farmer walking around a field dragging a hose. Spray irrigation, such as the pivot irrigators that are very popular in the west, are far more efficient. For horticultural crops such as grapes and fruit trees there is also "drip feed" systems. The issue is that these systems cost more to setup and westerners are reluctant to bring their technology to China if i) the Chinese won't pay them for it, or ii) they buy one and then copy it.

While a lot of China is mountainous there is still a huge amount of high quality arable land that could produce far more than it does now. By memory average yields in China are just over 5 ton per hectare while in the west many farmers are achieving over 10 ton per hectare with the right combination of management, seed cultivars, water and fertilisers. One issue of course is that highly mechanized farming needs less people and so a lot of farmers would be out of work.

Having land close to cities confiscated by greedy officials and developers is a bigger issue for many farmers.

"US and EU farm subsidies are used to support farmers for domestic sales."

Well, let the US state department document speaks for the issue.

http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/76911.pdf

Also, giant chains like McDonald has been using tax incentive for agriculture export. Oversea McDonald have been using potato from the American farms in a lot of countries.

China is the same country that uses 3 times as much energy as India to produce the same unit of GDP, so you know where they are headed.

And much of the water they do have is ruined.

China is making more and more enemies w/regards to water. ASEAN can't do anything about the multiple dams on the Mekong besides whine, but China has also publicly claimed the Brahmaputra river as "south tibet" much to the chagrin of India (and it was China's ambassador to India who made the comments). China is now killing off Kazakstan's biggest lake by diverting/daming the E. Turkmenistan rivers that supply it. Kazakstan has offered free food subsidies, but China's pride won't allow the guardians of heavan/center of the world to get into the bread line of a less developed country.

Mr. Oliver --

Thanks for checking in and thanks for expessing in a coherent and knowledgeable way what I guessed to be the case, but did not know.

Mr. Li --

Thanks for checking in and pointing out this information.

nanheyangrouchuan --

Okay.

i don't know if anyone is still active on this page, but I'm making a project for school about the economic development of China of the last 20-30 years.I'm looking for some good information.What I'm searching for is a descripton of the last 20-30 years about what happenend with the chinese economy.So if anyone knows where to search or has a good link please send it to me at: jensrasmussen14@gmail.com