Thirty Years of Agricultural Transition in China (1977-2007) and the "New Rural Campaign"

Agriculture in China has experienced a compelling growth in the early 1980s, a buoyant upbeat in the early 1990s, and an extended period of low growth after 1995. Decollectivization, mar-ket reforms, public investments and technology have played a critical role during this overall successful process. However, the transition has also led to increasing inequalities between the agricultural and non-agricultural population, and substantial institutional issues remain to be fully addressed. The Chinese government is now reemphasizing agriculture and rural develop-ment under its New Rural Campaign with the objective to address rural-urban inequalities, but a stronger emphasis on participation and tenure reforms is warranted.agriculture, rural development, transition, institutions, China, Community/Rural/Urban Development, International Development, O43, P21, P32,

Documentation of a multi-topic questionnaire-based survey on sustainable resource use in rural China

This Discussion Paper documents a survey conducted in rural China in 2005. A multi-topic survey funded by the Sino-German international Training Program Sustainable Resource Use in North China, the project covers farm management, land property rights and rural credit access on the North China Plain. From a credit standpoint, this paper covers questionnaire design, sample, survey implementation, data entry, a brief assessment of the overall experience, as well as lessons drawn. -- G E R M A N V E R S I O N: Dieses Diskussionspapier dokumentiert die im ländlichen China im Jahre 2005 durchgeführte Erhebung. Diese ist durch eine Vielzahl von Themen gekennzeichnet und durch das Sino-German International Training Program Sustainable Resource Use in North China in China gefördert. So werden unter anderem Farm-Management, Eigentumsrechte an Land und Verfügbarkeit von Krediten im ländlichen Raum des nordchinesischen Flachlandes betrachtet. Hinsichtlich der Kreditverfügbarkeit wird die Ausgestaltung des Fragebogens, die Stichproben erhebung, die Umfrageimplementierung, der Dateneintrag, die Ausreißer und Fehlwerte betrachtet sowie eine kurze Aussage zu den Erfahrungen und Erkenntnissen gemacht.Questionnaire,Survey,Credit access,Household model,Categorical variables,Stata,Fragebogen,Erhebung,Kreditverfügbarkeit,Datenbearbeitung

Land property, tenure security and credit access: a historical perspective of change processes in China

The North China Plain is the country?s granary: most of wheat and maize is supplied by this region in the northeast of China. Intensity of agricultural production has risen sharply in the last decades and the negative environmental effects like water scarcity, salinization and nitrate contamination have been widely acknowledged. In the wake of the country?s rapid economic development it becomes at the same time more and more urgent to narrow the gap between the well-being of the urban and rural population. In order to better understand the paths that lead to this present dilemma, this paper provides a historical overview of the development of the land and water markets and the rural financial system. It highlights the linkages and reciprocal restraints between these three sectors and gives some conclusions and policy recommendations on how to proceed in order to further a more sustainable development in the North China Plain. Apart from literature review, data from an original farm household survey, conducted by the authors, is used to substantiate the arguments put forth in this paper

Centralized versus individual: Governance of farmer professional cooperatives in China

Based on a national representative survey conducted in 2009, this study shows that the decision-making within Farmer Professional Cooperatives (FPCs) in China is decentralized to individual farmers. However, there is a trend that the decision rights of farming are decomposed to marketing, production and input procuring. While the rights for production and input procuring stay with family farmers, marketing rights tend to be collectivized. Compared to FPCs having external initiating sources, FPCs initiated by farmers are more inclined to introduce centralized decision-making. The governance structure of FPCs in transition China presents hybrid forms of both hierarchy and family farming. --Farmer,Cooperatives,Governance,China

Centralized versus individual: Governance of farmer professional cooperatives in China

Based on a national representative survey conducted in 2009, this study shows that the decision-making within Farmer Professional Cooperatives (FPCs) in China is decentralized to individual farmers. However, there is a trend that the decision rights of farming are decomposed to marketing, production and input procuring. While the rights for production and input procuring stay with family farmers, marketing rights tend to be collectivized. Compared to FPCs having external initiating sources, FPCs initiated by farmers are more inclined to introduce centralized decision-making. The governance structure of FPCs in transition China presents hybrid forms of both hierarchy and family farming

Intrahousehold empowerment gaps and dietary diversity in China

ObjectiveThis article analyzes the relationship between intrahousehold empowerment gaps and food and nutrition security using quantitative data collected through a household survey organized by the Agricultural Information Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS-AII), in 2023.MethodsBased on empowerment theory, this study measured the relative empowerment of spouses from the Abbreviated Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (A-WEAI).ResultsFrom the micro-level evidence of 468 rural households, this study found that intrahousehold empowerment gaps harm the diversity of household diets. In particular, reducing gender gaps in access to resources, leadership, and income can help diversify household diets. However, data on the impact of shortening the difference in working hours between wives and husbands for the benefit of food safety are yet to be conclusive. Additionally, gender gaps in the group of non-coresident mothers-in-law and non-migrants hurt household food security.ConclusionThe paper also provides further justification for policies and interventions that aim to improve women's bargaining position in the household

Coordinated Control of a Wind-Methanol-Fuel Cell System with Hydrogen Storage

This paper presents a wind-methanol-fuel cell system with hydrogen storage. It can manage various energy flow to provide stable wind power supply, produce constant methanol, and reduce CO2 emissions. Firstly, this study establishes the theoretical basis and formulation algorithms. And then, computational experiments are developed with MATLAB/Simulink (R2016a, MathWorks, Natick, MA, USA). Real data are used to fit the developed models in the study. From the test results, the developed system can generate maximum electricity whilst maintaining a stable production of methanol with the aid of a hybrid energy storage system (HESS). A sophisticated control scheme is also developed to coordinate these actions to achieve satisfactory system performance

Exogenous Hormonal Application Regulates the Occurrence of Wheat Tillers by Changing Endogenous Hormones

Plant hormones play important roles in regulating the occurrence of crop tillers. However, little is known about the relationships and the underlying mechanisms between endogenous hormones and the occurrence of wheat tillers induced by exogenous hormones. In this study, two winter wheat cultivars, Xinong 979 and Xiaoyan 22, were used to investigate the effects of the exogenous application of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) and zeatin (Z) on the occurrence of wheat tillers and investigate underlying mechanisms regulating the occurrence of tillers. The results showed that the application of IAA inhibited the occurrence of tillers, and external Z application promoted the occurrence rate of tillers under low nitrogen conditions. Further analysis of the results showed that exogenous IAA completely inhibited the growth of tiller buds, while exogenous Z significantly promoted the growth rate of tiller buds in low nitrogen conditions. Endogenous hormones exhibit important functions in regulating the growth of tiller buds, which contents were affected by exogenous hormones. Furthermore, according to the principal component analysis and correlation analysis, the growth of tiller buds was significantly positively correlated with the content of endogenous Z, whereas it was significantly negatively correlated with the ratios of endogenous IAA to endogenous Z (IAA:Z) and endogenous abscisic acid (ABA) to endogenous Z (ABA:Z). Moreover, no significant correlation was observed between the growth of the tiller buds and the endogenous IAA, endogenous gibberellins (GAs), and endogenous ABA content. These results suggested that Z played key roles in regulating the tiller occurrence, and exogenous hormones regulated the growth of wheat tiller buds via affecting the Z contents, thus regulating the occurrence of wheat tiller