LAND TENURE INSECURITY AND LABOR ALLOCATION IN RURAL CHINA

Farmers' ability to leave agriculture is an important and debated topic in China and other countries. Many scholars believe China's unique land tenure policies prevent farmers from leaving agriculture. This paper examines the hypothesis that China's land tenure system deters exit from agriculture using household level data from Northeast China.Farm Management, Labor and Human Capital, Land Economics/Use,

CHINA'S AGRICULTURAL WATER SCARCITY : EFFECTS ON INTERNATIONAL MARKETS

Water shortages in important grain-producing regions of China may significantly affect China's agricultural production potential and international markets. This paper provides an overview of how water scarcity could affect China's agricultural production and trade. The paper identifies the areas where available water resources are most overexploited and the crops most vulnerable to reductions in irrigation. We present preliminary results from modeling a decline in irrigated land in water scarce areas in China and the effect this would have on China's production and trade. Wheat and cotton are most vulnerable to a decrease in irrigated area in water scarce regions, and production for these crops could fall by 7-10 percent under a severe cutback in irrigation. The effect this will have on international markets will depend largely on the openness of China's border to imports. In addition, we describe recent conservation policies and how these may affect crop production in China.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Interactions between Resource Scarcity and Trade Policy: The Potential Effects of Water Scarcity on China’s Agricultural Economy under the Current TRQ Regime

International Relations/Trade, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

LAND RENTAL MARKET DEVELOPMENT AND AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION IN CHINA

The development of a land rental market in China may help stimulate further increases in agricultural production. This paper provides a description of land rental transactions in rural China, analyzes the determinants of land supply and demand and estimates the implications land rental activity has for increasing agricultural production.Land Economics/Use,

THE RISE OF RURAL-TO-RURAL LABOR MARKETS IN CHINA

The continued transfer of agricultural labor into the industrial sector is crucial to China's transformation into an industrial economy. We argue in this paper that rural industry offers an alternative to urban industry for receiving agricultural labor from areas without off-farm employment opportunities. Characteristics of rural industry differ from their urban counterparts. These characteristics may serve to shape the growth in employment for incoming workers in rural areas, provide opportunities for certain types of workers, and affect the impacts these workers have on the local economy. In this paper we examine the features of China's rural-to-rural labor movement and the villages where these workers are employed. Using a nationally representative sample of 215 villages, we show that the growth in rural-to-rural labor movement between 1988 and 1995 has been much faster than in rural-to-urban movement or in local off-farm employment. The rapid growth in rural-to-rural commuting and migration has not negatively affected off-farm income earning opportunities for workers living in the receiving villages. Rural-to-rural labor movement also has many positive effects. Labor movement into rural villages provides opportunities for workers generally underrepresented in other parts of the off-farm labor market, appears to dampen upward pressure on wages that allows rural industry to maintain labor intensive practices, and promotes national economic integration.Labor and Human Capital,

TRANSITION AND FOOD CONSUMPTION

This paper examines why transition from planned to market economies in the countries of the former Soviet bloc has changed their mix and volumes of food consumption. During transition, consumption of high value products, such as meat and dairy products, has plummeted, while consumption of staple foods such as bread and potatoes has remained steady, or even increased. The paper shows that in the pre-reform planned economy, planners "desired" the production and national consumption of high value (and cost) foodstuffs more than consumers. When market reform resulted in consumer prices adjusting to reflect the full cost of production, consumer demand switched from high cost foods to other goods and services. The demand-driven nature of food restructuring in these countries has implications for food security, reinforcing the argument that any food security problems are not mainly the result of inadequate aggregate supplies of agricultural products.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

China's Ongoing Agricultural Modernization: Challenges Remain After 30 Years of Reform

Thirty years ago, China began implementing a series of reforms to improve efficiency in agricultural production. These, and subsequent, reforms reshaped China’s position in the world economy. China’s rapid economic development and transformation from a planned to a market-oriented economy, however, has reached a stage where further efficiency gains in agricultural production will likely hinge on the development of modern market-supporting institutions. The development of market-supporting institutions in China will bring about long-term and sustainable benefits to producers and consumers in China and the global agricultural economy. This report provides an overview of current issues in China’s agricultural development, policy responses to these issues, and the effects of these policies on China’s growing role in international markets.China, economic reform, economic development, agricultural production, agricultural trade, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, Production Economics,

Softening the Impact of Adjustment to Reform: The China Experience

This paper examines the structural adjustments induced as China moved from a planned economy that subsidized capital-intensive industry at the expense of agriculture to a nationally integrated market economy more fitting with China's underlying resource endowments. We argue that there were few losers in the process because of 1) a gradual implementation process that maintained transfers to the favored groups under the planned economy, such as urban industrial workers, while the market economy developed benefiting the non-favored groups, such as farmers; 2) high growth rates allowed a large portion of the economy to benefit from the overall reform process and bolstered the government's commitment to further reform; and 3) labor, the most important resource that farm households hold in China, was much less institutionally constrained than land and capital during the reform period, allowing rural workers to participate in the fast growing nonagricultural sector.Agricultural and Food Policy, Political Economy,