In February 2023, China released its “No. 1 Central Document,” which outlines three essential tasks for the year.
First, the Chinese government must guarantee national food security and ensure that people do not sink back into poverty in large numbers.
Second, with a focus on the demands of overall rural vitalisation, it will robustly promote key work related to areas such as rural improvement and development.
Third, emphasis has been placed on strengthening policy guarantees and institutional innovation.
-United Nations World Food Programme
"Agriculture is the foundation and the platform of a nation." In the previous article, we discussed the historical shift of grain-planting areas in China (From “South-to-North Transportation "to " North-to-South Transportation"). Today, let's get up to speed on the structural change in Chinese grain planting.
From a "Consumption-based" singular cropping structure
To a “Consumption + Cash Crop” dualistic cropping structure
Since the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949, the quantitative dichotomy between supply and demand was a major conflict troubling the Chinese grain market for decades. At one point, a whopping 90% of all crop acreage could be contributed to consumption-based crops, cementing China as a typical “Consumption-based” singular planting-structured agriculture.
Since the late 1960s, consumption-based crop acreage has declined on a yearly basis while cash crop acreage has increased. The rural reforms following the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee established an emphasis on cash crop planting. These reforms rapidly transformed the Chinese agricultural structure into a dualistic “Consumption + Cash Crop” model, with consumption-based crops as the focus and cash crop planting as a supplement.
On October 28th, 1979, the Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Issues concerning the Acceleration of Agricultural Development stressed that "the current Chinese agricultural structure and the people’s consumption composition should be gradually changed in a planned way, and the situation in which only grain planting is emphasized, and other areas such as cash crop planting and forestry, animal husbandry, sideline, and fishery are ignored should be changed."
Major Chinese cash crops include cotton, oilseed, sugar crops, tobacco, hemp, and medicinal materials.
Following the Decision came a decade-long adjustment period. By 1988, the ratio of Chinese consumption-based and cash crop acreage had reached 0.760: 0.227, a remarkable turnaround compared to a decade ago.
As the crop acreage ratio shifted, China's livestock and aquaculture industries also experienced rapid development, triggering an expansion in feedstock demand and the number of feedstock companies, swallowing up agricultural resources. The “Consumption + Cash Crop” cropping structure, which does not distinguish between grain and feed, has led to a new prominent dichotomy between crops for human consumption and feedstock for livestock and fishery industries.
From a “Consumption + Cash Crop” dualistic cropping structure
To a "Consumption + Cash Crop + Feedstock" ternary cropping structure
Entering the 1990s, domestic agricultural product supplies have shifted from suffering chronic shortages to reaching preliminary equilibrium, with occasional surpluses. While the total quantity of produced products remains a major focus, people also care more about crop varieties and product qualities. A new age for Chinese cropping structure development is upon us.
In 1992, The State Council promulgated the Strategy and Countermeasures of China's Medium and Long-Term Food Development, which clearly stated that "the traditional dualistic cropping structure of consumption-based crops and cash crops should be gradually transformed into a ternary cropping structure of consumption-based crops, cash crops, and feedstocks."
The "Consumption + Cash Crop + Feedstock" ternary cropping structure separates feedstock production from consumption-based crop production from the “Consumption + Cash Crop” model. Farmable land and appropriate crop stubble are reserved for producing feedstock, gradually raising feedstock production into a relatively independent industry. Production of food, cash, and feedstock crops can now coordinate, maximizing output for all three areas.
Under the new ternary cropping structure, the definition of feedstock crops includes traditional feed crops such as corn and herbage. Harvesting traditional feedstock crops such as corn now consists of all above-ground biomass produced, no longer limited to seeds or fruits.
The creation and development of the ternary cropping structure is an inevitable step in developing the Chinese agricultural industry. It acts as a beacon, showing us the future agricultural structure development direction. The structure also helps balance the ratio of consumption-based, cash, and feedstock crops within the agrarian structure.
During the “Ninth Five-Year Plan" period, the ternary cropping model began large-scale implementation, reaching climax during the "Tenth Five-Year Plan" period. At the dawn of the new millennium, the Chinese government announced the Grand Western Development Program, establishing a strategic policy for the western regions focusing on sustainable agricultural and environmental development. Herbage plantation efforts skyrocketed as municipal governments began enforcing these development policies, resulting in a nationwide herbage planting upsurge between 2000 and 2003.
Due to China's complex geography, establishing a national cropping structure framework is highly formidable. These frameworks will have to conform to regional limitations. Municipal governments around the nation are actively exploring the ternary cropping model under the guidance of national policies as the Chinese agricultural industry enters the “Consumption +Cash Crop + Feedstock” ternary cropping era.
Challenges accompany growth. In 2015, as the structural dichotomy between food supply and demand became the emerging central conflict in Chinese agriculture, a new idea: "supply-side agricultural structural reform," entered the public eye for the first time through China's top-level “Agriculture, Farmer, and Rural Area” conferences.
As another new era dawns upon us, China has begun accelerating the transformation and development of the agricultural industry with supply-side structural reform as its main guiding principle. Stay tuned for a more detailed analysis of supply-side agricultural structural reform in the next volume of GSS Shares!
Post Time: 2023-02-25