The course of China's rural reform
Resource information
Date of publication
December 2005
ISBN / Resource ID
125214
Pages
16 pages
Copyright details
IFPRI adheres to the basic tenets of the Budapest Open Access Initiative, articulated in 2002 (subject to any applicable third-party rights and or confidentiality obigations). All applicable data are subject to IFPRI’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) guidelines. Copyright © 2013 International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). All rights reserved.
For more than 20 years after the victory of the Chinese Revolution, radicalism was ascendant and private ownership of land was illegal. The peasantry became estranged from the land, so that when the Cultural Revolution ended, China’s economy had been placed in difficulty and an agricultural crisis induced. The population had grown, and food was in short supply. Per capita grain production never averaged much above 300 kilograms. Of the 800 million peasants, 250 million were impoverished. The nation as a whole could not achieve self-sufficiency in grain and required massive imports.
