Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
08
Revisiting the economic costs
of food self-sufficiency in
China
Ron Duncan, Lucy Rees and Rod Tyers
The comparatvely rapd economc growth experenced n the economes
of East Asia has been associated with declines in food self-sufficiency
and ncreases n agrcultural protecton. Ths has been most noteworthy
in Japan, Korea and Taiwan, where the relative decline in economic
mportance of the agrcultural sectors has not been accompaned by a
similar decline in the political influence of farmers (Anderson et al. 1986;
Krueger 1992). Rapid expansion in these countries' manufacturing and
services sectors meant that the relative cost of protecting agriculture, as
distinct from the expanding sectors, declined. Moreover, as agriculture
shed workers to the modern sectors and farms consolidated, the number of
farmers declined, reducing the cost of coordinating their political activity
(Downs 1957; Olson 1965). The net effect has been the growth of protecton
to levels so extreme that the cost burden on ther economes s large n
spte of ther small agrcultural sectors.
Chna's very rapd economc expanson of the past two decades now
threatens to yeld a poltcal economy smlar n ths respect to those
driving the rises in protection in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Today, along
wth wdenng of per capta ncome dspartes between urban and rural
areas, the rhetoric of self-sufficiency is the most prominent weapon of
Chna's protectonsts. Whle WTO accesson lessens the rsk that they wll
succeed, the agricultural ministry has been assigned a prominent role in
