Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
oriented food-related sector, the 'beverages' group, also faces the greatest
level of mport penetraton. Ths sector s charactersed by dfferentated
products and intra-industry trade, which, in China's case, appears roughly
to balance out. Livestock products, 'processed food' and the 'other crops'
group, which includes the key inputs to the livestock products group,
grains and soybeans, are less trade-oriented. Importantly, however, they
do not enjoy the balance of exports and competng mports that occurs
wth beverages. They are mport competng and therefore sectors n whch
China is less than self-sufficient.
To track self-sufficiency, we offer a cruder but more widely used
measure: domestic output relative to domestic 'disappearance'. For a
partcular product group we compare the value of output at producers'
prices,
Y
, to this value of output supplemented by net imports (
M - X
),
where the latter are also valued at domestic prices. Our self-sufficiency
rato s then
Y
SSR
=
+ −
(2)
Y M X
The values taken by this ratio in the original database of 1997, and the
constructed ones for 2001 and 2010, are listed in Table A8.6. Measured in
this way, departures from self-sufficiency are largest amongst agricultural
products for the beverages group, 'other crops', and the processed food
category. Moreover, the shortfall relative to full self-sufficiency is projected
to expand through to 2010. Though smaller in magnitude, expansions in this
shortfall also occur for marine products and livestock. If self-sufficiency is a
polcy objectve these results suggest ncreased agrcultural protecton wll
be requred n order to prevent deteroraton n the ratos through tme.
Achieving agricultural self-sufficiency through protection
If the Chinese government were to adopt self-sufficiency as an objective,
to be achieved through border protection, it might choose to implement
a policy regime that would prevent any negative trend in self-sufficiency
ratios for product groups that are already import competing. Alternatively,
it might seek a regime that would return the economy to self-sufficiency in
