Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
compared with other countries. Taxes—those that are explicit and those
that are implicit in pricing and trade policies—also have fallen. While China
has not reached a pont durng the transton era where t heavly subsdses
the agrcultural economy n a way that characterses ts neghbours n East
Asia, it appears, however, to be heading in the direction in which developing
countres at a certan pont begn to turn from extracton from agrculture
to net nvestment n the sector.
Outside of agriculture, many policies and other factors have affected
the sector. Other rural policies—for example, fiscal reform, township and
village enterprise emergence and privatisation, and rural governance—
almost certainly have a large, albeit indirect, effect on agriculture. Urban
employment policies, residency restrictions, exchange rate management
and many other polcy ntatves also affect agrculture by affectng relatve
prices in the economy, the access to jobs off the farm and the overall
attractveness of remanng on the farm.
Taken together, these policies have been shown to have a dramatic
effect on Chna's agrcultural sector. They have ncreased the output
of food, driven agricultural prices down and improved supplies of non-
grain food and raw materials for industry. The mix of policies—pricing,
property rights, market liberalisation, investment and trade—has also made
producers more efficient; it has freed up labour and other resources that are
behnd the structural transformaton of the economy. The most convncng
ndcators that agrculture s begnnng to play an effectve role n the
naton's development are that the mportance of gran s shrnkng nsde
the cropping sector, the importance of the cropping sector is shrinking
nsde the agrcultural sector and the mportance of agrculture s shrnkng
n the general economy. Rural ncomes and productvty have ncreased;
however, much of the increase in welfare is being generated by individuals
(and there have been more than 200 mllon of them) who have been able
to escape from grain production and move into high-valued crops, escape
from cropping and move into livestock and fisheries production and, most
importantly, escape from agriculture (the rural economy) and move into
off-farm jobs (n the cty).
