ABSTRACT
Policies approved by the Third Plenum of the 11th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in December 1978 marked the start of a dramatic restructuring of the Chinese economy. In only six years, reforms have thoroughly changed the face of the Chinese countryside, where over 90 percent of the households have reverted to family farming, redividing the large fields that had marked collectivized agriculture. The reduction of procurement quotas and their reapportionment in the post-Mao period have allowed many regions to revert to their traditional cropping patterns, which have evolved over time to conform to comparative regional advantages. With the new policies calling for a more diversified agricultural production pattern and ending the one-sided emphasis on grain, the production of economic crops has increased rapidly. Reform measures introduced during this period seem to form a comprehensive package that is designed to increase the role of market mechanisms in guiding economic decision making.
