ABSTRACT
Communist China used to be the object of the most contradictory judgements. The quest for food security, through the use of institutional mechanisms for equalizing consumption or through state intervention, is no longer being pursued by the Chinese authorities. In the cities, rationing of the same basic commodities, mainly grains, ensured city-dwellers very cheap food, closely controlled by the state bureaucracy. Whatever the respective mechanisms of the evolution of rural and urban consumption, it is clear that the food take-off that followed the decollectivization of agriculture has mainly benefited the peasant population. For foodgrains, the revolution in agricultural structures has thus simply accelerated the progress that started earlier with this other revolution, a technical one, represented by the introduction of improved seeds and chemical fertilizers. The major lesson of the grain-use table concerns fodder grains: the relative diminution of the share of human consumption in total output corresponds to an increase of the share of grains devoted to feeding livestock.
