ABSTRACT

In 2007, China had more than 255 million rural households with a population of more than 949 million (National Statistical Yearbook, 2007). This population occupied 116 million hectares of farmland in total and 0.456 hectares per capita. There were also 1,885 state-owned farms in China managing more than 5 million hectares of land, equivalent to 4.4 per cent of the total area (National Statistical Yearbook, 2008). Clearly, smallholder family farms still form the backbone of China’s agricultural production system.