ABSTRACT
Agricultural policy in mainland China since 1949 has followed a zigzag path of changes. All of the policy changes can be considered as tactical in nature, designed to achieve the basically unchanged goals of raising agricultural production without substantially increasing state investment in the rural sector and increasing government acquisition of farm output within the framework of continued Communist control of the agricultural sector. This chapter briefly reviews the situation of mainland Chinese agriculture on the eve of the post-Mao reforms. It summarizes concrete reform measures since 1977 and examines some of the problems and prospects of these reforms. The post-Mao agricultural reform was introduced to revitalize the agricultural sector after the disruption and agricultural stagnation caused by the Cultural Revolution and to overcome the impasse created by Hua Kuo-feng’s ambitious modernization program. The post-Mao agricultural reform policies focus on the decentralization of management and diversification of farm production instead of the use of production quotas.
