ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the structure of China's research system. Agricultural education was made very practical, and the curriculum offered little training in the basic science disciplines, mathematics, and research methodology. China's actual production processes rely on chemicals for maintaining soil fertility and for plant protection. China's researchers have paid only modest attention to subsidiary crops. On the contrary, in China, many cropping systems have been imposed that have required very large and costly inputs of fertilizer, compost, chemicals, machinery, fuel, and labor. There is an underlying similarity in the direction, results, and issues of agricultural policy, including agricultural research in socialist China and in nonsocialist countries. China has also been investing large sums of money and labor in improving water control by building dams, dikes, drainage canals, and terraces; by leveling fields; by installing pumps, tube wells, and rural electrification. China may have been reluctant to stress animal husbandry because of fears that grain supplies were inadequate.
