ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the growth in China's grain production and its sources and describes policies affecting grain production. In analyzing China's grain production, it was not surprising that R. Barker, D. G. Sisler and B. Rose found that any measure of a long-term growth rate depends critically on the base year chosen. The widespread use of tube well irrigation in the North China Plain was the only factor which increased the irrigated area after 1965. Large quantities of machines were introduced in the mid-1960s; including hand tractors, hydropowered pumps, rice transplanters, mechanically-powered fodder shredders, and in the late 1960s, tube well irrigation in the North China Plain. The combined population and economic growth have put extreme pressure on land use in China. As China suddenly became a large cotton exporter in 1983 and oilseeds have been in surplus since 1983, their relative prices are going back to the 1978 level.
