Agriculture, 2

THE GROSS OUTPUT of agriculture and subsidiary industries increased by 48.5 per cent between 1949 and 1952. ¹ This increase occurred both in food and raw materials. Output of cereals in 1952 was 45 per cent, or 51 million tons, higher than in 1949. ² Progress was general throughout China, though naturally greater in the old liberated areas where land reform was completed first. In the Northeast, wheat production in 1952 was over 20 per cent above the pre-1949 peak; in the far South, Kwangtung, previously a food-deficit province, became self-sufficient in 1953. At the same time the output of soya beans, which reached 9½ million tons in 1952, was still well below the 1936 peak of 11.2 million tons. Table 16 Food Grains and Cotton Production 1936–1955

Year	Grains a	Cotton
	(million metric tons)
1936 b	150	0.85
1949	113	0.44
1950	132	0.71
1951	145	1.04
1952	164	1.30
1953	167	1.18
1954	170	1.07
1955	184	1.52

a

Including soya beans.

b

Peak pre-war year.

Source: For 1936, Proposals of the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China for the Second Five-Year Plan for Development of the National Economy (1958–1962) (Peking, 1956), p. 18; for 1949 and 1952–1955, State Statistical Bureau, Communiqués, Annual Economic Summaries (hereinafter SSBC), 1952–1955; for 1950–1951, from the conversion of index numbers in Table 1, p. 23 above.