China s Potential of Grain Production Due to Changes in Agricultural Land Utilization in Recent Years

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1 Chin. Geogra. Sci (2) DOI: /s x China s Potential of Grain Production Due to Changes in Agricultural Land Utilization in Recent Years XIN Liangjie, LI Xiubin, ZHU Huiyi, TAN Minghong (Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing , China) Abstract: The changes in utilization of agricultural land have gradually grown into one of the major factors impacting grain output in China. This study explores the various components of agricultural production in China from the land utilization perspective, involving changes in grain production per unit area, multi-cropping index, and adjustment of agricultural structure. Compared with the record values, different research methodologies are used to analyze the potential of above three components. The results indicate that grain production potential of kg was unexploited in 2006, in which kg came from the restructuring in agriculture. So we can infer that the reduction of grain production in China could be primarily attributed to agricultural restructuring in recent years. So the productive potential can be fully restored by increasing agricultural investment, or recovering agricultural structure in favorable conditions. So we can say that China s current condition of food security is good. Keywords: grain production; potential of grain production; agricultural land utilization changes; multi-cropping index; reduction of grain product; food security 1 Introduction Grain production and food security are always generally interesting problems for governments and academic circles, especially for the developing countries. To grain production, dynamic variation of cultivated land is one of the main research directions (Brown, 1995; Pretty et al., 2003). With the study continued, researchers found that agricultural practices determine the level of food output. Grain production may be affected by the relocation of farm household labor from grain to non-grain production and from on-farm to off-farm activities (Wu and Xin, 1997). The countries in economic transition in central and eastern Europe (Johan, 1998; Karen and Swinnen, 2000) and China (Wu and Xin, 1996) have been paid special attention. In those countries, more and more rural labors transfer from agriculture to the secondary and tertiary industries, which exerts the influences on agricultural production through two aspects: labor loss and remittances (Rozelle et al., 1999). It is specifically manifested in the changes of grain sown area and the intensity of agricultural land utilization (Hatirli et al., 2005). The decline of grain sown area can be attributed to two aspects: retreatment of marginal land (MacDonald et al., 2000; Joseph et al., 2006) and adjustment of agricultural structure. The intensity of agricultural land utilization mainly led to the decrease of grain production per unit area (Herzog et al., 2006; Brookfield, 1972). Now China is also experiencing great changes in economy. It is widely accepted that China s economic reform has achieved amazing success starting at the end of 1970s, especially solved the grain security of the whole China successfully. Now, some developing countries are learning China s experience of economic reform, and take agriculture as the starting point and priority. But, China s grain product declines in recent years after growing fast along with the application of the household contract responsibility system. The investigation of inward causes and laws is of great practical significance to China and other developing countries. The core of grain security strategy, in fact, is not the augment of total output but the preservation of sufficient capacity for grain production, i.e. when grain shortage occurs, the productivity can rapidly recover to the high Received date: ; accepted date: Foundation item: Under the auspices of National Key Technologies R&D Program of China (No. 2006BAB15B02), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No ) Corresponding author: XIN Liangjie. xinlj.05b@igsnrr.ac.cn

2 98 XIN Liangjie, LI Xiubin, ZHU Huiyi et al. level. Then, the study on grain decrease and the capacity/potential of grain output maintains great significance for grain security. There are two major aspects for the analysis about grain decrease, namely total sown area and production per unit area. Previously, many researchers ascribed the reduction of grain output to the expansion of urban area that occupied agricultural lands. Since 1999, as the return of cultivated land into forest became the major factor for the shrinkage of cultivated land, some researchers, finding out the coherence between the reduction of grain output and the timing and large extent of the return, concluded that the program of Conversion from Grain to Green (PCGG) has affected China s regional grain security (Zhu et al., 2001). Meanwhile, many others, proceeding from input-output relation, pointed out that the recent reduction of grain output in China mainly results from the degradation of production per unit area, and realized that the production per unit area is largely affected by the utilization intensity of cultivated land, which is a more influential factor than the shrinkage of land quantity (Li and Wang, 2003; Zhang et al., 2002; Liu and Li, 2006a; 2006b). In addition, the restructuring of agricultural land also has a visible effect on China s grain security. On the study of grain productive potential, a group of researchers developed models to investigate the natural production potential such as photosynthesis, sunshine, temperature and climate (Loomis and Williams, 1963; Yang et al., 2004). Some others established regression models on the basis of statistic data to conduct predictive analysis, in view of the relation between investment on agricultural land and grain output (Shi and Lin, 2003). These researches are significant for clarifying China s grain productive capacity and potential. However, fewer researches have quantitively studied the current degradation of productivity caused by the utilization and restructuring of agricultural land in recent years. This paper studies the potential of China s agricultural production from the land-use perspective. The different components of land utilization change influencing grain production are studied in order to identify potential unexploited in our agricultural system. 2 Data and Methods 2.1 Data sources The data of grain production per unit area, sown area came from China Agriculture Yearbook (National Bureau of Statistics of China, ). After 1996, the statistical definition of cultivated land area has been modified in China so that major variations have taken place in multi-cropping index. Hence, the data ranging from 1996 to 2006 were applied hereby in analysis. The data of cultivated land in 1996 were obtained from the communique of main data on land use survey issued by the Ministry of Land and Resources, National Bureau of Statistics, and National Agricultural Census Office of China (National Bureau of Statistics of China, ), and the data of other years from annual land survey conducted by the Ministry of Land and Resources ( ). The data of average costs and earnings of three kinds of main grain crops in China during came from Information Summary of National Agricultural Production Costs and Benefits, 2007 (State Development and Reform Committee of China, 2007). 2.2 Methodology Generally speaking, changes in grain production can be attributed to changes of the sown area or grain production per unit area. The decrease of grain sown area mainly results from the decrease of cultivated land area and the multi-cropping index, and the adjustment of agricultural structure, etc. The decrease of the cultivated land is usually unrecoverable, so the factors of multicropping index and the adjustment of agricultural structure are mainly taken into account for calculating potential of grain production. This paper assumes that grain production decrease deriving from the above factors could be recovered by increasing inputs and restoring the grain sown area. Here, we take the grain production decrease as the reasonable potential. With the peak year of grain production in record as the basic point, the grain production potential of China in 2006 can be calculated from the production per unit area, mpping index, u and l adjustment t i of -agricultural c rstructure. o Grain production potential from grain production per unit area Grain production per unit area is relevant to both agricultural investment and natural factors such as climate. To avoid the impact of climate on grain output, the averaged production per unit area of two consecutive high- yield years is adopted hereby as a reference to work out the grain production potential in The grain production potential coming from produc-

3 China s Potential of Grain Production Due to Changes in Agricultural Land Utilization in Recent Years 99 tion per unit area can be expressed as: Y1 = ( Ph P06) S06 (1) where Y 1 stands for the grain production potential coming from product in per unit area of a province; P h is the record production per unit area of that province; P 06, production per unit area of that province in 2006; S 06, total sown area of grain of that province in Grain production potential from multi-cropping index Multi-cropping index is usually used to evaluate the exploitation level of cultivated land, which can be calculated by the formula: multi-cropping index (%)=(total sown area)/(cultivated land area) 100%. The actual changes in multi-cropping index between the record year and 2006 are used to evaluate the unexploited potential grain production. The grain production potential deriving from the falling multi-cropping index can be expressed as: Y 2 =P 06 A 06 M h R 06 -T 06 (2) where, Y 2 is production potential due to the dropping multi-cropping index of a given province; A 06, its actual cultivated land area of that province in 2006; M h stands for the record multi-cropping index; R 06, the ratio of grain sown area to the total grain sown area of that province; and T 06, total grain production of the given province in Grain production potential from adjustment of agricultural structure China s agricultural and grain plantation structures have been adjusted greatly, which results in the great changes of three indicators, e.g. sown area of grain crops, ratio of grain sown area to total sown area and grain production per unit area. In recent years along with the improvement in economy and people s demand for a better livelihood, China s agriculture has undergone a deep restructuring, with the year of 1999 as an inflection point. Herein the changes in agricultural structure between 1999 and 2006 are used to evaluate the unexploited potential. The grain production potential deriving from agricultural restructuring: Y3 = P06 S06 R99 T06 (3) where, Y 3 is the grain production potential from agricultural restructuring in a given province; S 06, total sown area of grain in 2006; and R 99, the proportion of grain sown area to the total sown area. The actual changes of the grain production per unit area deriving from the grain restructuring between 1999 and 2006 are analyzed here, and grain production potential is calculated, too. Y = ( P P ) S (4) P06 = P99i S06i S06 where, Y 4 is the grain production potential; P 99, grain production per unit area in 1999; P 06, estimated grain production per unit area in 2006; P 99i, production per unit area of grain i in 1999; S 06i, sown area of grain i in Results and Analyses 3.1 Grain production potential from grain production per unit area The whole China and most provinces enjoy a rising trend in grain production per unit area in recent years. However, there were 10 provinces that demonstrated a dropping trend more or less in 2006 compared with their respective highest records. The record years of these 10 provinces concentrated in and The decreases in Beijing and Chongqing were the largest, 1355kg/ha and 951kg/ha respectively, which were followed by Guangdong, 662kg/ha. The decreases in Jilin and Sichuan were also above 450kg/ha (Table 1). The results show that in 2006 totally kg of grain was lost in China because of the decrease in grain production per unit area, accounting for 2.6% of total grain production of China in that year. Sichuan Province claimed the heaviest decrease, kg in total. Chongqing and Jilin, next to it, decreased kg and kg of grain respectively. 3.2 Grain production potential from multi-cropping index The increase of multi-cropping index indicates that rural households sow the cultivated land intensively. The multi-cropping index denotes the times that a crop is sown in a plot in one year, whose decreases would lead to direct decrease of grain sown area. In the study of the grain productive potential, it is essential to study both the actual and the potential multi-cropping indices. This paper takes the record index as the greatest potential in a given province to calculate the grain production potential in 2006.

4 100 XIN Liangjie, LI Xiubin, ZHU Huiyi et al. Record year Table 1 Grain production potential from production per unit area in 2006 Record production per unit area (kg/ha) Production per unit area in 2006 (kg/ha) Reduction (kg/ha) Grain production potential ( 10 9 kg) Beijing Shanxi Liaoning Jilin Heilongjiang Anhui Hubei Guangdong Chongqing Sichuan Total Sources: National Bureau of Statistics of China, The changes of multi-cropping index showed a great spatial variability in China. Almost all provinces in the central and western China enjoyed a rising trend in multi-cropping index. Most provinces with the dropping multi-cropping indices were located in the eastern China (Table 2). Zhejiang and Shanghai, with decrease of 37.9% and 30.9% respectively, ranked the two first places. And the reductions were all over 10% in Beijing, Fujian, Hainan and Jiangxi. Although the changes of indices of some provinces, such as Jiangsu, Shandong, Liaoning, were small, a large amount of farmlands there made a big change in grain sown area. In 2006, the changes of multi-cropping index caused a grain production of kg unexploited in China as a whole, accounting for 1.4% of the national total decrease in that year. Zhejiang Province suffered the most, kg of decrease which was 32.4% of the total national decrease. And Jiangxi and Shandong also had more than kg of grain production potential unexploited. 3.3 Grain production potential from adjustment of agricultural structure In recent years, China s structural adjustment of agriculture has moved forward with a relatively large pace, and should continue to be promoted firmly. The adjustment exerts some impacts on grain production. The main one is that more and more farmlands for grain plantation are transferred to other crops. As a result, total sown area of grain was shrinking steadily, particularly after 1999, changing from ha in 1999 to ha in 2003 and the ratio of sown area of grain to the total sown area decreasing from 72.4% to 65.2%. Meanwhile, grain structure changed obviously, resulting in the change of grain production per unit area. Table 2 Changes of multi-cropping index and unexploited production between record year and 2006 Record year Record index (%) Index of 2006 (%) Index change (%) Potential ( 10 9 kg) Beijing Tianjin Liaoning Shanghai Jiangsu Zhejiang Fujian Jiangxi Shandong Guangdong Hainan Total 6.94 Sources: National Bureau of Statistics of China, ; Ministry of Land and Resources of China,

5 China s Potential of Grain Production Due to Changes in Agricultural Land Utilization in Recent Years Agriculture structure Although grain sown area decreased sharply in , the policies favoring grain plantation in 2004 have brought it back, which indicates that there are much grain production potential unexploited in the agricultural restructure. Compared to 1999, the ratio of grain sown area to the total crop area decreased in whole China except 4 provinces, Shanxi, Jilin, Anhui, Jiangxi in The ratio decreased most in Shanghai, Tianjin and Zhejiang by more than 17%, and Beijing, Fujian followed by over 10%. With the assumption that the ratios were regained as that in 1999, the grain production potential can be specified by Equation (3). The results show that the potential of grain production was kg caused by proportion changes of grain area, occupying 8.6% of the total grain production in Shandong Province topped the most in reduction of kg, occupying 13.0% of the total national reduction. And the decreases in Henan, Hebei and Jiangsu were both over kg (Table 3). In conclusion, the shrinkage of grain area plays a most important role in the reduction of China s grain output in recent years. Meanwhile, this also means China s grain production has still a wide space for development. Table 3 Changes in ratio of grain sown area to total crop area and grain production potential Region Ratio Ratio change Grain production potential ( 10 9 kg) Region Ratio Ratio change Grain production potential ( 10 9 kg) Beijing Guangdong Tianjin Guangxi Hebei Hainan Inner Mongolia Chongqing Liaoning Sichuan Heilongjiang Guizhou Shanghai Yunnan Jiangsu Xizang Zhejiang Shaanxi Fujian Gansu Shandong Qinghai Henan Ningxia Hubei Xinjiang Hunan Total 43.0 Sources: National Bureau of Statistics of China, Grain production potential from adjustment of grain planting structure According to Table 4, Chinese grain restructuring caused an obvious decrease of unit area and total production in At the national scale, the estimated grain production per unit area in 2006 was only kg/ha, 60.4kg/ha less than production efficiency in There were six provinces suffering the decline of grain production from 1999 to 2006 due to the adjustment of grain planting structure, of which Beijing and Anhui decreased of 294kg/ha and 260kg/ha respectively and ranked the two first places. The declines of grain production per unit area resulted in the grain production decrease of kg in China, taking up 0.56% in the total grain output in Conclusions Proceeding from three major factors affecting China s grain production, i.e. grain production per unit area, multi-cropping index and adjustment of agricultural structure, this article studies the grain production potential unexploited because of agricultural restructuring or insufficient investment. Such decrease of grain production is caused largely by the low efficiency of China s grain lands in recent years. Therefore, the grain produc-

6 102 XIN Liangjie, LI Xiubin, ZHU Huiyi et al. Table 4 Grain production potentials from adjustment of grain planting structure Grain sown Grain production P 99 P 06 Change area potential (kg/ha) (kg/ha) (kg/ha) ( 10 3 ha) ( 10 6 kg) Beijing Tianjin Heilongjiang Zhejiang Anhui Qinghai Total 2800 Notes: P 99, grain production per unit area in 1999; P 06, estimated grain production per unit area in 2006 Sources: National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2000, 2007 tion potential can be fully restored by increasing agricultural investment, or recovering agricultural structure. In this research, it is uncovered that in 2006 the grain production unexploited was kg from grain production per unit area, kg from multi-cropping index, and kg from the agricultural restructure, occupying 2.6%, 1.4% and 9.21% of the total grain production of China in 2006 respectively. These figures point out that in recent years the reduction of grain production in China can be primarily attributed to agricultural restructuring. The sum of the grain production unexploited from above three components got up to kg. If the potential was restored, total grain output in 2006 would be kg, which was kg more than the record ( kg in 1998). Although the study gets convincing results, other important factors influencing grain production, such as climate, agricultural technology, the program of Conversion from Grain to Green, etc., should be considered for further study. Meanwhile, the provincial scale of analysis is coarse. At more detailed scales other factors influencing agricultural production will be found and more accurate results will be obtained, too. In this sense, this study is only a first step towards a comprehensive research methodology with more factors, at more detailed scales. References Brookfield H C, Intensification and disintensification in Pacific agriculture. Pacific Viewpoint, 13(1): Brown G P, Arable land loss in rural China: Policy and implementation in Jiangsu Province. Asian Survey, 35(10): DOI: /as p00612 Hatirli S A, Ozkan B, Fert C, An econometric analysis of energy input-output in Turkish agriculture. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 9(6): DOI: /j.rser Herzog F, Steiner B, Bailey D et al., Assessing the intensity of temperate European agriculture at the landscape scale. European Journal of Agronomy, 24(2): DOI: /j. eja Johan F M S, Economic transition and the distribution of policy rents: The case of the wheat-flour-bread chain in Bulgaria. European Review of Agricultural Economics, 25(2): DOI: /erae/ Joseph T, Jonathan M, John D P, Vegetation dynamics in abandoned crop fields on a Mediterranean island: Development of succession model and estimation of disturbance thresholds. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, 120(4): DOI: /j.agee Karen M, Swinnen J F M, Causes of output decline in economic transition: The case of central and eastern European agriculture. Journal of Comparative Economics, 28(1): DOI: /jcec Li Xiubin, Wang Xiuhong, Changes in agricultural land use in China: Asian Geographer, 22(1 2): Liu Chengwu, Li Xiubin, 2006a. The changing characteristics of the agricultural land use intensity in China based on the production cost. Journal of Natural Resources, 21(1): (in Chinese) Liu Chengwu, Li Xiubin, 2006b. Time-sequence characteristics of the annual changes of the agricultural land use in China during the period Transactions of the Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineering, 22(4): (in Chinese). Loomis R S, Williams W A, Maximum crop productivity: An estimate. Crop Science, 3: MacDonald D, Crabtree J R, Wiesinger G et al., Agricultural abandonment in mountain areas of Europe: Environmental consequences and policy response. J. Environ. Manage., 59(1): DOI: /jema Ministry of Land and Resources of China, National Land Use Changes Survey Beijing: China Land Press. (in Chinese) National Bureau of Statistics of China, China Agriculture Yearbook Beijing: China Agriculture Press. (in Chinese) National Bureau of Statistics of China, China Statistical Yearbook Beijing: China Statistics Press. (in Chinese) Pretty J N, Morison J I L, Hine R E, Reducing food poverty by increasing agricultural sustainability in developing countries. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 95(1): DOI: /S (02) Rozelle S, Taylor E, Brauw A, Migration, remittances and

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