China's Agricultural Development: Challenges and Prospects

Abstract

This edited volume of 15 chapters collects contributions by well-known experts on China's agricultural economy. It comprises three parts. Part 1, ‘Overview of the challenges and options’, identifies the main obstacles to China's agricultural and rural development and suggests policy measures to overcome them. Part 2, ‘The performance and potentials of China's agriculture’, discusses major drivers of China's growth in agricultural production over time and across space, and engages in trend extrapolation as well as in assessments of factor productivity. Part 3, ‘Agricultural risk management’, further describes the impact of risk on agricultural production and farmer's well-being and the willingness of the rural population to buy health and other types of insurance. The book reviews China's agriculture in terms of achievements, challenges and prospects. China's economic achievements are obviously quite impressive. Since its economic reforms initiated between 1978 and 2005, China's agricultural GDP has grown by about 11 times, at an overall average annual growth rate of 9.6 per cent. Associated with the high agricultural and overall economic growth, China has been making unprecedented progress in poverty alleviation and farmers' well-being. Based on China's official poverty line, the level of rural poverty fell from 33 per cent in 1978 to 2.5 per cent in 2005. Since accession to the WTO in 2001, China has also further integrated into world markets.