Trends of Technical Changes in Rice-Based Farming Systems in Southern China: Case Study of Qianjiang Municipality

Abstract

This is the second of a series of four articles aimed at providing a general analysis of the dynamic of rural intensification in China in view of sustainability, with a particular focus on the area considered in our project. Data provided in this article confirms the analysis given in the previous article about global trends for agricultural changes. In the last decades, the agricultural sector of the Hubei province managed to cope with the dramatic increase in demographic pressure by increasing more than proportionally agricultural yields. This was paid for in terms of higher environmental stress and higher reliance on external inputs.The challenge for future decades will refer to the need of matching an increasing socioeconomic pressure (=boosting the productivity of labor of farmers to get them a higher income and to make available surplus of food for the growing urban population) while limiting the environmental loading generated by agriculture. Data describing the evolution of cropping patterns, production techniques, mix and intensity of inputs used in production in the last decades seem to indicate that this would represent a formidable challenge. The nature of this challenge implies that the entire Chinese society must be involved in order to negotiate viable compromises between the need of: guaranteeing food security for China; raising the standard of living for rural populations; preserving natural resources and ecological systems for future generations.