China's experience with market reform for commercialization of agriculture in poor areas
Tong, Z.; Rozelle, S.; Stone, B.; Jiang, D.H.; Chen, J.Y.; Xu, Z.K.
Agricultural commercialization, economic development, and nutrition: 119-140
1994
Document Number: 314425
This paper is based on China's economic reforms, the biggest agricultural commercialization 'project' of the 1980s. It highlights the power of domestic market reform for poverty-alleviating growth, with government remaining an active force in interregional staple food markets, as well as the scope for public policy for poverty alleviation parallel with market reform. The paper shows that China's problem of absolute poverty, a cause for undernutrition in its poor areas, was significantly reduced as a result of these policies. After briefly summarizing the rural commercialization and income growth process for the country as a whole, the paper addresses four specific issues regarding China's poor areas: (i) what the major arguments and concerns are, regarding the participation of poor areas in the commercialization process; (ii) how they managed during the 1978-84 period of rapid rural development and the subsequent period of high inflation and decline in real incomes; (iii) the extent to which they have participated in the broad processes of rural commercialization so evident elsewhere in China, and how their participation or lack thereof related to their income performance; and (iv) whether their performance can be traced to the success or failure of particular assistance initiatives, economic reforms, or obstacles to their rural development.