The Increase in Land Productivity

Abstract

Although in general fewer and fewer scholars still insist that total farm production did not change in early and mid-Qing Jiangnan, we get very different (and even opposite) conclusions from their research. For instance, many scholars argue that there was no increase in yield per mu of rice from the late Ming or even from the Southern Song onward. Since Jiangnan rice cultivation acreage was reduced considerably after the late sixteenth century, stagnant yield per mu would mean a fall in total rice output. Of course, we can attribute the growth of total production to increases in cotton and silk. But in any case, rice remained Jiangnan’s most important crop in the period under our study. If there really had been no increase in rice yield, we would have to say that Jiangnan’s agriculture, at least its most important section, was stagnant.