The Technical Transformation of Agriculture

Abstract

China’s long and continuous record of agricultural progress has been mentioned in Chapter 1. Over the centuries the Chinese not only acquired valuable experience in colonising, reclaiming and irrigating new land, but also learnt how to increase productivity, through the use of better seeds and organic manures. In a technological sense and in comparison with most other countries of Asia or Africa, China’s agriculture at the time of liberation in 1949 was relatively advanced, with grain yields ranging from less than i ton in north-east China to 3 tons per hectare in southern China. But by the middle of the nineteenth century all the area that could be reclaimed and irrigated through the traditional gravity system had been brought under cultivation and efforts to increase yields with the technology known at that time through improved seeds and more organic manure had virtually reached their ceiling. As population pressure continued to increase, without a corresponding increase in area or yields, the balance between food and population and between effort and reward began to crumble, causing widespread suffering and deprivation among a growing segment of the population. The intensity of this suffering was further aggravated by the traditional system of land-holding. The efforts of the landlords to extract the maximum possible surplus from the peasant not only exposed him to perpetual hunger but also destroyed his capacity and his motivation to improve his land.