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China has experienced rapid rural transformation in the past four decades. Accompanying the rapid transformation is a significant rise in rural household income and a substantial fall in rural poverty. This paper examines the evolutions of and the relationships between rural transformation (high-value agriculture and rural non-farm employment) and its outcomes (per capita rural income and rural poverty incidence) using provincial-level data. The results show that 31 provinces/autonomous regions/municipalities have undergone significant rural transformation, but the level and speed of rural transformation differed considerably. Moreover, an increased level of rural transformation is often associated with higher per capita rural income and reduced rural poverty incidence. Notably, a category of provincial rural transformation based on high-value agriculture and rural non-farm employment is also analyzed. We further discuss the likely impacts of institutions, policies, and investments (IPIs) on rural transformation and conclude with policy implications.

Global tea consumption has risen significantly alongside rapid expansion of international trade in recent years. However, few studies have systematically examined the relationship among the major tea markets worldwide. Using weekly data from 2012–2019, this study empirically analyzed the price series of the world's major black tea auction markets. The estimation results showed that these markets are connected, even though heterogeneities vary. This finding holds not only for regional markets but also for international markets. The findings offer important implications for tea-producing countries with millions of smallholder farmers.

This study examines the role of farmers' risk attitudes toward fertilizer use in cotton production in China. Contradicting previous studies, this paper theoretically shows that the relationship between farmers' risk aversion and fertilizer use is not always monotonic. Field survey data were collected to test this relationship using the Cobb–Douglas production function. Results suggest that when the elasticity of fertilizer use and the probability of achieving the desired effects from fertilizer use are high, risk-averse farmers apply more fertilizer than risk-taking farmers. Conversely, when the elasticity of fertilizer use and the probability of achieving the desired effects are low, risk-taking farmers apply more fertilizer than risk-neutral or risk-averse farmers.

As part of their efforts to control water pollution, local governments in China introduced the river chief system, whereby a named individual undertakes responsibility for protecting a specified waterway. As one of the most prominent sources of water pollution, agricultural non-point-source (NPS) pollution is becoming increasingly serious. Determining whether the river chief system, an institutional reform in China's decentralized environmental regulation regime, is effective in alleviating NPS pollution is important for the realization of green development. The effect of the river chief system on reducing agricultural NPS pollution is explored in this study using panel data from 308 Chinese counties during the period from 2004 to 2015. The results reveal that the negative impact of manure output from animal breeding operations on surface water quality is reduced with the implementation of the river chief system. However, the river chief system is ineffective in dealing with the water pollution caused by fertilizer use. Furthermore, in the current system, cooperation among river chiefs only occurs within a province. Local governments should increase their efforts in reducing fertilizer source loads and preventing fertilizer loads from entering surface waters. In addition, the central government should improve cooperation among the river chiefs in upstream and downstream provinces.

Given the sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a timely study on the impacts of and policy response to the pandemic on rural poverty in China is critically important because China has aimed to completely eradicate extreme poverty by the end of 2020. This paper uses data from the latest round of a nationally representative household panel survey to examine the impacts of the pandemic on rural poverty in China. Our data show that 11.9% of sample households were ever officially registered as poor households between 2013 and 2019, and this poverty incidence fell to 2.7% by the end of 2019. In the middle February of 2020, 23% of the households who have graduated from poverty since 2013 perceived that they would fall back into poverty due to the COVID-19. Among those never poor households, 7.1% perceived that they would possibly fall into poverty due to the pandemic. Results from both descriptive and multivariate analyses consistently show the interruptions that the pandemic caused in off-farm employment is an important channel that led households to perceive of falling back into or falling into poverty. We also find households in the bottom four quintiles when ranked in terms of household income per capita are much more likely to perceive themselves of falling back into or falling into poverty during this pandemic than those in the richest quintile. Meanwhile, our results show that the education and age of household heads, as well as being from Hubei Province matter in explaining household perception about falling back into or falling into poverty in some cases but not all. The paper concludes with a set of policy responses that China has taken to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on poverty alleviation.

The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has spread rapidly across the world. The pandemic has been seriously affecting public health and national and global economies since the beginning of 2020. By 3 November 2020, the world's cumulative reported infections exceeded 46 million and the number of deaths reached 1.2 million (WHO 2020). The rapid spread of COVID-19 and its induced pandemic control through territory lockdown, travel bans and many other restrictions imposed on people's movements have seriously affected the economy of all countries across the world. Worldwide, the pandemic has significantly affected food systems, particularly agricultural inputs and outputs markets, food processing and employment along food value chains, which has exacerbated poverty and food and nutrition insecurity. The latest FAO report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World estimates that the COVID-19 pandemic could add 130 million people worldwide suffering from chronic hunger in 2020 (FAO et al. 2020). The pandemic is still serious and even worsening in some countries while it is currently under control in other countries.

While migration is widely recognized as a valid option for improving farmers' income, the welfare effects of migration on left-behind family members are ambiguous. This study examines the impacts of migration on left-behind family members' food consumption and nutrient intake, particularly in remote rural areas in China. Based on household survey data collected from 611 smallholder rubber farmers in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture of southwestern China, the empirical results suggest that the migration of family members contributes to improving household net income, whereas it negatively affects left-behind family members' consumption of grain and pork. Migration also leads to a decrease in left-behind family members' nutrient intake. Surprisingly, the economic returns of farmers' migration not only do not foster the transformation of household food consumption from a staple food-dominated dietary structure to one including more meat and dairy products but also reduce left-behind family members' nutrient intake. This study adds to the literature on the impact of farmers' migration. The findings have important implications for better understanding the impacts of migration on farmers' livelihood and human capital development in rural China.

China's food supply and demand have significant implications for both China's own national food security and that of the world. This study reviews China's food security prospects and their implications, focusing on international trade in the coming decade. The results show that China's policies for ensuring food security will be enhanced and China will move to sustainable agriculture. Most studies anticipate that China will increase its food and feed imports in the coming decade. China's overall food self-sufficiency is likely to fall from 94.5% in 2015 to around 91% by 2025. The greatest increases in imports are likely to be soybean, maize, sugar, and dairy products. However, within the production capacity of the major exporting countries and of many food-importing developing countries, China's additional imports of 3 to 5% of its total food consumption in the coming decade are unlikely to threaten global food security. Indeed, the projected imports of feed and several foods could provide opportunities for many exporting countries to expand their production and save global resources.

Abstract: Even though the impact of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton on pesticide use has been well documented, all previous studies focus on the mean value of pesticide use. Using seven unique waves of panel data collected between 1999 and 2012 in China, we show that Bt cotton adoption has not only caused a reduction of the mean value of pesticide use, but also a reduction of the standard deviation of pesticide use. We conclude that Bt technology adoption has also contributed to the stability of pesticide use in cotton production. We believe that this contribution is theoretically and practically relevant because of the long length of our unique dataset.

Stacked (insect and herbicide resistant) transgenic rice T1c-19 with cry1C*/bar genes, its receptor rice Minghui 63 (herein MH63) and a local two-line hybrid indica rice Fengliangyou Xiang 1 (used as a control) were compared for agronomic performance under field conditions without the relevant selection pressures. Agronomic traits (plant height, tiller number, and aboveground dry biomass), reproductive ability (pollen viability, panicle length, and filled grain number of main panicles, seed set, and grain yield), and weediness characteristics (seed shattering, seed overwintering ability, and volunteer seedling recruitment) were used to assess the potential weediness without selection pressure of stacked transgene rice T1c-19. In wet direct-seeded and transplanted rice fields, T1c-19 and its receptor MH63 performed similarly regarding vegetative growth and reproductive ability, but both of them were significantly inferior to the control. T1c-19 did not display weed characteristics; it had weak overwintering ability, low seed shattering and failed to establish volunteers. Exogenous insect and herbicide resistance genes did not confer competitive advantage to transgenic rice T1c-19 grown in the field without the relevant selection pressures.

With the rapid growth of China's economy, rising demand for safety food has been accompanied by frequent food safety scandals. Given that China's farming is dominated by millions of small-scale farms, ensuring food safety is a major challenge facing the public and private sectors. The direct farm (DF) program, initiated in 2008, represents one of the government's major initiatives to modernize the distribution of fresh fruit and vegetables (FFV) and improve food safety. Under the DF program, participating national and international retailers are expected to establish more direct procurement relationships with farm communities. While it is often claimed that greater participation by retailers in the production and post-harvest processing implied the DF program will lead to improved quality, safety and traceability, systematic evidence remains elusive as existing studies are largely narrative, based on case studies, or theoretical inference. Little empirical evidence is available for a broader evaluation of the DF program. This paper aims to fill this gap by assessing the overall performance of a single retailer's DF experience with respect to the procurement and food safety of FFV. We use data from a survey of production managers of 35 DF production bases (PBs) spread across 11 provinces, 3 cities and 1 autonomous region in China. The results show a mixture of opportunities and challenges. On one hand, the DF program improves production practices and distribution channels of FFV produced on its PBs, thus facilitating the move of China's food system towards improved food safety compliance. On the other hand, significant heterogeneity in the traceability of food and the ability of DF to meet higher safety standards is evident both across major product categories and across household-operated vs. firm-operated PBs. The paper concludes with policy implications.

The debate about the safety of genetically modified (GM) food has attracted public attention in concurrence with the rapid development of agricultural biotechnology. This paper examines the consumers' perceptions on the safety of GM food in China. Based on a unique survey dataset, this study shows that consumers in urban China have significantly changed their perceptions on GM food safety. The percentage of consumers who perceived such food as unsafe for consumption increased by more than 30% in the 2002–2012 period. Approximately half of the consumers did not have an opinion on this issue. Major shifts have been occurred after 2010, likely because of the increasing influence of negative media reports on GM technology in recent years. Several individual and household's characteristics are shown to significantly affect consumers' perceptions on GM food safety, such as gender, education, food allergy experience and resident city size. The paper concludes with policy implications.

Under climate change, rising frequency and serious extreme weather events have challenged agricultural production. Designing appropriate adaptation measures to the extreme weather events require rigorous and empirical analysis. The overall goals of this study are to understand physical adaptation measures taken by farmers and the impacts of household and community assets on farmers' adaptation when they face drought. The analyses are based on a unique data set collected from a household survey in three provinces in China. The survey results show that though not common on annual basis, some farmers did use physical adaptation measures to fight drought. Regression analysis reveals that both household and community assets significantly affect farmers' adaptation behaviors. Improving households' social capital and wealth, communities' network and access to government's anti-drought service can facilitate farmers' adaptation to drought. Results indicate that community's irrigation infrastructure and physical adaptation taken by farmers can substitute each other. Further analysis shows that the households taking adaptation measures have higher crop yields than those without taking these measures. The paper concludes with several policy implications.

Agriculture is facing great challenge in meeting global food security and is expected to face even greater challenge under climate change. The overall goal of this paper is to examine how finance can be used to achieve the joint objectives of development, mitigation of and adaptation to climate change in agriculture in developing world based on literature review. The results show that agriculture is much under invested and foreign aid also has not increased appropriately to assist developing countries to maintain sustainable agriculture under climate change. There are a wide range of areas in mitigation of and adaptation to climate change that need substantial investment. Major areas and successful cases mitigation of and adaptation to climate change in agriculture that have worked in developing countries are examined. A list of areas that have worked, could work and be scaled up or transferred is identified and discussed. This study concludes that mainstreaming agricultural mitigation and adaptation into agricultural development programs, enhancing local capacity, and considering different stakeholders' needs are major experiences for successfully financing sustainable agriculture under climate change.

Apart from the long-term effects of climate change, the frequency and severity of extreme weather events have been increasing. Given the risks posed by climate change, particularly the changes in extreme weather events, the question of how to adapt to these changes and mitigate their negative impacts has received great attention from policy makers. The overall goals of this study are to examine whether farmers adapt to extreme weather events through crop diversification and which factors influence farmers' decisions on crop diversification against extreme weather events in China. To limit the scope of this study, we focus on drought and flood events only. Based on a unique large-scale household survey in nine provinces, this study finds that farmers respond to extreme weather events by increasing crop diversification. Their decision to diversify crops is significantly influenced by their experiences of extreme weather events in the previous year. Such results are understandable because farmers' behaviors are normally based on their expectations. Moreover, household characteristics also affect farmers' decisions on crop diversification strategy, and their effects differ by farmers' age and gender. This paper concludes with several policy implications.

Empirical research has shown that the use of manure significantly improves crop yield, soil fertility and water and moisture conservation. Despite these documented benefits, however, there is a concern on the downward trend of manure use in agriculture in China. This paper examines factors contributing to this downward trend, with a particular focus on human excreta used in agriculture. Empirical analysis based on data from stratified random sampling of rural households in five provinces of China shows that about 85% of human excreta was still used as manure in agriculture in 2007 which was less than a decade ago when nearly all human excreta was used as manure. Econometric results suggest that income growth, rising population density and improvement in rural transportation significantly contribute to declining use of human excreta as manure in agriculture. These results imply that the current downward trend will continue given China's rising economic growth, urbanization and rural infrastructural improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to document the likely impacts of climate change on China's agriculture and the current adaptation efforts made by government and farmers. The review of literature shows that climate change will have a significant impact on agriculture, primarily through its effect on crop yields. The extent of predicted impacts highly depends on the crop, the CO2 fertilization effect assumption and adaptation abilities. Market response to the production shocks resulting from climate change will lessen the impacts on agricultural production predicted by natural scientists. On adaptation, the government's major efforts have been in the developing new technologies, reforming extension system and enhancing institutional capacity. Farmers do adapt to climate change, but their adaptation measures cannot fully offset the negative impacts of climate change. The paper concludes and makes implications for future studies.

Reducing dietary cation-anion difference (DCAD) has been proved an effective way to prevent milk fever in dairy cows. Based on the similar physiological gastro-intestinal tract anatomy and metabolic process between female goats and dairy cows, this study was conducted to evaluate the effects of varying DCAD on fluid acid-base status, plasma minerals concentration and anti-oxidative stress capacity of female goats. Urinary pH, plasma Ca, P and Mg; and anti-oxidative stress indices of total superoxide dismutase (T-SOD), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) and malondialdehyde (MDA) were determined to evaluate the effect. Forty-eight Guizhou black female goats ((15±1.9) mon of old, (22.3±3.75) kg of BW) were randomly allocated to 4 blocks of 12 goats each and were fed 1 of 4 diets differed in DCAD level (calculated as Na+K-Cl-S, mEq kg−1 DM). Levels of DCAD were preliminarily designed to be control (+150 mEq kg−1 DM, CON), high DCAD (+300 mEq kg−1 DM, HD), low DCAD (0 mEq kg−1 DM, LD) and negative DCAD (−150 mEq kg−1 DM, ND), respectively. A commercial anionic salts (Animate) and sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) were supplemented to reduce and increase DCAD level, respectively. There was no difference in dry matter intake for 4 groups of goats. Urine pH was aggressively decreased (P0.05) plasma Mg level. There was no significant (P>0.05) difference in plasma GSH-Px activity and H2O2, but anionic salts supplementation in LD and ND significantly increased (P

The overall goal of this paper is to examine impacts of climate change on water supply and demand balance and their consequences on agricultural production in ten river basins in China. To realize this goal, China Water Simulation Model (CWSM) is used to analyze three alternative climate scenarios (A1B, A2 and B2). The results show that the impacts of climate change on water supply and demand balance differ largely among alternative scenarios. While significant impacts of climate change on water balance will occur under the A1B scenario, the impacts of climate change under the A2 and B2 scenarios will be marginal. Under the A1B scenario, the water shortage in the river basins located in the northern China will become more serious, particularly in Liaohe and Haihe river basins, but the other river basins in the southern China will improve their water balance situations. Despite larger impacts of climate change on water balance in the northern China, its impacts on total crops' production will be moderate if farmers would be able to reallocate water among crops and adjust irrigated and rainfed land. The paper concludes with some policy implications.

Chemical fertilizer plays an important role in increasing food production in China. Nevertheless, excessive nitrogen fertilizer use in China has resulted in severe environmental problems. The goal of this paper is to examine the impacts of an improved nitrogen management (INM) training experiment on farmers' chemical nitrogen (N) use behaviors in maize production in China. Based on household data collected from 813 maize farmers in Shandong, China, this study finds that while INM training can significantly reduce farmers' N fertilizer use, an INM training is not sufficient to change farmer's practices significantly, and farmers only partially adopted the recommended INM. This study reveals that China faces challenges to transform its agriculture to a low-carbon one. The research also sheds light on China's extension system and future technologies in meeting the objectives of reducing the excessive nitrogen fertilizer use in agricultural production.

Genetically modified (GM) technology can significantly reduce pesticide use and increase yield in crop production. However, the benefit from reducing pesticide use varies substantially among farmers. The overall goal of this paper is to understand the relationship between farmers' knowledge of GM technology and pesticide use in genetically modified papaya (GMP) production. Based on a survey of 223 farms in three main papaya production provinces in 2010, the data show that almost all papaya planted in 2009 was genetically modified. However, only 28% of papaya farmers knew that they planted GMP, and 55% of them did not know GMP is resistant to papaya ringspot virus (PRSV). Further analyses using the general least squares (GLS) method show that farmers' knowledge of GMP significantly affects their pesticide use, and potential gain from GM technology is far below its full potential. The paper concludes with policy implications.

Food safety standard draws increasing concerns on agricultural trade throughout the world. This paper aims to assess the impact of maximum residual limit standard (MRL) of chloromycetin on honey exporting from China. To achieve this objective, the paper discusses the trends of China's honey production and export practices, analyzes changes on MRL of chloromycetin adopted by major importing countries, and use a gravity model to estimate the impact of MRL of chloromycetin on China's honey export. The results show that despite the rapid growth of China's honey production, honey export has declined significantly since 2000. The major reason of declining honey export was mainly due to the more stringent food safety standards indicated by MRL of chloromycetin imposed by importing countries on their honey imports.