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The article characterizes Li Yunhe's actions while administering the contracting agricultural output to households program as not opposed to the Chinese Communist Party and therefore not deserving of him being identified as a rightist. His mistakes were evaluated as originating in arrogance and he has improved his attitude.

The article describes the efficiency, simplicity, and relatively high productivity for 20 years of the contracting to household agricultural policy. The problem of rightist leaders and rich peasants in rural areas being ignored is discussed and the authors demand political rehabilitation.

The author describes how he was first secretary of the Yongjia county committee in 1958 and was dismissed from this position and demoted for incorrectly distributing grain based on household productivity. The history of the contrasting agricultural output to households and his mistakes are discussed.

Research is presented describing the study of Ningxia Province in China from 1929 to 1958 and the agricultural reclamation which took place by the Chinese government.

Conventional agricultural land-use theory overlooks labor location and its effects on land use. This paper argues that in labor-intensive commercial agriculture where labor concentrates in large labor centers (villages), the distance from the labor center is more important than the distance from market in determining land use and land rent and is important at both the microscale and larger scales. Both qualitative observations and quantitative field level land-use research in Jilin, China, support this approach. A new model is developed to incorporate labor location into the conventional land-use model. It regards agriculture as an industry using localized gross inputs. Key Words: location theory, von Thunen, labor, market, land rent, land-use intensity, China.

Improving the national grain circulation system is one the five primary reform responsibilities of the new Chinese cabinet for 1998. Under the present system, the government protects the farmers purchasing grains from them at government-set prices in cases of oversupply. However, China has experience three bumper harvests in a row since 1995 and the government no longer has the financial capacity to purchase excess grains from farmers.

Chinese grain production has been under state control since 1986 due to differences in prices. Procurement prices, negotiated prices and market prices were used all over China until 1989, as part of the government programme. Grain prices with associated demand figures between the years of 1975 and 1991 are shown. A flow-diagram illustrating state grain purchases in China is also shown.

A study on the objectives motivating decisions of local leaders in China show that Chinese village leaders engage in rural industrialization due to personal profit motive and to gain independence from higher authorities. Efforts are also directed toward village welfare and preserving high agricultural productivity. The understanding of village leaders goals will assist in the formulation of incentive-based policy measures. It will also help improve the desirability of goals associated with agricultural activities.

This paper employs province-level panel data to assess the contributions of decollectivization, price adjustments, and other reforms to China's agricultural growth in the reform period. Decollectivization is found to improve total factor productivity and to account for about half of the output growth during 1978-1984. The adjustment in state procurement prices also contributed positively to output growth. Its impact came mainly from the responses in input use. The effect of other market-related reforms on productivity and output growth was very small. Reasons for slowdown in agricultural growth after 1984 are also analyzed.

This article constructs a model of technological choice in an economy where market exchanges in land and labour are prohibited. Empirical data on demand for tractors, tractor usage and chemical fertilisers in China are employed to test several hypotheses derived from the theoretical model. The theory implies that the impact of relative factor scarcity on the pattern of technological choice in such an economy is similar to that in a market economy as postulated by the Hicks-Ruttan-Hayami-Binswanger hypothesis of induced technological change. The empirical evidence is found to be consistent with the implications of the model.

THE WAYS OF THE DRAGON China can look ahead to the coming year with some optimism. The country is completing a third year of a tough economic restructuring programme which [...]

The article describes communes' agricultural practices in the mountain districts of Yongjia, which have remained largely unchanged for centuries. The committee finds government interference about agricultural productivity in the 1950s damaged peasants' enthusiasm sufficiently to reduce grain output and income.

This article recounts the Chinese government's seizure of lands previously owned by citizens who were forced to relocate during a 1956 damming project. Topics include disputes between the government and military over land use and boundary disputes.

Effective government policies and priorities in agriculture have resulted in China reporting bumper grain harvests in spite of destructive droughts in the northern regions. Since 1993, the central government has implemented various laws to correct deficiencies and impediments to agricultural development. The government has also focused on technological innovations resulting into improved seeds, enhanced water-conservation methods and more potent chemical fertilizers.

Sichuan, a landlocked province in Southwest China, has earned the distinction of being 'China's Granary,' as it accounts for 10% of the country's total grain production. This is considered a feat since it has only 6.5% of the country's total farmland, although it is home to 10% of the total population. It has an annual pork output equal that of the US and supplies large amounts of this as well as grain and other farm produce to some 20 other provinces. Its ability to feed 120 million on limited land, which is merely 0.45% of the global total, is attributed to its preferential policies which ensure agricultural stability and higher income for farmers.

This paper applies von Thunen's land-use theory with approach to labor location to examine spatial patterns of conservation and land quality. It is based on long-term fieldwork in West Jilin, China, an area that suffers severe land degradation. Statistical data were collected in a four-year project from 1993 to 1997, involving 1,801 fields farmed by 307 families from twenty villages, and analyzed using correlation, regression, and analysis of variance. The distance of labor from agricultural fields is found to be the main contributor to the prediction of conservation and land quality, while effects of market distance are also significant to three of the eleven variables. Nearby fields have more organic inputs, better tree coverage, and better water supply. They are also less affected by soil-exhausting crops and tend to be farmed with traditional environment-friendly techniques. Distant fields are disadvantaged in all these aspects, though they benefit more from crop rotation. As a result, land quality--as measured by depth of soil humus, net income, and farmers' evaluations of land-quality changes--decreases with distance from labor location. Four types of land-quality zones were found around labor centers: enhancing, conserving, degrading, and exhausting. The findings imply that agricultural intensification is associated with land improvement in near fields, while it causes land degradation in remote fields. The research calls for further applications of the von Thunen theory and the labor-location approach to environmental problems. It suggests that policymakers need to look at environmental degradation from spatial perspectives, specifically by allowing farmers to live closer to their fields in order to increase conservation and curtail land degradation. Key Words: location theory, von Thunen, agricultural land use, land degradation, environment, agricultural intensification, sustainable development.

China should grow less cereals and oilseeds and more vegetables as part of agricultural reform in the transition to a fully-fledged member of the global economy following its accession to [...]

A history is presented of the emergence and development of China's organic foods industry, which was launched in the early 1980s under the guidance of government agricultural and environmental policies. The article also explores the introduction of China's organic produce into the global market.

The article provides the finding that, although Li Yunhe was identified as a rightist for his mistakes in administering the contracting agricultural output to households policy, his punishment was incorrect. His mistakes do not oppose socialism and the Chinese Communist Party and his Party membership and ranking should be restored.

The article summarizes a meeting of district secretaries to discuss the problem of contracting agricultural output to households in mountain districts. Consensus determined further action was necessary to address this problem.