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A Weather Index for Analysing Grain Yield Instability in China, 1952–81*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Y. Y. Kueh
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Extract

This article applies standard regression techniques to examine the impact of adverse weather conditions on average grain yield per sown hectare in contemporary China. By isolating the weather impact I hope (a) to quantify the possible influence of frequent policy and organizational changes which have been so characteristic of Chinese agriculture since 1949; and (b) to show to what extent grain production in China has become more “weather-proof” after three decades of massive investment in water control and other modern inputs. I shall deal mainly with the long-term trends from 1952 to 1981, with special reference to the extraordinary 1959–61 period, during which total grain output and yield declined by an average of 21 and 12 per cent respectively (or 25 and 18 per cent for the two trough years of 1960 and 1961), measured against the benchmark year of 1957.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 97 , March 1984 , pp. 68 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1984

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References

1. Zhongguo nongye nianjian 1980 (1980 Chinese Agriculture Yearbook: hereafter Nongye nianjian 1980) (Beijing: Nongye chubanshe, 1981), pp. 34–35Google Scholar.

2. Tang, Anthony M., “Trend, policy cycle, and weather disturbance in Chinese agriculture, 1952–1978,” American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 05 1980, p. 344Google Scholar.

3. The terms natural-disaster- “covered” and “affected” areas are taken from the official English version ofZhongguo tongji nianjian 1981 (1981 Chinese Statistical Yearbook compiled by the State Statistical Bureau (SSB): hereafter Tongji nianjian 1981) (Beijing and Hong Kong, 1982)Google Scholar. Taken together, they seem to suggest that farmland “covered” but not “affected” by natural disasters does not sustain any yield losses at all which is, however, not true. See text. I shall therefore consistently use the original Chinese terms throughout this paper.

4. See the various issues of NARB's Crop Reports published in the 1930s.

5. Central Meteorological Bureau, Zhongguo jin wubainian hanlao fenbu tuji (Yearly Charts of Dryness/Wetness in China for the Last 500-year Period) (Beijing: Dituchubanshe, 1981)Google Scholar.

6. Kueh, Y. Y.. Book Review of Charles Greer, Water Management in the Yellow River Basin of China (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1979)Google Scholar, andVermeer, E. B., Water Conservancy and Irrigation in China (The Hague: Leiden University Press, 1977)Google Scholar, The China Quarterly, No. 82 (06 1980), p. 360Google Scholar.

7. I shall use the official Chinese series as given in Nongye nianjian 1980, p. 35 and other Sources.

8. The share of cotton, for example, has never exceeded 4% (see Tongji nianjian 1981, pp. 138–39). The shouzai area series used for the regression covers all crops; but in view of the large grain sown area, the small discrepancy is not likely to distort the analysis.

9. Cf. Tongji jianjian 1981, p. 135, and Zhongguo jingji nianjian 1981 (1981 China Economic Yearbook; hereafter ingji nianjian 1981) (Beijing and Hong Kong, 1982), p. VIII–9Google Scholar.

10. Economists refer to a “secular trend,” when technological progress has led to a I sustained growth in productivity or per capita income, for example.

11. Lardy, Nicholas, “Chinese agriculture: development, production, and trade: discussion,” American Journal of Agricultural Economics (03 1980), pp. 356–58Google Scholar.

12. Buck, John L., Land Utilization in China (Nanjing: The University of Nanjing, 1937), p. 126Google Scholar.

13. Weightedshouzai area = (As - Ac) /—& + Ac /—; where As and Ac stand for the non-weighted yearly total ofshouzai andchengzai areas and Lc and Ln the loss percentage for thechengzai andnon-chengzai areas respectively.

14. For the complete Tang's weather index 1952—80 see his Chinese Agriculture: Its Problems and Prospects. (Nashville: Vanderbilt University- Working Paper, 82–109–1982), p. 16Google Scholar.

15. For a more systematic analysis of factor productivity in Chinese agriculture see the two works of A. Tang, “Trend, policy cycle, and weather disturbance,” andChinese Agriculture.

16. For a brief account of the various factors contributing to China's agricultural growth see Wiens, Thomas, “Chinese agriculture: continued self-reliance,” American Journal of Agricultural Economics (12 1978), pp. 872–77Google Scholar.

17. Cf. Table 3 and Buck, , Land Utilization in China, p. 124Google Scholar.

18. Xing, Su, The Socialist Road of China's Agriculture (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1976), p. 133Google Scholar; Yin, Wen and Hua, Liang. Dazhai: The Red Banner (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1977), p. 11Google Scholar; and National Dazhai Conference 1975: Documents and Materials (No author) (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing House, 1975), p. 43Google Scholar. The drought in Dazhai persisted through 1973 and 1974. Its wheat yield was reduced by 55% (from 3,358 kg/ha in 1972 to 1,500 kg/ha in 1973). Cf. Dazhai College of Agriculture and Shanxi College of Agriculture, The Dazhai Field (Beijing: Renmin jiaoyu chubanshe, 1975), p. 133Google Scholar; and New Socialist Countryside (No author) (Shanghai: Renmin chubanshe, 1974), pp. 3–4Google Scholar. A careful scrutiny of the Dazhai literature reveals indeed that in the three consecutively affected years 1972—74 it was a massive cropping shift from fine grain (wheat) to such high-yield coarse grains as maize (7,127 kg/ha in 1972) and especially gaoliang (the Chinese sorghum. 9,097 kg/ha in 1974) that had more or less helped to stabilize the aggregated yield level (cf. Xiyang Xian Writing Group, The Geography of Dazhai (Beijing: The Commercial Press, 1975), pp. 42, 59 and 62)Google Scholar. Such shifts presuppose, however, adequate irrigation contingency, etc. The conditions were not readily available in the 1950s.

19. Nongye nianjian 1980, p. 26.

20. The national average of grain yield wasreducedby 1–6% in 1980fromthe 19791evel.

21. It should be noted that grain yield in 1959 was 1,463 kg/ha, same as the benchmark year 1957. The observed decline by 13% in total grain output was mainly caused by the drastic reduction (also by 13%) in grain sown area; seeTongji nianjian 1981. p. 138. In many localities farmland had been retired from the early spring-sowing in 1959. due to the misconceived “three-three” system (allocating a third of the arable land to crops, a third to horticulture and the rest to lie fallow); see Howe, Christopher and Walker, Kenneth, “The economist,” in Wilson, Dick (ed.).Mao Tse-tung in the Scales of History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977, p. 201Google Scholar. Herein lies indeed the policy errors; but it should be distinguished from the incentive-impairing policy and organizational measures.

22. The provincial data were collected from various Chinese publications. They amount to a substantial proportion of the new official shouzai area figures, namely, 72%, 63% and 51% respectively for the three years 1959–61. The corresponding estimated average loss rates (kg/ha) are 665, 601 and 754, with an average of 673 kg/ha. This is consistently lower than the official loss rates for 1949–57 (Table 2), obviously because the latter refer to the chengzai area, whereas Buck's loss percentages do not cover famine level losses, as noted earlier.

23. To render the derived total of grain losses comparable to the regression-predicted losses, it is necessary to subtract from it a “normal” secular amount of losses for each of the three years. For estimating these normal losses we have used the regression equation given in Table 2 and an average chengzai area of 10–53 million hectares for the period 1952–58 and 1962–66. The exclusion of the non-chengzai area tends to understate the normal loss amount, but Buck's loss rates are, as noted, consistently biased downward.

24. See especially Mao Zedong sixiang wansui (Long Live Mao Zedong's Thought) (Taiwan reprints: 1969), pp. 292–94, for the urgent personal appeal entitled “Intra-Party Communication” Mao himself made on 29 April 1959, in order to correct the wrongful situationGoogle Scholar.

25. Cf. the relevant charts in Zhongguo jin wubainian hanlao fenbu tuji.

26. Walker, Howe and, “The economist,” p. 208Google Scholar.

27. Mao Zedong sixiang wansui, pp. 279–88 and 292–94.

28. Howe, and Walker, . “The economist,” pp. 206, 209–10Google Scholar.