Rural Reforms and Agricultural Growth in China

Abstract

Abstract China’s agricultural growth in the socialist period prior to the reforms starting in the late 1970s was sluggish. Despite stress on self¬ sufficiency, grain production and agricultural output barely kept pace with population growth. This picture changed in 1978, when China began a series of fundamental reforms in the rural sector. Growth rates in all major sectors of agriculture were accelerated to levels several times higher than the long-term averages over the preceding period (see Table 1).