WEEKLY SUMMARY SPECIAL REPORT CHINA STAYS EVEN IN FOOD/POPULATION RACE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00875R001500020030-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 14, 2009
• Sequence Number: 30
• Publication Date: June 19, 1970
• Content Type: REPORT

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Secret
DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
WEEKLY SUMMARY
Special Report
China Stays Even in, Food/Population Race
n 8 n~ ,E copy
RETWJ 1J lE-b1
Secret
N2 684
19 June 1970
No. 0375/70A
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CHINA STAYS EVEN IN FOOD/POPULATION RACE
China enters the 1970s with its food problems more or less under control. Current food supplies
appear adequate, whether measured by annual production of grain or size of the average diet. Peking
sees availability exceeding current needs to such an extent that it has launched a national campaign to
increase grain stocks for the first time in many years.
In 1960, the collapse of the Great Leap Forward was accompanied by a drastic fall in ;rain
production. Peking was forced to abandon its rather utopian programs for restructuring rural institu-
tions to tackle the fundamental problem of feeding the population. Aside from concern for human
misery, there was the overriding consideration that mass starvation could undermine the viability of the
Communist regime. By importing grain and by reversing collectivization policies that had sapped
incentive and public morale, the government arrested the decline in food supplies. During the last half
of the 1960s, food production was nursed back to pre - Leap Forward levels by the regime's increased
allocation of resources to agriculture.
The food problem has not been solved, however, and China apparently still is far from achieving a
breakthrough similar to the "green revolution" that has occurred elsewhere in Asia. Food supplies
exceed the needs of the population by so slight a margin that bad weather alone could start a new
downward trend. Moreover, the possibility that Mao Tse-tung may again attempt to introduce radical
changes in the countryside that could lead to agricultural problems similar to those of the early 1960s
continues to loom as a threat to China's modest agricultural achievements.
Speciai Report
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s1;CIZE'.I'
Agricultural output fell drastically during
1959-61, confronting the regime with one of its
most serious economic crises. The crisis, although
precipitated by almost catastrophic weather con-
ditions, was also the outgrowth of the regime's
earlier policies toward agriculture. During the
1950s the regime had looked to collectivization
and to the exploitation of existing resources in
the countryside for rapid agricultural growth
rather than to infusions of scarce capital and
technology. Such efforts, moreover, were either
"once and for all" types of improvements or were
subject to increasingly severe diminishing returns.
Agricultural output did increase in the 1950s, but
the surpluses that could be converted to capital
for investment became smaller and smaller as the
population continued to grow. Three consecutive
years of poor weather in 1959-61 forced food
production far below the minimum levels re-
quired to sustain the population.
In September 1962 the "agriculture first"
policy was adopted, which provided a somewhat
larger share of state investment as well as greater
industrial support for agriculture. By 1964 chemi-
cal fertilizers, mechanical water pumps, and farm
tools and equipment had become available in suf-
ficient quantities to make an impact on agricul-
tural production. These inputs were allocated
primarily to commercial grains (rice and wheat),
corn, and cotton, and were concentrated in areas
capable of returning high yields despite flood or
drought. Such areas constitute only a minor share
of China's farmland; the bulk of the country's
farming areas were left more or less to fend for
themselves. Nevertheless, changes in management
practices were made-notably in regard to crop
rotations and the substitution of grains for indus-
trial crops-that affected most of China's culti-
vated areas. Corn, for example, has been popu-
larized for cultivation in areas with marginal
water supplies, chiefly becruse corn is more re-
sponsive to fertilizer than is wheat or rice. In large
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areas of north China, a single crop of spring-sown
corn, heavily fertilized, has been substituted for
the traditional rotation of winter wheat followed
by a summer-sown grain crop. Under favorable
conditions, the single crop of corn has yielded
more than have wheat and a summer-sown crop
combined, thus increasing grain available in these
areas.
Grain and !?crlilizc'r Imports
Among the policies adopted during the
1960s to cope with food exigencies wds the im-
port of food and chemical fertilizers. Of the iwo,
the import of grain has attracted more attention
from the West, which considers this t ado the
bellwether of the Chinese food situation. When
China in the 1960-61 food year b-oke precedent
and began importing grain from Canada and Aus-
tralia, the need was clearly desperate.
Net imports reached 5.5 million tons in
1961 and since then have averaged a little over
five million tons annually despite improvements
in cereal grain harvests. They have become an
important element in stabilizing levels of cereal
consumption in the urban areas of East and North
China and in maintaining adequate levels of Chi-
nese grain stocks. These imports are also useful in
reducing the volume of internal transport needed
to distribute food to cities.
Chinese imports of chemical fertilizer, which
increased only gradually during 1961-G4, began to
expand rapidly in 1965. By 1969 these imports,
combined with the slowly expanding domestic
fertilizer industry, had more than doubled the
total amount of fertilizer available in Communist
China, and have been the key factor in agricul-
tural performance. Nevertheless, the regime still
has not allocated sizable resources to the develop-
ment of the chemical fertilizer industry, and im-
ports continue to provide the bulk of available
fertilizer. In 1969, for example, they constituted
more than 60 percent of the total fertilizer avail-
able. Given the lagging development of the do-
mestic fertilizer industry, China is likely to
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remain dependent upon imported fertilizer for
some time to come.
On a purely bulk basis, the Chinese are not
eating as well as they did in 1957 or 1958. Never-
theless, food supplies have clearly been adequate
for the past several years. A representative ration
before the Leap Forward was between 2,200 and
2,300 calories a day. Rations fell to a low of
about 1,400 calories during the disaster years of
1960 and 1961, but by 1965 they had recovered
to a level of about 2,000 calories. This level has
since been maintained.
Although some Western nutritionists con-
sider 2,000 calories a day short of minimum re-
25X1 quirements for an adequate diet, the Chinese ap-
pear to be living reasonably well at this level.
25X1 years. Complaints of outright food shortages have
been generated only by short-term, local situa-
tions, usually resulting from insect damage or
weather problems.
In terms of the amount of cereal grains in
the individual rations, there is still a gap of about
20 percent as compared with the 1957s. This gap,
however, has been norrowed on a caloric basis by
the inclusion of larger quantities of potatoes in
the ration and on a quality basis by an increase in
the availability of fruits, vegetables, eggs, and
meats. Relatively small increases in eggs and
meats significantly offset the nutritional defi-
ciencies inherent in an overwhelmingly grain diet.
An important share of the potatoes and most of
the fruits, vegetables, eggs, and meats are pro-
duced on the peasants' private plots.
percent of the peasant's consumption, by weight,
has originated from these plots.
The government has openly acknowledged
that it cannot reform rural institutions radically
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until a satisfactory substitute for private plots is
found. The provincial press has categorically
stated that the plots will continue to play a role
in the foreseeable future. The national press in-
directly endorses this line by banning articles con-
demning the plots. The five-percent limit placed
on the arable land devoted to these plots con-
strains their growth, however, and there has been
a leveling off of production on private plots over
the past two years.
Stabilization policies since 1962, together
with restoration of the private plot, have eased
the food situation. The infusion of large quanti-
ties of items such as chemical fertilizer and im-
proved tools has enabled the Chinese to increase
grain output at a much higher rate titan could be
achieved with traditional inputs alone. Finally,
the Chinese have been favored by six years of
normal or above-average weather conditions. This
has meant that the average grain harvest level in
China has increased i-om the 180 million metric
ton level of 1957 to ,is much as 205-210 million
tons in 1967. Grain production since 1967 has
probably been somewhat lower. Production
dropped in 1.968 as the result of interruptions
caused by the Cultural Revolution to the flow of
industrial goods in support of agriculture. Produc-
tion in 1969 suffered from a deterioration in
weather conditions that was only partially offset
by increased supplies of chemical fertilizers and
other inputs.
Peking seems only mildly aware that the
present breather in the food population race must
be used to make fast progress in food-raising
technology. Thus, the regime still appears unwill-
ing to provide the increased resources necessary
to bring about a technological breakthrough.
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China's agricultural development program
lacks a key element of the approach that has led
to the so-called "green revolution" from which
other Asian countries have benefited. The
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the popular feeling that rations gen-
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introduction of new high-yielding varieties of seed
has been the key to recent agricultural growth in
India, Pakistan, and other countries. China has
improved its water control and has increased the
availability of chemical fertilizers and pesticides,
electricity, and agricultural machinery, Lut the
development of new seeds capable of producing
very high yields under Chinese conditions has not
been emphasized. China could import Mexican
varieties of wheat and Philippine varieties of rice,
but these have been developed for tropical or
subtropical environments and are largely unsuited
to the Chinese environment.
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In the short run, China may be able to
achieve annual increases in grain production to
match or slightly exceed population growth. Even
so, however, any progress toward a more comfort-
able margin between the availability of food and
consumption requirements is likely to be small at
best and would only extend the hiatus inthe food/
population race. Although Chinese agriculture ap-
pears generally stronger now than in the late
1950s, it remains to be seen whether it will be
able to withstand successive years of bad weather
such as that in 1959-61.
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SF,CIZE,J,
Over the long run, higher rites of agricul-
tural growth will hinge on the ability of the
Chinese to develop food-raising techniques suited
to their conditions. In time, irrigation can be
expanded and chemical fertilizers of suitable
types and quality could be made available if the
regime chooses to allocate more resources to this
effort. But the development of high-yielding seeds
will remain a serious problem. Possibly the most
serious impact of the Cultural Revolution en
agriculture will prove to be the disruption of
plant breeding programs. Not only have the sci-
entific methods most instrumental in the success
of the "green revolution" in other countries been
rejected, but many Chinese breeding programs
have been terminated and the scientists running
them dispersed throughout the country.
Instead of capital investment, the regime is
relying increasingly on investment in human tal-
ent, which is not likely to bring dividends for
many years. The transfer to the farms of excess
urban population, consisting mostly of students,
has been pursued with unusual vigor and con-
sistency since the Cultural Revolution subsided.
These transfers serve multiple purposes, including
making available to communes literate, relatively
trained, manpower suited for professional, techni-
cal, medical, and other tasks. Educated youths, if
they can be persuaded or forced to settle per-
manently in the communes, could potentially up-
grade all but the purely physical work being per-
formed and could gradually heighten the respon-
siveness of the entire rural population to new
ideas. Although some of these youths reportedly
have been assigned managerial and accounting
tasks, the regime so far appears to be emphasizing
their reform-through-labor, and little of their po-
tential value to the communes has been realized.
Lastly, the stability that has marked Chinese
agriculture for the past few years is fragile. Aside
from the hazards of weather, doctrinally moti-
vated measures to increase the degree of collec-
tivization in rural areas and to eliminate "revi-
sionist" phenomena such as the private plots
could lead to agricultur
those of the early
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