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| Arguments - Trends |
| Arable Land |
Arable land is a precious
resource in China's agriculture. Most of the country is covered by steep mountains (see
elevation map), stony deserts or dry
grasslands (see grassland
maps), which are unsuitable for agriculture (see cultivation maps). The land is
suitable for cultivation only in the South, the East, the North-East and in some small
areas of the extreme North-west.
For many years the true size of China's cultivated land was severely underestimated. Many
authors used the official estimate of about 95 million hectares. However, we know now that
China's arable land is much larger. According to our analysis it is in the range of 132 to
136 million hectares. Our estimate confirms previous calculations by other authors. The
new data also show only a slight decline of cultivated land in China in recent years -
primarily due to agricultural restructuring, but also due to infrastructure expansion.
Some land is also lost because of natural disasters - primarily flooding. |
| Short Description of Problem |
| Here we will
discuss the following questions: |
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What is the true size of
China's cultivated land? |
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What are the regional and
province-level trends? |
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What are the causes of
land-use change in China? |
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| Discussion |
| A reconstruction of China's cultivate land area (on the national level) |
Tables & Charts |
| Most
recently, the IIASA Land-use Change Project has received detailed statistics from the
Chinese State Land Administration, which describe increases and decreases of various types
of cultivated land in China. These data are available for the province and county level.
They are based on a series of land surveys during the past few years, which were conducted
to improve China’s (crop) land statistics. Due to the enormous size of China’s
agricultural area, it was not possible to cover all areas at once, but with each year a
larger land area was surveyed and corrected. We can therefore expect that estimates for
recent years are more accurate then the estimates from the late 1980s. Table 3 displays
the main national-level results. As can be seen from column 5 in table 1 the reported area
of cultivated land increased between 1988 and 1995 from 122.3 to 131.1 million hectares.
This is not due to wondrous cropland expansion, but simply reflects the increasing
accuracy in Chinese land-use statistics in recent years. Since the late 1980s Chinese
politicians became very concerned with the danger of cropland loss, so that great efforts
were undertaken to monitor ongoing land-use changes and also correct the underreported
cropland "stock" data. Currently the Chinese agricultural census is processed,
which will most likely further improve the land use data. |
Table 1
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One can
use the new data from the Chinese State Land Administration to estimate the amount of
underreporting in recent years. Table 1 gives the national totals for cultivated land at
the beginning (column 1) and at the end of each year (column 5), as well as the
corresponding increases, decreases and net-change (columns 2 - 4).
As can be seen from comparing column 5 of year x with column 1 of year x+1, there is a
discrepancy in the reported size of cultivated land. The changes in cultivated land
(increases and decreases) do not add-up to the initial cultivated land size of the
subsequent year. The reason for this discrepancy is the underreported size of China's
stock of cultivated land.
For correcting this discrepancy, we make two assumptions: (a) we assume that the
"flow-data" (increase or decline) are relatively correct. (b) We also assume
that the most recent (the 1995 year-end) estimate of the total cultivated land area is the
most accurate. With these two assumptions, we can recalculate the amount of
under-reporting in previous years. Columns 6, 7 and 8 show the results of this
reconstruction. For instance: the 1995 year-end size of the cultivated area was reported
at 131.1 million hectares (column 8 and 5). Now we subtract the 1995 net-change in
cultivated land (409.1 thousand hectares). We get the initial 1995 cultivated land size -
which is, of course, equivalent to the 1994 year-end size (column 7 in 1995 and column 8
in 1994). By repeating this simple procedure for all previous years, we can reconstruct
China's cultivated land area from the reported land-use changes (which we consider more
accurate than the estimate of the total stock).
The difference between the reported (column 5) and reconstructed (column 8) size of
China's cultivated land is the amount of under-reported land (column 6). In the late 1980s
and early 1990s, the underreporting was around 10 million hectares. By 1994, it had
declined to about 2 million hectares.
Please note that this calculation is based on the cultivated land estimate of the Chinese
State Land Administration, which was already significantly higher than the numbers
reported in the China Statistical Yearbook. For 1988 the State Land Administration had
reported a cultivated land area of 122.6 million hectares (year-beginning), while the
Statistical Yearbook published the notorious 95 million hectares (which where known to be
underreported). |
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| Our
calculations show that the cultivated land must have been even larger than the initial
estimate of the State Land Administration. We can conclude that in the beginning of 1988,
China had a (corrected) cultivated land area of 132.8 million hectares - it slightly
declined by 1.72 million hectares (or 1.3%) to 131.1 million hectares in the end
of 1995. |
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| Regional and province-level trends |
China has
eight major economic regions: North, Northwest, East, Central, South, Southwest, Plateau
and Northwest. The largest net-loss of cultivated land between 1988 and 1995 was reported
from the Northwest - a net-decline of almost 400 thousand hectares. It is interesting that
this region had - by far - also the largest overall changes in cultivated land
(some 880 thousand hectares increase and some 1.28 million hectares decrease).
By far the lowest net-loss of cultivated land was reported from the South. It
declined by just 11 thousand hectares (or 0.1 percent) (see Table 1). One economic region,
the Plateau, even reported a small net-increase of cultivated land between 1988 and 1995.
According to our data it increase 15 thousand hectares or 1.6%. |
Table 2 |
We have
also used the recent data from the Chinese State Land Administration to analyze land use
changes at province level. As can be seen from table 3 significant areas of cultivated
land were lost in the province of Inner Mongolia (more than 212 thousand hectares) and
Sichuan (151 thousand hectares). However, with over 360 thousand hectares, the province of
Shaanxi had the largest net-loss of cultivated land. Its size declined by almost 6.4
percent.
The largest relative net-loss of cultivated land was reported from Shanghai (which is not
only a city but has counties with agricultural areas). It lost almost 10 percent of its
cultivated area. With more than 7 percent, Beijing also had a significant net-loss of
cultivated land. The only significant net-increase of cultivated land was reported from
Xinjiang (157 thousand hectares or 4.2 percent). (See also Figure 1) |
Table 3 |
| What is causing land-use change in China? |
| The data
also provide insight into some of the driving forces, which cause land-use changes in
China. Table 4 provides details about various causes of increase and decrease in
cultivated land. |
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By far the most
important reason for the decline in China’s cropland was agricultural
restructuring. Due to the massive changes in consumer demand (which we will
discuss later) it became much more profitable for Chinese farmers to grow vegetables and
fruits, than rice or wheat. While most of the crop harvest is still "collected"
by the state procurement system at relatively low producer prices, the farmers can often
sell vegetables and fruits for a good price on the "free" farmer’s markets
in cities and towns. In other words: the entrepreneurial initiative of Chinese farmers
explains a good part of the cropland loss in China. 1.2 million hectares, of the total
net-decline of 1.7 million hectares in cropland, was due to the conversion of cropland
into horticulture; another 226 thousand hectares of cultivated land were converted into
fishponds. This, of course, reflects the growing consumer demand for fish. |
Figure 1
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The resource base for
food production, however, was certainly diminished by the loss of cultivated land due to construction
activities. These include all construction by state-owned units (cities, towns, mining and
factories, railways, highways, water reservoirs, public buildings) and constructions by
rural communities (rural roads, township and village enterprises, rural water reservoirs,
offices, education and sanitation, rural private resident housing). On balance, China lost
some 980 thousand hectares of cultivated land for construction activities between 1988 and
1995. These losses were reported from almost all provinces; however, they were especially
high, as can be expected, in the Jiangsu and Guangdong province. Construction
activities have certainly caused some loss of cropland in China – particularly around
booming coastal agglomerates, such as Beijing or Shanghai. These losses may be more
serious than cropland losses of equivalent size elsewhere in China, because they are in
high productivity areas in close proximity to large numbers of consumers. The losses are
also permanent. No one can expect that a highway or housing complex is ever re-cultivated
into cropland. However, we have to put these trends in perspective. All losses due to
construction activities between 1988 and 1995 combined have affected some 0.75 percent of
the total cultivated land in China. During the same period, Chinese farmers have increased
the cultivation area by almost 2.2 million hectares. This reclamation of marginal or
previously unused land represents 1.7 percent of the total cultivated area. |
Figure 2
Table 4
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The third largest
land-use change in China was reforestation of previously cultivated land.
Some 970 million hectares were reforested between 1988 and 1995 – especially in the
provinces of Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia and Yunnan. While these losses of cropland may have
somewhat diminished China’s agricultural land resources, they will certainly help to
prevent or reduce environmental disasters in the future, such as desertification or
flooding. In the end, these forests may be equally important for China’s food
security than the equivalent area of cropland. |
Table 5 |
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Finally, we have to
mention the natural disasters. Between 1988 and 1995 China lost 856
million hectares of cultivated land due to disasters – mainly flooding and droughts. |
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Conclusion:
The great majority of China’s land-use changes, as documented by recent data from the
State Land Administration are related to agricultural restructuring. This, in essence, is
a "healthy response" of China’s farmers to the gradual emergence of true
consumer markets in China’s food sector. It is a further step away from the control
and command land-use system that harmed China’s agriculture for almost 30 years. This
land-conversion is, by the way, also a sign that the grain-centered state procurement
system needs further reform. Farmer’s income from grain production must increase if
the state wants to boost or at least secure cereal production.
There is certainly some decline of cropland in China – but the areas
affected are tiny as compared to the total cultivated area. The major reason for land-use
changes is a greater market orientation of Chinese farmers, who have restructured their
cultivation areas for more profitable products. Some cultivated land was also used for
environmental protection (reforestation). The losses of cultivated land for construction
and infrastructure expansion are certainly in the order of less than 1 percent (only in
some hot spots they are higher). Compared with the excessive conversion of natural and
agricultural land due to urban sprawl and infrastructure construction in North America and
Europe, loss of cultivated land in China is minimal. |
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| Related Arguments |
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Arable Land: Trends
Impact Data Quality Prediction Error Intervention
Possibilities Intervention
Costs
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| revision Heilig, G.K. (2004): RAPS-China. A Regional Analysis and Planning System. Laxenburg, Austria |
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