CATSEI

Overview

The Chinagro and Catsei projects, both sponsored by the EU Commission, studied the development of China’s food supply and feed availability, the growth of farm incomes, and the changes in land use patterns in the next three decades.

The projects emphasized the geographical diversity of the country, as reflected by differences in land and livestock resources and prevailing farm technologies, as well as by differences in population pressure and non-agricultural income opportunities. The cost structure of trade and transportation in the country was a key element of the analysis which was conducted against the background of changing foreign trade conditions related to China’s access to the WTO, increasing concerns about water availability in the North, and diverging speculations about future climate changes.

The projects  developed and implemented models of two kinds: i)  a series of single-commodity, spatially explicit, partial equilibrium models covering China with around 94,000 grid cells; and  ii) a single 17-commodity, 8-region general equilibrium welfare model with 6 income groups per region. Both types of model were run in parallel and had relative strengths of their own.

The spatial detail of the partial equilibrium models provided a transparent geographical representation of supply, demand, and trade flows between cells and also of price transmission through the delivery chain.

The general equilibrium welfare model described the diversity of the agricultural resources and farming patterns within a proper multi-commodity, multi-agent setting that allowed for a rather detailed account of the interactions between crop and livestock sectors. Although not operating at grid level, it still distinguished farm supply for 2844 counties (virtually all) in which crop and livestock output followed from optimal resource use at prevailing prices.

Consumption, market clearing, and nonfarm supply were modeled at a more aggregated level, i.e., at the level of 8 regions. The welfare model was the central tool of analysis for the simulations over the next decades. The simulation period of Chinagro-II was the period 2010-2030.

Research for the Chinagro and Catsei projects  produced very significant policy impacts in China. One policy report, “Who will feed China’s livestock,” of which L. Sun and G. Fischer are lead authors and which emphasized protein feed imports (in particular, DDGS import from the USA), received a handwritten comment by one of the top leaders within two weeks of its September 2011 submission. It was then widely  discussed in the policymaking bodies of the State Council. A number of policy reports also received handwritten comments by ministerial and provincial level leaders before being circulated for discussion.

CCAP-CAS has adopted Chinagro-II for routine policy simulations and evaluation.

Selected Publications

Selected Journal articles (international):

Tian, Zhan, Honglin Zhong, Runhe Shi, Laixiang Sun, Günther Fischer, Zhuoran Liang. 2012. “Estimating Potential Yield of Wheat Production in China Based on Cross-Scale Data-Model Fusion.” Frontier of Earth Science (Springer), in press.

Qiu, Huanguang, Laixiang Sun, Jikun Huang and Scott Rozelle. 2012. “Liquid Biofuels in China: Current Status, Government Policies, and Future Opportunities and Challenges,” Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews (Elsevier. 2011 Impact Factor: 6.018; 5-Year Impact Factor: 6.619), vol. 16, no. 5, pp. 3095-3104.

Fischer, Günther, T. Ermolieva, Y. Ermoliv, and Laixiang Sun. 2009. “Risk-adjusted Approaches for Planning Sustainable Agriculture”, Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment (Springer Berlin/Heidelberg; 2011 Impact Factor: 1.523), vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 441-450.

Hubacek, Klaus and Laixiang Sun 2005. “Changes in China’s Economy and Society and Their Effects on Water Use: A Scenario Analysis”, Journal of Industrial Ecology (The MIT Press; 2011 Impact Factor: 2.085; ISI Journal Citation Reports © Ranking 2011: 73/205 in Environmental Sciences) vol. 9, no. 1-2, pp. 187-200.

Liu, Hui, Xiubin LI, Günther Fischer, and Laixiang Sun. 2004. “Study on the Impact of Climate Change on China’s Agriculture”, Climatic Change (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Springer Netherlands; 2011 Impact Factor: 3.385), vol. 65, issue 1-2, pp. 125-148.

Key Reports:

Fischer, G., J. Huang, M. A. Keyzer, H. Qiu, L. Sun and W.C.M. van Veen. 2007. China’s Agricultural Prospects and Challenges: Report on Scenario Simulations until 2030 with the Chinagro Welfare Model Covering National, regional and County Level. Project Report submitted to the EU and Dutch Government, Centre for World Food Studies, Free University of Amsterdam, Dec. 2007. http://www.catsei.org/catseiweb/contents/75/1036.html, http://webarchive.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/External-Chinagro/SOW-VU-CHINAGRO-prospects_challenges.pdf

Albersen, Peter, Günther Fischer, Michiel Keyzer and Laixiang Sun.³ 2002. “Estimation of Agricultural Production Relations in the LUC Model for China,” Research Report RR-02-03, April 2002, IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria and SOW, Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. ISBN 3-7045-0142-5.

Selected book chapters:

Hubacek, Klaus, Dabo Guan, and Laixiang Sun. 2005. “An Analysis of China’s Water Problems: A Long Term Perspective”, in Leal Filho, W. (ed), Handbook of Sustainability Research, Part 1, Chapter 5. Frankfurt: Peter Lang Scientific Publishing (ISBN: 3-631-52606-7 / US-ISBN: 0-8204-7308-1).

Fischer, G., F. Zhang, and L. Sun. 2004. “The Role of Government in Combating Desertification,” in Shi G., W. Du, J. Li and T. Zhao (eds.), Proceedings of the China-EU Workshop on Integrated Approach to Combat Desertification, 15-17 October 2003, Beijing, P.R. China. pp. 171-184 (English version); pp. 133-143 (Chinese version). Beijing: China Association for International Science and Technology Cooperation (CAISTC).

Selected Articles published in National Refereed Journals (in Chinese)

Tang, X., X. Yang, Z. Tian, G. Fischer, Laixiang Sun, J. Pan. 2011. “Impacts of Climate Change on Agro-Climatic Resources in China,” Resources Science, Vol. 33, No.10, pp. 1962-1968.

Sun, Laixiang. 2010. "Who will feed China's livestock?", The Twenty-First Century Review (ChineseUniversity of Hong Kong), No. 121 (Oct 2010): 39-41.

Fischer, G., G-Y Cao, T. Ermolieva, L. Sun, and Xiaoying Zheng. 2008. “Urbanization and Livestock Production Projection: An approach to healthy and environmental risks,” Population and Development, 14 (6): 1668-1674.

Last edited: 03 June 2014