China now has twenty-three percent of the world’s people. Feeding them has been a struggle for centuries. The Chinese have creatively managed their land over the generations to provide space for growing crops; however, the land that can be used for agriculture is limited, and the population of 1.3 billion is still growing. China must deal with both the loss of its arable land as well as the reclamation of that land. In addition, China must find a way to utilize new agricultural technologies that will make their land more productive, while increasing trade with other nations.
Only about seven percent of China’s land is arable, or suited for agriculture. A glance at a physical map of China will show that two-thirds of the country is covered in mountains or deserts. The remaining one-third is often hilly. Only the easternmost areas have flat plains for easy farming. China’s arable land could probably be increased from seven percent up to thirteen percent by terracing more hillsides, irrigating dry areas, or filling in swampland. Contrast that thirteen percent maximum in China to the potential of the United States. By utilizing terracing the Rockies and other mountainous areas, and with additional irrigation in semi-arid regions, up to eighty percent of the land in the U.S. could be made arable.
Various methods of increasing the arable land are not without accompanying difficulties. Terracing has been practiced for many years. Typical photos of China will often show these layer-cake hillsides, seemingly stacked one upon the other, the flat platforms at the edges filled with rice. On a recent Freeman Foundation trip to China in June of 2001, we saw many acres of this terrain as we flew into Nanjing. Every river valley was lined with these beautiful transformations, a resculpting of nature’s curves to suit man’s need for survival. On a smaller scale, these terraces are also used for a variety of other crops, including fruit trees.
Where crops will grow directly on the hillsides, terracing is often not done. Many hillsides along the Li River in southern China are planted in vertical rows, without benefit of terracing. Undoubtedly erosion problems are created with these up-and-down rows of plants.
The government is taking two different approaches to terracing. On the one hand, terracing is being discouraged. The government says that it creates too much erosion, and loss of topsoil is a concern everywhere in China. A Chinese proverb says that east-flowing water is gone forever. These days the east-flowing rivers are taking valuable topsoil with them. It, too, is gone forever as it dumps into the Yellow Sea or the East China Sea. On the other hand, terracing is being encouraged in areas where the hills are planted in vertical rows. Terracing requires a great deal more time and labor, so naturally, farmers prefer the quicker system of planting directly on the hillsides. The government would like to see these areas replanted in terraces.
Irrigation is already in wide use throughout China, but more land could be made useful with additional irrigation systems in some of China’s dry areas. Plans for these systems are often thwarted by lack of money and by drought. While we were in China, a prolonged drought had reduced the size of Beijing’s main reservoir to one-third of its normal supply. Other areas of China were experiencing even more severe droughts. It is hard to imagine justifying the building of irrigation canals to carry off the water that is already being rationed.
In a somewhat ironic twist, the government has been flying water in to the forested areas around Beijing’s reservoir. The trees must be kept healthy and green in order to preserve the clean environment around the water supply.
In an additional ironic twist, the southern parts of China have been ravaged with devastating floods at the same time northern China is suffering drought. It seems that even the weather has its own version of yin and yang.
Irrigating must be done from rivers in China since there are no large bodies of water such as lakes or inland seas. These rivers have a history of being extremely dry at times. In 1997 the Huang He (Yellow River) was so dry that for almost a year, no water emptied into the Yellow Sea. Without a system of reservoirs and canals, along with adequate rainfall, irrigation may not be available. Construction of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River should create a sizeable reservoir for those people who live in central China. The dam is also supposed to help with flood control.
Filling in swampland is a practice found most often in the eastern coastal regions. This is done to create more farmland, to create space for construction so that valuable farmland is not used up, or to replace good land that has been lost due to the growth of cities. Environmental impacts of this swampland destruction do not seem to be a major constraint, even though China is implementing many new plans for preserving the environment in other situations. In 1999 one million acres were regained through land reclamation, reorganization, and restoration.
China has been losing one million acres of arable land per year for the last thirty years. Much of this loss is due to growth. Cities are mostly located in the East where China’s best land is also found. When the cities grow due to industry or housing, it is usually farmland that is taken over. For example, in Shanghai we visited the new campus of Shanghai University.
A large, beautiful complex of buildings, wide bike paths, swimming-pool-size fountains, and expansive grounds has been constructed on Shanghai’s outskirts. Mr. Peter Fu, a professor at Shanghai University, showed us the facilities. I asked him what had been on this land before the construction, hoping he would say it was swampland that had been reclaimed. However, he said it had been used for farms. As impressive as this new facility for underclassmen is, it must be balanced against the need to feed the fourteen million people in China’s largest city. How does the government justify such decisions? When I asked Mr. Fu how the people felt about having this much farmland taken for construction of the university, he just smiled and shrugged. The people don’t really have a whole lot to say about such decisions anyway. Besides, the university is a testimony the importance of education. Now, many more students can be admitted to the university. This can only serve to make a better China. Let’s hope all these well-educated young people will help China find more ways to keep everyone fed.
Another reason for the loss of land is road construction. Here again, the roads are needed in populous areas, and that is also where the best farmland is located.
More recently, cemeteries have been additional culprits in loss of farmland. A recent campaign by the government is encouraging Beijingers to bury the ashes of their loved ones under trees or flowers, to spread them on the sea, or to store them in multi-level cemeteries. A six-acre ash garden was recently established in China’s capital city. Ashes can be buried among the 150,000 flowers and 8000 trees.
Desertification is a growing problem in China. China Daily’s supplement, 21st Century, reported of one family whose cornfield was literally turned into a sand dune overnight as the winds blew a mountain of sand over their village. In another village the people open their doors every morning to face a dune five stories high. They never know if there will be crops still growing the next day or not.
This northern invasion of sand has claimed so much land that 27.3% of China’s land is now desert. Contrast that figure with 17.6%, the amount of desert a year ago. Over thirty million trees have been planted along the edge of the desert in an attempt to hold it back, but farmers sometimes cut the trees when they are desperate for firewood.
China uses ninety percent of its arable land for growing food. The other uses of arable land, such as pastureland, groves, nurseries, ornamental horticultural areas, or confined feeding areas, comprise the other ten percent. A typical Chinese diet today is about eight-three percent vegetable and seventeen percent animal. The proportion of animal foods has increased greatly in the last two decades. Twenty years ago, having meat once a month was average. Now there is meat two or three times a week, and many Chinese enjoy eggs each week. Of the eighty-three percent vegetable portion of the diet, sixty percent is cereal, usually rice in the South or wheat in the North. This is also a change. Per capita land planted in grain today is only half of what it was in 1949 at the beginning of the Communist era. People are growing more vegetables and fruits because produce is more profitable than rice or wheat. Fruits and vegetables can be sold at markets that are readily available to the farmers. This gives them cash and a taste of free enterprise. Some farmers are converting their land to horticulture use or to fish ponds. Arable land is being lost due to ecological damage and natural disasters. In 1999 these two factors together accounted for almost seventy percent of the arable land loss for that year.
China’s growing population makes land management and preservation even more critical than ever before. The one-child policy has slowed growth but not stopped it. Recently the government announced a relaxation of the one-child policy, whereby special circumstances might permit a second child. There is growing concern that someday there may not be enough young people to support the elderly. In the last fifty years, China’s life expectancy has jumped from forty years to seventy years, so there are many more older people now who will need care and feeding. Sixty percent of China’s population is below the legal marriage age (twenty for females, twenty-two for males) but is of child-bearing age. China cannot depend on a slowing-down of growth to be the life-saver it needs to feed its people.
Breakthroughs in agricultural technology have increased crop yields throughout China. The Chinese continue to look for more ways to bring bio-engineering to their people in hopes that scientific advances will shore up the food supply, but how quickly these changes can be made effective remains to be seen. The government also monitors land use with satellite remote sensing in an effort to control misuse of land. Already the Chinese are making use of even the smallest spaces for growing food. Roadsides are filled with small orchards, vineyards, and vegetable gardens. Some rice paddies are so small that no American farmer would waste time and equipment on them. Greenhouses cover urban spaces where the land itself is not suitable for planting. There is little wasted space. China’s needs seem to be greater than the country’s capacity to produce.
For the future, China’s best bet is to keep the doors of trade open to the rest of the world. While China has a very long history of self-sustaining isolation, the twentieth century has brought about periods of horrendous starvation. The famines can be blamed on disastrous planning by the Communist party, rather than on natural disasters, but they serve to indicate how dangerously close to the precipice China’s population lives. Had there been a willingness to allow help from the outside, perhaps the worst of the famines and the millions of deaths could have been alleviated. Currently China is dependent on some outside food sources, such as rice and soybeans from the United States. The government would be wise to nurture this type of trade. Admittance to the World Trade Organization will open up additional avenues of trade to the Chinese. Increasing free markets in China will keep the cash flowing so that China can afford to buy the food it needs.
The situation is so tenuous that any major policy change by the Chinese government could affect the stomachs of millions of people. The Chinese can ill afford angering the Western world over claims and threats on Taiwan. There are major risks to flaunting any nuclear power. The Chinese government should be doing all it can to maintain friendships with the various hands that feed it. It remains to be seen whether the leaders value those connections enough to propel their nation onto the world stage as a great protagonist, or whether they will become just another tragic antagonist, withering under their own hubris