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The Implementation of the Household Responsibility System in China
Agriculture has an important role in every developing economy. ... China’s economic reform started in the agricultural sector. In just a couple of years, the agricultural sector went from being a system based on central planning and collective operations, to being a system based on individual rural households.
In this essay I shall outline and discuss the implementation of the household responsibility system in China, which started in 1978. Firstly, I shall briefly describe the agricultural system prior to 1978. Secondly, I shall explain and discuss the features of the household responsibility system - its qualities, its flaws and the adjustments made to it in order to improve it. Thirdly, the performance of the house responsibility system will be evaluated. Finally, I shall very briefly look at the Chinese agricultural sector in light of China’s accession to the WTO.
I shall argue that the implementation of the household responsibility system in China has been a success. However, it remains to see if the different parts of the agricultural sector in China are ready to meet the fierce competition from other countries after China’s accession to the WTO.
There have been three major reforms in China’s agricultural system since the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949 (Chen and Davis, 1998). ... Starting in the mid 1950s, China collectivized its agricultural system by forcing individual farmers to join cooperatives. ... Private agricultural purchasing and distribution networks were replaced by the state’s unified procurement and marketing system. ... In the late 1970s and early 1980s, China broke with the Soviet Union model and introduced a third agricultural reform – the household responsibility system (Chen and Davis, 1998).
Under the household responsibility system (HRS), the agricultural land controlled by the former collectives was contracted to individual households. ... The system proved to be efficient, and soon became popular. In 1983, 98 percent of the rural villages had adopted the HRS (Wu, 1997), and although there have been adjustments to the HRS, it is still the official agricultural system of China today.
The state also reformed the pricing system for agricultural products. ... China was now self-sufficient in food, and in 1985 the Chinese became net exporters of grain after being net importers for twenty-five years (Lin, 1997). ... In 1986, a survey conducted by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture reported that an average rural household in China controlled five small land areas on approximately 0,8 ha each. ... The farmer, on the other hand, had to use considerable time moving between the different land areas of the household. ... However, land tenure in many areas of China remains insecure. ... The two-land system (TLS) addresses the problems of land fragmentation and the use of insufficient human capital.
Approximate Word count = 2238
Approximate Pages = 9
(250 words per page double spaced)
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