What Will Make Chinese Agriculture More Productive?

This paper reviews China's development strategies in agriculture, the reforms that it has pursued in the past for achieving its current level of food security, raising agricultural productivity and augmenting farm income. It evaluates the effects that these strategies and reforms have had on agricultural production, with emphasis on the role of technology innovation and adoption. Finally, we seek to identify constraints and challenges that China will face and to analyze the scope for further agricultural and rural reforms. In particular, three scenarios with different underlying assumptions of technology investment and trade liberalization are presented to highlight the potential impact on grain self-sufficiency.