China

General information

• GNI per capita PPP$, 2000: 3,920
• Internal renewable water resources: 2,800 km³
• Main food consumed: rice, wheat, meat, maize, roots, and tubers
• Rice consumption, 1999: 90.7 kg milled rice per person per year

China is situated between 18° and 54° N latitude and 73° and 135° E longitude. Marked by topographical variety and complexity, China's landmass is made up of mountains (33%), plateaus (26%), basins (19%), plains (12%), and hills (10%). China lies in four AEZs, all of which are subtropical and include some temperate areas. They are AEZ 5, warm arid and semiarid subtropics with summer rainfall; AEZ 6, warm subhumid subtropics with summer rainfall; AEZ 7, warm/cool humid subtropics with summer rainfall; and AEZ 8, cool subtropics with summer rainfall. Rice is produced primarily in AEZs 6 and 7.

China's climatic features include a pronounced monsoon climate with a hot summer and a cool winter, marked seasonal variations in precipitation, and a distinctive continental climate with large annual temperature fluctuations. The climate types are so varied and complex that high rainfall, cold waves, and typhoons are all important climatic phenomena. China can be divided from the coastal areas to the northwest interior into four regions according to moisture regime: (1) the humid region south of the Qinling Mountains and Huaihe River, comprising 32% of total land area, (2) the subhumid region including most of northeastern and central China, 15%, (3) the semiarid region, 22%, and (4) the arid region, 31%.

China is the most populous country in the world. The 1999 population on the mainland was nearly 1.3 billion, with about 66% living in rural areas. Three-fourths of the nation's population is concentrated in the northern, northeastern,
eastern, and south-central areas, which make up only 44% of the nation's land area. The remaining one-fourth of the population is dispersed in the southwestern and northwestern parts. Because of an active family planning program, including some restrictions on family size, annual population growth slowed from 2.6% per annum in the late 1960s to just 0.9% per annum in the late 1990s.

Recent developments in the rice sector
Rice is the staple food of China and accounts for about 35% of total grain production, which was 345 million t in 2000 (converting paddy to its milled rice equivalent). However, wheat is more important in some areas, especially in the North. Although rice is still a large part of people's diets, its importance has declined considerably in the past 15 years. Since 1985, the share of total calories obtained from rice has fallen from 38% to 30%. During this same period, the share of total calories coming from wheat has declined only slightly, from about 22% to 19%. In terms of protein, rice and wheat each accounted for slightly more than one-fourth of total protein intake in the late 1980s, but during the 1990s this share declined sharply, and it now stands at slightly less than one-fifth for each cereal.

China is the world's largest rice producer, accounting for 32-35% of total world production (India has a larger rice area harvested, but lower per hectare yields). Except for Japan and the Republic of Korea, rice yields in China are the highest in Asia, due in part to favorable growing conditions. Rice area harvested has declined from its peak of 37 million hectares in the mid-1970s to just over 30 million ha today. The decline in area has been due to both economic reforms that reduced government requirements to grow rice and economic development that increased the opportunity cost of land. In recent years, much of the fall in rice area has occurred in coastal provinces such as Guangdong and Zhejiang. Hunan is the largest rice producing province, and most rice production is in the Yangtze River Valley (or further south) where ample supplies of water are available. However, rice production in northern China has increased substantially in recent years, with its share of national production nearly doubling from 7.6% in 1989 to 13.3% in 1999. Much of this increase has come in Heilongjiang and the other two northeastern provinces of Jilin and Liaoning, but production has also expanded noticeably in Henan and Shandong.

China regularly imports and exports rice each year. Imports exceeded exports in 1995 and 1996, but China has been a net exporter since then. In 1998 and 1999, it was the world's fourth largest rice exporter (in gross terms, not net), and its exports helped to stabilize world market rice prices in the face of a strong El Niño that severely disrupted production in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Rice environments
More than 90% of the rice area in China is irrigated, with only relatively small areas being cultivated under rainfed conditions. However, rice-growing conditions vary because of topography and weather. In southeastern China, high temperature and adequate rainfall make an ideal environment for rice during a long growth period, and many areas grow two crops of rice per year. In the Yangtze River Valley, much of the land is planted to a rice-wheat rotation. In northeastern China, low temperature, a short growth period, little rainfall, and lack of water limit the rice area. The varieties grown in this area are typically japonica and are considered to be of higher quality than rice grown in other areas. There are some scattered rice areas in arid and semiarid regions of northwestern China.

Production constraints
Total area harvested to all crops continues to increase in China. Area harvested to rice has declined during the past 25 years, however, because of crop diversification. (Rice formerly accounted for 26% of all crop area harvested in the mid-1970s, but more recently the share is just 20%.) At the same time, population continues to grow by about 13 million people per year. Until per capita rice consumption begins to decline because of rising wealth accompanied by dietary diversification (as has happened in Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand), rice yields will need to increase to meet consumption demand without resort to imports.

Water shortages in the north are another important production constraint. Although northern China has only 24% of the nation's water resources, it contains more than 65% of China's cultivated land. While water shortages constrain production in some areas, flooding is also a problem. Land salinization and soil erosion also pose challenges for continued development.

Although the population is still growing, increased labor demand in urban areas is drawing many people out of agricultural production and hurting yields. As a result, labor-saving technologies such as direct seeding (or seedling throwing) are becoming more common. Future trade liberalization under the World Trade Organization may also affect grain production, especially for wheat and maize, because domestic prices for these grains are substantially above world prices. For rice, however, domestic prices are approximately equal to world prices, and no large influx of imports is anticipated.

Production opportunities
Chinese scientists recently became the first in the world to prepare a draft sequence of the genome for the indica race of rice. Indica rice is by far the most widely planted in Asia, and this achievement has the potential to create many benefits for Asian producers and consumers of rice.

In seeking to alleviate the main constraints of land and water, Chinese scientists have also made substantial progress in improving yields and water productivity. China has developed the most successful varieties of hybrid rice in the world, and more than one-third of total rice area is currently planted to hybrids. More recently, scientists have developed irrigation techniques for rice that reduce water consumption by allowing intermittent drying of the paddy field, without sacrificing grain yields. The successful adaptation of aerobic rice (rice that is grown as an upland crop but still exhibits a substantial response to nitrogen fertilizer) to new areas would also allow rice to be grown in water-short environments. In the future, construction of canals from southern to northern China may also help to alleviate water shortages in the Yellow River Basin.

In other fields, there is also potential for improved fertilization strategies that increase nitrogen-use efficiency by improving splitting of nitrogen and reducing levels of nitrogen application. Opportunities also exist for reducing pesticide applications to improve farmer health and the quality of drinking-water supplies.

Since 1980, China and IRRI have cooperated on several research projects of mutual concern such as the exchange of rice germplasm to strengthen breeding programs; hybrid rice research to exploit heterosis in rice; shuttle breeding to speed the development of rice varieties with high yield potential, good quality, multiple resistance to insects and diseases, and wide adaptability; and natural resource management studies to improve fertilizer- and water-use efficiencies.

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