New Horizons for Rural Reform in China: Resources, Property Rights, and Consumerism

China’s agricultural development in recent decades is impressive. Its farmers continue to feed the world’s largest population and China’s crop yields are well above global averages. Yet rural incomes have been stagnating, with wide and growing geographic disparities. Overall, China’s median net per capita rural income is low, estimated at US$317 in 2003. Nevertheless, Chinese agricultural development faces other challenges. In China’s northern region, for example, water use appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory. The chemical intensity of Chinese farming is high by global standards and is a growing source of public health risk. Technologically, China could benefit from advances in biotechnology and irrigation science, but the successful deployment of these technologies will also depend on well-functioning institutions. In this article, we introduce a reform agenda to address China’s rural poverty and sustainability challenges, based upon an assessment of the primary resources used in China’s agricultural sector: labor, land, water and technology. The reform agenda we present is unconventional, but we believe it opens new opportunities for meeting China’s objectives for rural and national economic growth, water and environmental sustainability, and food security.