A September 1998 report from U.S. Embassy Beijing
Summary: According to an internal PRC State Land Bureau estimate, the PRC has forty percent more arable land than the official State Statistical Bureau (SSB) estimate of 93 million hectares. The new, higher figure has already begun to appear in some scholarly articles and press reports, however. The SSB, aware of the undercount for several years, finds adjusting China’s detailed statistical planted areas by crop and by province very difficult. Among reasons behind the lower SSB figures are efforts by local officials to avoid tax payments and to exaggerate productivity in their reports to the State Statistical Bureau. Improved technology such as LANDSAT satellite photography has made it much easier for the State Land Bureau to come up with an estimate of China’s total arable land than for the SSB to come up with local numbers that will add up to that total. Now local officials for tax base and other reasons are reluctant to increase their local planted area estimates. Adjustments of detailed statistical series by province and by crop awaits a consensus on just where the additional land is located. A Chinese agronomist told Embassy Environment, Science and Technology Officer that the higher arable land figures, combined with steady increases in productivity owing to improved plant varieties and family planning, will enable China to meet its food needs when the PRC population peaks at an estimated 1.6 billion people during the 2030s. The agronomist predicted that a new law to be promulgated next year will improve plant variety IPR. Improved IPR will stimulate increased research and investment in plant variety development by PRC seed companies and result in higher crop yields. The new figures show that China has more room to increase agricultural production but that current agricultural productivity is lower than previously estimated. End summary.
According to conversations Embassy Beijing Environment, Science and Technology Officer (ESTOFF) had with four Chinese scientists and a recent book, estimates on arable land by the PRC State Land Bureau [Guojia Tudi Ju, now part of the newly-established Ministry of Land and Resources] exceed the widely quoted official State Statistical Bureau estimate by forty percent. The SSB figures are based on reports from local officials while the higher State Land Bureau estimate is derived from LANDSAT photography and other survey data. Recent foreign studies such as the FAO-sponsored Census of Chinese Agriculture and a U.S. study which relied largly on satellite photography arrived at similar estimates. According to the scientists, the Land Bureau estimate is 1.92 billion mu [128 million hectares] compared with the State Statistical Bureau estimate of 1.4 billion mu [93 million hectares]. [Note: The mu is a traditional Chinese unit of land measure equal to one-fifteenth of a hectare.] The scientists said that the actual amount of arable land is probably over 2 billion mu [134 million hectares]. Once scientist told ESTOFF that the sudden jump in the arable land estimate will make year-on-year comparisons more difficult.
While there is growing consensus that China’s arable land now totals 130 million hectares, there have reportedly been difficulties in adjusting China’s statistical series for planted area by province and by crop to reflect the increased planted area. Provincial officials appear reluctant to increase their provincial figures for arable land because it would increase their tax base. On a recent trip to Southern China, an Embassy Beijing agricultural attache asked provincial officials how their figures would be affected by higher national figures for arable land. The officials replied that the increase in their province would be less than five percent and said that the new figures included areas planted in special economic zones and areas such as river beds and hillsides which should not be counted as agricultural land. The officials also said that newly developed land should not be counted since there are tax exemptions for newly developed land.
China maintains detailed statistical series for planted area by crop and by province. The new national figures will make necessary considerable adjustments in both of these series. These adjustments cannot be done until there is a consensus on where the additional 40 million hectares of arable land are located. In the meantime, the official SSB statistics for planted land remain well below the new national estimates for planted area.
A Chinese Academy of Sciences researcher last May told ESTOFF that when Premier Zhu Rongji visited the Academy that month, the Premier said that the unreliability of Chinese official statistics is a severe obstacle to intelligent policy making. Higher quality statistical information is badly needed, Premier Zhu told the scientists.
The State Statistical Bureau arable land estimate is based on reports from local governments throughout China. The State Land Bureau relies on LANDSAT satellite photography and surveys to arrive at its estimate. LANDSAT satellite photographs received by the Chinese Academy of Sciences ground station near Beijing have considerably influenced Chinese government land use policy. LANDSAT photographs showing that agricultural land is being lost to urbanization three times faster than previously estimated led to a Spring 1997 emergency State Council order. The order froze transfers of agricultural land to other uses and the strict provisions on agricultural land transfer in the PRC Land Management Law released on August 29, 1998. The new law, published in People’s Daily on August 31, requires that transferring large amounts of agricultural land to non-agricultural use must be directly approved by the State Council. Another important use of satellite photography in land use studies has been measuring farmer encroachment on lakes and riverbeds. These encroachments were among the principal causes of the disastrous 1998 summer floods.
According to an article on p. 31 in the June 1998 book “The Brilliance of Wisdom -- The Third Chinese University Invitational Debate Tournament” [Zhihui zhi guang - di sanju zhongguo mingxiao bianlun yaoqing sai jishi] published by Fudan University Press, “According to an estimate by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Comprehensive Research Survey Committee, China’s natural environment can support a maximum population of 1.5 to 1.6 billion people. Overpopulation has already resulted in shortages of essential materials. According to the estimate of the 1996 National Land Use Survey [Quanguo tudi diaocha zhuangkuang diaocha], China’s arable land totals 2.0 billion mu [compared with the previous figure of 1.4 billion mu]. Although the new, higher estimate increases per capita land from 1.2 mu to 1.67 mu ... it also means that Chinese agricultural productivity is much lower than previously thought and the amount of land which remains to be opened up to agriculture is also much lower. Moreover in areas where economic growth is rapid, such as the fertile triangle enclosed by the Yangtze and Pearl Rivers, the best agricultural land in China is being lost to non-agricultural uses.”
A Chinese agronomist told ESTOFF recently that the higher Land Bureau estimate is already used in some open Chinese-language scholarly literature. Last year, according to the agronomist, the Minister of Agriculture said that that the arable land figure was much higher than the Statistical Bureau figure but he was not allowed to give out the figure. The Ministry of Agriculture has since apparently received permission to use the higher figure since it will appear, said the agronomist, in the 1997 China Agriculture Yearbook [Zhongguo Nongye Nianjian] to be published later this Fall. The English-language China Daily on April 29, 1998 used the new figures, stating in a report that “China has 130 million acres of arable land, nearly ten percent of the world’s total”. Theretofore Chinese press reports had typically claimed that China has seven percent of the world’s arable land.
A Chinese agronomist told ESTOFF recently that the higher Land Bureau figures show that China has great potential to increase production in order to feed a population that will peak at about 1.6 billion people in the year 2030. The agronomist said that improved plant varieties were responsible for one-third of China’s rapid agricultural productivity gains over the last fifteen years. Germ plasm and improved varieties from the United States continue to play a central role in improving Chinese agriculture, said the agronomist, who pointed to the improved disease-resistant variety of cotton introduced to Hebei Province.
The agronomist said that unlike the U.S., Chinese seed companies employ few researchers to create new varieties. The agronomist said that improved intellectual property protection for improved plant varieties will protect increased PRC private investment and research in this area. The agronomist said that China may join an international convention on the protection of plant variety intellectual property as early as the end of this year. A new PRC plant variety intellectual property law now being circulated for comment which may be published next year will provide significant new protections to PRC plant variety developers, said the agronomist. Some foreign companies now unwilling to promote new varieties in China out of IPR concerns will enter the Chinese market once plant variety IPR has been strengthened, said the agronomist. The agronomist concluded that the increased arable land revealed by the Land Bureau survey, improved varieties and family planning will enable China to essentially meet its food requirements.
Comment: China has had recurring “Lester Brown” debates on Chinese food security over the past several years. New, higher figures on total arable land mean that grain yields are probably far lower than previously stated. China thus has more room to increase grain production. Embassy Beijing reports on Landsat in China, the reaction of Chinese leaders to land use information from satellite photographs, on the Chinese internal food security debate, and on the Summer 1998 Yangtze River flooding are available on the U.S. Embassy Beijing web page at http://www.usembassy-china.gov/english/sandt/index.html
This is a joint report of the Foreign Agricultural Service Office and Environment, Science and Technology Section at U.S. Embassy Beijing.