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China Food
While food production rose substantially after 1949, population
increases were nearly as great until the 1980s. Production of
grain, the source of about 75 percent of the calories in the
Chinese diet, grew at an average rate of 2.7 percent a year between
1952 and 1979, while population growth averaged almost 2 percent a
year. Total grain output per capita grew from 288 kilograms a year
in 1952 to 319 kilograms in 1978, an increase of only 11 percent in
26 years. In 1984, however, a remarkably good harvest produced 396
kilograms of grain per capita, an increase of 24 percent in only 6
years. In 1985 grain output fell below the peak level of 1984, to
365 kilograms per person, and recovered only partially in 1986 to
369 kilograms per capita
(see table B
;
Crops
, ch. 6).
Table B. Economic Indicators, Selected Years, 1952-86
_______________________________________________________________
Unit 1952 1957 1965 1970 1975 1980 1983 1984 1985 1986
_______________________________________________________________
GNP1 ......... billions of 1985 33 50 65 96 126 169 210 239 268 288
United States
dollars2
Population ... millions 575 647 725 830 924 987 1,025 1,035 1,045
1,060
Per capita 1985 United 57 77 89 116 136 171 205 231 257 272
GNP ........ States dollars3
Grain ........ millions of 164 195 195 240 285 321 387 407 379 391
tons
Cotton ....... -do- 1.3 1.6 2.1 2.3 2.4 2.7 4.6 6.3 4.1 3.5
Crude steel .. -do- 1.3 5.3 12.2 17.8 23.9 37.1 40.0 43.5 46.8 51.9
Crude oil .... -do- 0.4 1.5 11.3 30.7 77.1 105.9 106.1 114.6 124.9
130.7
Coal ......... -do- 66 131 232 354 482 620 715 789 872 883
Agricultural 100 120 123 142 169 188 248 283 302 313
production n.a.
index ......
Industrial 100 245 478 855 1,271 1,911 2,222 2,524 2,966 3,239
production n.a.
index ......
Exports ...... billions of 1985 0.8 1.6 2.2 2.3 7.3 18.3 22.2 26.1
27.4 30.9
United States
dollars2
Imports ...... -do- 1.1 1.5 2.0 2.3 7.5 19.5 21.4 27.4 42.3 42.9
_________________________________________________________________
n.a.--not applicable.
1 Gross national product.
2 Converted from 1985 yuan at the average 1985 exchange rate of
US$100 = -Y293.67.
3 GNP expressed in constant United States dollars does not fully
reflect China's national economic performance because of
differences in income definitions, inaccurate prices, and exchange
rate changes unrelated to economic forces.
Sources: Based on information from State Statistical Bureau,
People's Republic of China, Statistical Yearbook of China
1986, Hong Kong, 1986; and China Daily, various issues,
1987.
Other important food items that remained in short supply before
the economic reforms included edible oil, sugar, and aquatic
products. Production of oil-bearing crops increased at an average
rate of about 2 percent a year from 1952 to 1979, and annual
consumption of edible oil was less than 2 kilograms per person in
1979. Between 1978 and 1985, output grew at over 16 percent a year,
and annual consumption increased to 5.1 kilograms per person. Sugar
production grew at an average annual rate of 4.5 percent after
1952, but in 1979 consumption per person still was only 3.5
kilograms per year. From 1979 to 1985, sugar production grew by 10
percent a year, and the total amount of sugar available per person
rose to 5.6 kilograms in 1985. Output of aquatic products rose at
an average rate of only 2 percent a year between 1957 and 1978 and
declined slightly in 1979; between 1979 and 1985, however, output
grew at an average rate of 8.5 percent a year, and individual
annual consumption rose from 3.2 kilograms to 4.9 kilograms.
Pork, eggs, and vegetables were increasingly available before
the 1980s
(see Animal Husbandry
, ch. 6). Annual consumption of
pork--the most commonly eaten meat in China--grew from 5.9
kilograms per person in 1952 to 7.5 kilograms per person in the
mid-1970s. In 1979 a sharp increase in procurement prices for pork
brought about a surge in supply--to 9.6 kilograms per person.
Beginning in 1980, availability increased steadily, reaching 14
kilograms of pork per capita in 1985, an increase of 9 percent each
year from 1978. Consumption of fresh eggs followed a similar
pattern, climbing from an average of just over one kilogram per
person in 1952 to almost two kilograms in 1978. The economic
reforms elicited rapid increases in the supply of eggs, as they had
with pork, and by 1985 consumption had more than doubled, to 5
kilograms of eggs per person a year, for an increase of over 14
percent a year.
Vegetables were the major supplement to grain in the Chinese
diet and were very important nutritionally. In 1957 annual
vegetable consumption per capita in Chinese cities averaged 109
kilograms and by 1981 had grown to 152 kilograms. Household survey
data indicated that in 1985 vegetable consumption had leveled off,
at 148 kilograms per person per year in urban areas and 131
kilograms in the countryside, as people used their higher incomes
to increase their purchases of more expensive foods, such as meat,
fish, and edible oil.
As of the late 1970s, famine and malnutrition were no longer
major problems in China, but the average diet lacked variety and
provided little more than basic nutritional requirements. Protein,
in particular, was barely adequate for health maintenance. By the
mid-1980s the availability of food had improved dramatically.
Bustling street markets offered a good variety of fruits and
vegetables throughout the year, and per capita consumption of
high-protein foods--meat, poultry, eggs, and fish--increased by 63
percent over the 1979 level, to nearly 27 kilograms a year in 1985.
Data as of July 1987
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