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China PRODUCTION
Five economic activities generated the bulk of agricultural
output: crops, livestock, forestry, fishery, and sideline
production (rural industry). Crop raising was the dominant
activity, generating as much as 80 percent of the total value of
output in the mid-1950s. The policy of stressing crop output was
relaxed in the early 1980s, and by 1985 this figure fell to about
50 percent. The proportion of output generated by the livestock,
forestry, and fishery sectors increased slowly after the 1950s. The
sector that expanded the most rapidly was sideline production,
whose share increased from 4 percent in 1955 to 30 percent in 1985.
The results of China's agricultural policies in terms of output
have been mixed. Food consumption was maintained at subsistence
level despite the catastrophic drop in production following the
Great Leap Forward but failed to increase much above that level
until the 1980s. Investment in irrigation and water control
projects blunted the effects of severe weather on output, but in
many parts of the country production continued to be negatively
affected by the weather. Production rates varied considerably
throughout the country, creating income inequalities. Despite rapid
gains in rural areas in the 1980s, a substantial gap remained
between rural and urban living standards
(see Differentiation
, ch.
3).
Data as of July 1987
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