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Earth Policy News - OUTGROWING THE EARTH: China's Harvest Decline

Coming this February …

OUTGROWING THE EARTH: THE FOOD SECURITY CHALLENGE IN AN AGE OF FALLING
WATER TABLES AND RISING TEMPERATURES by Lester R. Brown (W.W. Norton &
Co.)

>From Chapter 8: Reversing China’s Harvest Decline

The phenomenal rise in China’s grain production from 90 million tons in
1950 to 392 million tons in 1998 was one of the great economic success
stories of the late twentieth century. But in 1998 production peaked and
turned downward, falling to 322 million tons in 2003. As noted in Chapter
1, this drop of 70 million tons exceeds the entire grain harvest of
Canada. Thus any attempt to expand the world grain harvest enough to
rebuild depleted world grain stocks starts with reversing the decline in
China.

Virtually all of China’s production decline of nearly 18 percent from 1998
to 2003 is the result of a 16-percent shrinkage in grain area. Several
forces are at work here, as described in Chapter 5. Cropland is being
converted to nonfarm uses at a record rate, including industrial and
residential construction and the paving of land for roads, highways, and
parking lots. With deserts expanding by 360,000 hectares (1,400 square
miles) a year, drifting sands are covering cropland in the north and west,
making agriculture impossible. The loss of irrigation water is also
reducing the harvested area, particularly of wheat, which is grown in the
northern, drier regions of the country.

In 2004 China’s improved grain harvest, lifted by a substantial rise in
the rice support price and unusually favorable weather, was expected to
regain 21 million of the 70-million-ton-drop of the preceding five years.
Even with this projected production increase, China’s harvest in 2004 will
still fall short of consumption by 35 million tons. And there are several
worrying trends that undermine the hope that the harvest will rise
consistently again anytime soon.

To read the entire chapter, go to
http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Out/Contents.htm

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