Chinese History and Statistics -- Page 22

Corn

Corn is the third leading food grain, totaling about 20% of total food grain. Kaoliang and millet, most important in the drier areas of the north, northeast, and northwest, are giving way to higher-yielding corn. Sweet potatoes, more popular than white potatoes, are widely grown for food throughout China, as are rapeseed, peanuts, and soybeans, from which oil and other foods are produced. The most important commercial crop is cotton. Output peaked in 1984, when about 6,100,000 metric tons (6,724,000 U.S. tons) of cotton lint were produced, and has subsequently declined.

Livestock

The principal livestock raised are pigs and chickens. In 1988, China had over 342,000,000 pigs and an estimated 1,100,000,000 chickens, more than any other country in the world. Efforts are underway to increase production by introducing large-scale, mechanized pig and poultry farms.

Other livestock play a minor role in traditional Chinese agriculture and are significant only in areas unsuited to traditional intensive farming methods. Cattle are mainly raised on northern frontier lands, and sheep and goats are raised mainly in the steppes of Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang and the high mountains of Tibet and the western provinces.

After 1978, Chinese agriculture rapidly moved toward commercialization and diversification. The share of farming in the gross rural output value declined from 68.9% in 1980 to 49.6% in 1987 while the share of rural industry rose from 19.5% to 34.8%. Rural construction, transportation, and commerce also increased, from 11.6% to 15.6% with further gains predicted.