40 years of China’s rural reform: review and prospect

Baozhong Su (College of Economics and Management, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China)

China Agricultural Economic Review

ISSN: 1756-137X

Article publication date: 5 February 2018

3376

Citation

Su, B. (2018), "40 years of China’s rural reform: review and prospect", China Agricultural Economic Review, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 2-2. https://doi.org/10.1108/CAER-12-2017-0236

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited


40 years of China’s rural reform: review and prospect

2018 marks China’s 40th anniversary of reform and opening-up, and also the 40th anniversary of rural reform. In the past four decades of social change, by the opportunely transformation of traditional operating system, rural reform contributed to the whole process of China’s reform and opening-up and modernization construction, and itself has obtained an unprecedented development.

Over the past four decades, China’s reform and opening-up policy has made splendid achievements. Both the level of productivity and the power of government are extraordinary improved after more than 30 years of plentiful growth, and China now is the second largest economy, which created a miracle in the history of world economy. At the same time, the Chinese economy is undergoing two major changes – the shift of economic growth from high rate to medium-high rate and the shift of economic development mode from extensive growth to intensive growth. Currently, the former is nearly completed, while the latter obviously falls behind.

40 years of China’s rural development has achieved historical leaps and bounds. Aggregate balance of grain and other agricultural products supply is obtained, overall agricultural production capacity has improved significantly, rural economic structure has improved and upgraded constantly, and farmers’ income has increased steadily. Rural basic operation system is completely established and perfected. And last but not the least, urban and rural integration strategy is implemented and promoted constantly. The enormous achievement of agriculture and rural development provided strong support for the China’s economic miracle.

However, admittedly, there are many challenges, such as food security, land system reform, growth mode transformation, financial system innovation, farmers’ urbanization, and comprehensive, coordinated, and sustainable development, facing China’s rural development. Rural area has in large part become the biggest weakness of China’s deepening reform, although it was the pioneer of China’s reform 40 years ago.

As a result, more than celebrating the 40th anniversary of China’s rural reform, in 2018, the Editorial Office of China Agricultural Economic Review will organize a series of invited papers to review the development and change of the 40 years in agriculture and rural area from different aspects, and look ahead to what needs to be achieved in the future.

The special section of this issue includes papers related to agricultural surplus laborers’ transfer and reallocation, farmland institution reform, farmers’ subsidy system, agricultural organizations and the role of farmer cooperatives, agri-environment policy for grain production, food consumption, rural education, and rural energy policy. We believe that these works will contribute to the current debates on agriculture and rural development in China and other countries with similar national conditions.

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