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Cotton production by family farms in China: Strengths and weaknesses of its integration into a market economy |
Cahiers Agricultures. Volume 15, Number 1, 42-53, Janvier-Février 2006 - Le coton, des futurs à construire, Étude originale
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 Résumé
Article gratuit
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Author(s) : Michel AC Fok, Weili Liang, Jian Wang, NaiYin Xu |
Summary : China is not only the leading cotton producer worldwide but has become a structural importer. The wide-scale adoption of genetically modified cotton (GMC) has led some observers to assume that Chinese production will increase substantially, thereby limiting its demand from structural cotton-exporting countries. During negotiations for the WTO Doha Round, fear of China’s power in the cotton sector has been transformed into criticism of what is called its unfair subsidy policy. Both of these views are debatable and suffer from a lack of insight about the development of cotton production in China. This paper attempts to document the debate and to fill that gap. Cotton production in China is located is three main regions, along the Yellow River Valley, the Yangtze River Valley and in the Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region, where cotton production only began in the 1970s. This production cannot be considered separately from Chinese agriculture in general, which is currently undergoing great changes. Despite high yields, agricultural activities no longer ensure sufficient income to farmers. Off-farm activities keep the revenue of rural households from falling further behind that of urban households, but agriculture does not appear to attract the workers of rural areas, and this depopulation raises questions about the fate of farming in the years to come. Its shift towards provinces located further from the economically dynamic coastal areas depends upon the implementation of recent policies intended to correct the income disparities from which rural areas suffer. Cotton is still produced according to the high input/high output approach associated with policies to protect farmers against climatic hazards and economic risks, through input subsidies and purchase price guarantee. Although China stopped providing direct subsidies to cotton growers when it joined the WTO, intensification of production continues, and the use of GMC can be regarded as a further stage of this intensification process. This relation between past policy and GMC use must be considered before extrapolating Chinese achievements with the latter to other developing countries. The lack of collective action by farmers impedes the success of the intensification process, makes cotton farming less profitable, and may endanger the sustainable use of GMC by causing undesirable shifts of the cotton pest complex. It is doubtful that China can reverse its importing position in the cotton world market in the short run. While this may reassure cotton-exporting countries, it must not prevent them from taking measures to increase their competitiveness through improved productivity. |
Keywords : vegetal productions, economy and rural development |
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