数据

Spatiotemporal expansion and methane emissions of rice-crayfish farming systems in Jianghan Plain, China

Too many men, too-short lives: The effect of the male-biased sex ratio on mortality

Using a natural experiment in Taiwan, this paper shows that, for men, exposure to male-biased sex ratios at a marriageable age is associated with a greater likelihood of death in later life. In the late 1940s, over half a million soldiers from mainland China retreated to Taiwan after a civil war and were initially subjected to a marriage ban. When the ban was lifted in 1959, the great influx of mostly male soldiers into the marriage market suddenly tipped the balance in favor of women. We have found that men subjected to this massive marriage market squeeze exhibited higher mortality rates at ages 50-64. We offer several possible explanations. Surprisingly, an elevated mortality rate, albeit of a much smaller magnitude, was also observed among the women of the relevant age groups. We show that this is likely driven by the widowhood effect—women’s mortality rate increased after their husbands’ deaths.

Determining rapeseed lodging angles and types for lodging phenotyping using morphological traits derived from UAV images

Temperature and low-stakes cognitive performance

Catch up with my husband as I can: Women’s decision-making power consequences of China’s poverty alleviation relocation program

What does it take to revolutionize Chinese diets: Evidence from a choice experiment on urban Chinese consumers

Impact of climate change on global food security and coping measures

The threat of climate change to global food security cannot be ignored. Climate change affects all dimensions of food security, including food production, access, utilization and stability. Changing temperatures and precipitation change the water and heat conditions for plant growth, damage the physiological processes of plant development, and extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, heat waves, and hurricanes cause direct losses in food production. Changes in food supply lead to price fluctuations in the world food market. At the same time, some countries have adopted export restrictions and agricultural support policies to ensure stable domestic food supply and price stability, disrupting international agricultural product trade and exacerbating food security issues in countries that rely on agricultural product imports. Extreme weather events damage infrastructure such as transportation, logistics, energy, and communications, inhibiting the smooth flow of supply chains and reducing logistics efficiency. Food price fluctuations and income shocks brought about by climate change reduce residents' purchasing power, affect residents' food demand and utilization methods, and lead to reduced meals, fewer meals, skipped meals, less nutritious foods, and more high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt, high-energy foods to satisfy hunger. The pressure that climate change brings to people's physical and mental health has also further affected people's food consumption and nutrient intake. With the intensification of pest and disease activities and damaged transportation, food safety issues are becoming more and more worrying. In addition, climate change brings many challenges, such as violent activities, regional conflicts, forced migration, and endangered fragility and climate resilience. The stability of the food system has been impacted, exacerbating global food insecurity. The transformation of the agricultural food system is the key to responding to the climate crisis. By promoting and integrating agricultural innovation, developing climate-smart agriculture, promoting trade openness, and strengthening infrastructure and social security system construction, the climate resilience of the agricultural food system can be improved. At the same time, the role of climate finance should be brought into play, and financing channels should be actively expanded to promote the transformation of the agricultural food system and ensure global food security.
JEL Codes: F316.11, S162.5

The mechanisms behind consumer behavior changes of sugar-sweetened beverage tax and policy implications

Sugar-sweetened beverage（SSB）tax could impact consumer behaviors through price and non-price mechanisms. Price mechanism affects SSB consumption through price changes, relative price changes, or expected price changes in the future respectively. Non-price mechanism changes SSB consumption by reminding consumers of the adverse health impact of SSB consumption, guiding individual consumption through social norms, utilizing the correlation of SSB consumption among peers, and through consumers′ psychological responses respectively. In comparison with the price mechanism of SSB tax, the non-price mechanism originates from multiple factors and may function far before the formal implementation of the tax, which implies that non-price mechanism could be more effective in reducing SSB demand than price mechanism. Therefore, utilizing media publicity, exerting social normative effects, and promoting tax system innovation are proposed to effectively reduce SSB demand.

JEL Codes: F426.82, F812.42

A conceptual framework of living labs for people for sustainable food systems

Innovation spaces are often dominated by linear, top-down approaches, with the transfer of technology being seen as the solution to many problems rather than trying to understand which innovation processes people are engaging with themselves. In other words, barriers to progress are typically viewed as issues of technology adoption, not as part of the innovation process itself. This study contributes to changing the paradigm by proposing a living lab approach, which considers innovation as an adaptive process where stakeholders co-produce knowledge and collaborate based on inclusivity and empowerment. Our specific concept for this approach is called a Living Lab for People (LL4P). This conceptual paper outlines a framework to guide the development of a LL4P that remains flexible to be adapted for specific sites. While we seek to identify common denominators, we recognize the necessity for such a framework to remain open enough to be adaptable for varied contexts. Consequently, the framework draws on the living lab literature but tailors existing approaches for sustainable food system transformation and puts people (men, women, and marginalized groups among key food system actors) at the center of innovation processes with a clear intention to address power and social inequity. We draw on specific cases in China, Colombia, Kenya and Vietnam as learning grounds for formulating LL4Ps through locally led innovation processes. Based on our learnings and consultations, we define a LL4P as an inclusive and diverse space for people to advance their socio-technical innovation processes and associated modes of governance within a facilitated organizational structure. The principles of LL4Ps include co-production, gender equality and social inclusion, governance and institutional sustainability to advance existing and novel innovation processes. The practical experiences from applying this framework in the four case studies indicate alternative pathways for transforming the food system toward a sustainable and socially equitable trajectory through the establishment of a LL4P.

Parental migration and children’s dietary diversity at home: Evidence from rural China

There is a growing literature documenting the link between parental migration and children’s health. However, few studies have explained the underlying mechanism of this observed relationship. This paper examines the effect of parental migration on children’s health through dietary diversity, using survey data collected in a less developed prefecture in South Central China in 2018. To overcome the potential endogeneity of parental migration, we instrument parental migration with the proportion of households with migrated labor force at the village level, and find that parental migration reduces children’s dietary diversity at home. Moreover, we provide suggestive evidence that the reduction in dietary diversity may attribute to significant negative separation effects whereas minimal positive income effects in migrant-sending households. This study highlights the negative effects of labor migration on the next generation’s nutrition. In those developing countries with a high prevalence of labor migration, policies that facilitate access to dietary diversity of those left-behind children are warranted.

The intergenerational legacy of the 1959–1961 Great Chinese Famine on children’s cognitive development

2023 China and global food policy report: Promoting sustainable healthy diets for transforming agrifood systems

The current situation of global food and nutrition security is increasingly worrisome, and it is unfortunate that progress in eliminating hunger, food insecurity, and multiple forms of malnutrition has been hindered or even reversed by recent global events. It is estimated that globally, 702 million to 828 million people (8.9 to 10.5 percent) suffered from hunger in 2021, with 150 million added during the COVID-19 pandemic. Approximately 2.3 billion people are in a state of moderate or severe food insecurity, with 11.7 percent facing severe food insecurity. Nearly 3.1 billion people could not afford a healthy diet, which is an increase of 112 million from the last year. The causes of food insecurity are multifaceted, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis in Ukraine,and climate change. Simultaneously, income levels have been adversely affected, and prices have risen, reducing people’s ability to purchase food and making it unaffordable. Therefore, it is imperative for governments and other stakeholders to act collectively to improve the state of global food and nutritional health. Many countries, including China, have begun to pay more attention to the issue of agrifood systems and are proposing a transition to the multidimensional goals of nutrition and health, green and low-carbon, efficiency, resilience, and inclusiveness. At the international level, a series of high-level international conferences and action plans, such as the UN Food Systems Summit, the Nutrition for Growth Summit, and UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in 2021 and COP27 in 2022, have demonstrated the importance and urgency of promoting the transformation of agrifood systems. These conferences advocated for countries to work together to transform the way food is produced and consumed to build healthier, sustainable, and equitable food systems. At the domestic level, China has always regarded food security as a top priority for national development. In 2022, the total annual national grain output reached 686.53 million tons and has remained stable for eight consecutive years at more than 650 million tons. In 2022, the Chinese government emphasized the need to “establish a big food concept” and “strengthen the foundation of food security in all aspects” from the perspective of putting people first and better meeting their increasingly diversified food consumption needs. In light of the various risks and challenges posed by the contemporary era, safeguarding food security necessitates a shift from a narrow focus on food production to a more comprehensive consideration of the entire food supply chain. This entails promoting the development of a diversified food supply system and expanding the focus from mere quantity to encompassing multiple objectives related to the “quantity, structure, and quality” of food. Such an approach will serve to bolster the foundations of food security on all fronts.

Sino-Asia agricultural trade and development cooperation: Progress, challenges, and outlook

This book includes twelve chapters on agricultural trade and cooperation in Asia, which cover both the review of agricultural development in selected countries and analyses of their development linkages through trade and cooperation. Specific attention has been given to agricultural trade between China and the rest of developing Asia, as China has become the second largest country in agricultural trade, and the unique importance remains for trade partners in Asia due to geographic proximity. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we also reveal how the global regime of agricultural trade and the Sino-Asia agricultural trade, in particular, has been affected. Overall, the book aims to enhance understanding of the progress, challenges, and outlooks of the Sino-Asia agricultural trade and highlight the room for further cross-country collaborations in agricultural development.

The youth dividend and agricultural revival in India

Fifty-four per cent of India’s population is under 25 years of age and, as per the 2011 Population Census, close to 34 per cent of India’s rural population belonged to the age group 15–34. While the presence of a sizeable young population is believed to offer a demographic dividend, policy efforts to realize the dividend have not met with success. Poor prospects for livelihoods within agriculture, its declining importance as a sector in the national economy, and aspirations of rural youth and their parents to find futures in nonfarm sectors suggest that, like elsewhere, agriculture today is an unlikely option for the young in India. The chapter brings the question of youth in agriculture into focus. Despite a large share of rural youth involved in farming, there is limited research or policy attention on the issues and challenges that they face around farming, non-farm opportunities, succession, and intergenerational transfer of resources and knowledge. It makes the case for improving the livelihood prospects within agriculture in a context of changing youth aspirations. We argue that a clearer understanding of the issues is essential to frame a nuanced approach to support the role of youth in agriculture and the role of agriculture in youth livelihood strategies.

Improving agricultural field parcel delineation with a dual branch spatiotemporal fusion network by integrating multimodal satellite data

China’s accession to the WTO and its impact on global agricultural trade

China’s rapid rise as a leading global exporter of manufacturing goods since its accession to the WTO in 2001 has been the focus of both admiration and, increasingly, concern (Mavroidis and Sapir, 2021). But it is sometimes overlooked that China is also a large importer of goods, particularly agricultural products. Since China’s accession to the WTO, China’s agricultural exports have increased by 8 per cent annually while imports have risen by almost twice that rate. China has become the world’s largest importer of agricultural products and the first or second largest destination for many of the world’s top agricultural exporters such as the US, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Argentina.

The political economy of bundling socio-technical innovations to transform agri-food systems

Agri-food systems transformation requires accelerated innovations to address multiple economic, environmental and health objectives. No innovation serves everyone’s interests. Political opposition to innovations is therefore inevitable. Promotion of agrifood systems innovations requires overcoming such opposition. One strategy is to bundle multiple technological, socio-cultural, policy, and/or institutional innovations to build political coalitions sufficient to champion bundled innovation that might not suffice to advance one-off innovations. Bundling can translate the potential Pareto improvements of individual innovations into actual Pareto improvements more likely to enjoy political support and advance multiple societal objectives simultaneously. This chapter lays out conceptually why bundling is therefore important for the political economy of innovation to transform agri-food systems. It then illustrates the logic using three cases from Asian agricultural development: China’s Science and Technology Backyards program, a comparison of genetic advances in Green Revolution and golden rice, and the contrasting cases of Bt brinjal in India and Bangladesh.

Rural e-commerce and county economic development in China

With the proliferation of information and communication technology in rural areas, rural e‐commerce has gradually become a new economic phenomenon in China. Using the national rural e‐commerce comprehensive demonstration policy as a quasi‐natural experiment, this study examines the causal linkage between rural e‐commerce and county‐level economic development in China. Its findings, which draw on county‐level panel data from 2011 to 2018, indicate that the policy had a positive effect on the county‐level economy in China, resulting in an overall increase in county GDP by 3.5 percent (0.7 percent annually). Our analysis further shows that the impact of the policy differed along the region and human capital dimensions. Further analysis reveals that industrial structure and nonagricultural employment were the main channels for the policy to exert a county‐level economic impact. Infrastructure improvement in China also plays an important role. The findings emphasize the importance of advancing e‐commerce in rural areas to stimulate county‐level economic development.

Domestically “Flying Geese”: Regional manufacturing investment flows within China

This paper examines the evolving patterns of bilateral city-to-city manufacturing investment flows from 2000 to 2015 in China, which are aggregated from detailed firm-level investment transactions based on the administrative business registration database. The coastal regions were a more favorable destination for manufacturing investment prior to 2006 despite their higher wage levels. Since then, the trend has reversed, that is, the inland regions have attracted a growing share of manufacturing investment. The pattern is more pronounced for labor-intensive manufacturing industries. The wage gap between coastal and inland cities is the main driver behind the giant “flying geese”—the relocation of manufacturing firms from coastal to inland areas.

Environmental sanitation and undernutrition among China’s children and adolescents from 1989 to 2011

Agricultural production diversity, child dietary diversity and nutritional status in poor, rural Gansu Province of China

Research has shown mixed findings on the link between production diversity and household dietary diversity. The question is whether this link holds for children. In this study we exam ine the relationship between household’s agricultural production diversity and child dietary diversity, and between production diversity and child nutritional status. Smallholder farm households (n = 1067) and children (n = 1067) aged 3–16 years from two then nationally designated poverty counties in Gansu Province of China were interviewed in 2019. Produc tion diversity was assessed with the production richness score and production diversity score. Production diversity was calculated from agricultural production data covering a period of 12 months. Child dietary diversity was assessed with food variety score (FVS) and dietary diversity score (DDS). DDS was calculated based on 9 food groups using a 30-day recall method. Data were analysed using Poisson and Probit regression models. We find that both agricultural production richness score and revenue generated from selling agricul tural products are positively associated with food variety score, with the relationship being stronger for the latter. Moreover, production diversity score is positively associated with chil dren’s dietary diversity score whereas negatively associated with their probability of being stunted, but not with their probabilities of being wasted or zinc deficient. Household social economics status were also positively associated with child dietary diversity.

Large-scale school meal programs and student health: Evidence from rural China

Reducing urban-rural gaps in child health is one of the most difficult challenges faced by many countries. This paper evaluates the impact of a large-scale school meal program in rural China on the health and nutritional status of students aged 6–16 in compulsory education. We use data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey corresponding to four pre-treatment years (2004, 2006, 2009, and 2011) and one post-treatment year (2015) and find that program participation is, on average, associated with a higher child height-for-age. The impacts are larger among students in a better health condition but small or not significant among the most disadvantaged. We do not observe heterogeneous effects across several individual and household characteristics. We also find positive but not significant effects on Body Mass Index-for-age and weight-for-age. The results suggest that NIP partially improved students' health over the first years of implementation, but more support is needed to achieve broader impacts that effectively reach all vulnerable students.

Towards a low-emission agrifood sector in the People’s Republic of China

Effects of eliminating the US–China trade dispute tariffs

This paper examines the economic implications of the tariff increases by the United States and by China during the Trump era trade dispute and the gains from their potential removal. The increases were dramatic, with the US raising tariffs on industrial products by a factor of six – with particularly large tariff increases on intermediate and capital goods – and China increasing its tariffs on US agricultural products more than five-fold. These changes distort trade and production decisions in both countries and undercut the global trading system. They resulted in substantial economic losses to each country, with import volumes reduced by 4.9% in China and 4.5% in the USA, and bilateral trade patterns were massively distorted. Their cost to the United States rose at the end of 2021, when the import expansion provisions of the Trump era Phase One Agreement expired. Negotiating the abolition of these costly and disruptive tariffs would generate substantial real income gains for both countries and help lower US consumer prices.

Information, mobile communication, and referral effects

This paper uses the universe of cellphone records from a Chinese telecommunication provider for a northern Chinese city to examine the role of information exchange in urban labor markets. We provide the first direct evidence of increased communication among referral pairs around job changes. Information provided by social contacts mitigates information asymmetry and improves labor market performance. (JEL D82, J62, O18, P23, P25, R23, Z13)

Chinese and Indian economic relations and development assistance to Zimbabwe: Rationale, controversies and significance

Recent economic relations including foreign assistance scenario in Africa show expansion of China and India as emerging bilateral partners, competing with traditional countries in Europe and North America. The results of this paper found that the relationship of China and India with Zimbabwe has resulted in several challenges including increasing resource-backed debt burden, exploitation of the natural resources, and flouting of constitutional, environmental, and labor provisions. The paper recommends that the Zimbabwean government must demand loans and investments that are contracted under clear terms and conditions, with parliamentary oversight and public scrutiny to avoid abuse by the elites.

Techlex: A corporate practice to initiate inclusive agri-food value chain development in China

A tradeoff lies between inclusiveness and economic efficiency in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals such as poverty reduction, food security, and climate resilience. Vertical coordination between agribusinesses and farmers, in tandem with corporate social responsibility, has been perceived as an approach to surmount such tradeoff from a micro perspective. In a localized context of developing economies, the vertical coordination with farmers is reducible to a path for agribusinesses towards inclusive local value chain development (LVCD) at the grassroots level. However, few models are documented for agribusiness managers to refer to in practice. This study harnesses the Techlex Group and its pig business as a case, zooming in on the vertical coordination of agribusiness and vulnerable smallholders in lagging rural areas of China. Based on an overview of China’s pig industry and Techlex’s value chain, this study highlights three inclusive models and their alternatives for the LVCD. Though proffered in the Chinese context, those models can enrich the LVCD toolkit and be attuned to fit a different scenario.

The effects of FDI Liberalization on structural transformation and demographic change: Evidence from China

How does foreign direct investment (FDI) liberalization shape structural transformation and demographic change in developing countries? We provide new evidence on this question using five waves of Chinese census data between 1990 and 2015, exploiting quasi-exogenous variation in FDI liberalization induced by multiple waves of regulatory relaxation. We find that counties more exposed to liberalization experience a relative shift out of agricultural employment into manufacturing and services for both men and women. Exposure to FDI liberalization also reduces the probability of marriage, and induces a decline in the birth rate and the share of women with children.

Cropland displacement contributed 60% of the increase in carbon emissions of grain transport in China over 1990–2015

Rapid urbanization and population growth have increased the need for grain transportation in China, as more grain is being consumed and croplands have been moved away from cities. Increased grain transportation has, in turn, led to higher energy consumption and carbon emissions. Here we undertook a model-based approach to estimate the carbon emissions associated with grain transportation in the country between 1990 and 2015. We found that emissions more than tripled, from 5.68 million tons of CO2 emission equivalent in 1990 to 17.69 million tons in 2015. Grain production displacement contributed more than 60% of the increase in carbon emissions associated with grain transport over the study period, whereas changes in grain consumption and population growth contributed 31.7% and 16.6%, respectively. Infrastructure development, such as newly built highways and railways in western China, helped offset 0.54 million tons of CO2 emission equivalent from grain transport. These findings shed light on the life cycle environmental impact within food supply chains.

Temperature and low-stakes cognitive performance

This paper offers one of the first evidence in a developing country context that transitory exposure to high temperatures may disrupt low-stakes cognitive activities across a range of age cohorts. By matching eight years of repeated cognitive tests among all the participants in a nationally representative longitudinal survey in China with weather data according to the exact time and geographic location of their assessment, we show that exposure to a temperature above 32 °C on the test date, relative to a moderate day within 22–24 °C, leads to a sizable decline in their math scores by 0.066 standard deviations (equivalent to 0.23 years of education). Also, the effect on the math test scores becomes more pronounced as people age, especially for males and the less educated. However, the test takers living in hotter regions or those with air conditioning installed on site are less vulnerable to extreme high temperatures, indicating the role of adaptation.

Rurbanomics for common prosperity: New approach to integrated urban-rural development

Challenges from the urban–rural disparity immensely burden the world's progress fulfilling Sustainable Development Goals and the goals' central promise, particularly for developing countries experiencing rapid structural change and urbanization. A knowledge gap lies between the epistemology of urban–rural disparity and the practice of integrated urban-rural development. This paper aims to provide a new approach to bridge the knowledge gap based on the recent Chinese experience.This qualitative research reviewed major economic and multidisciplinary studies regarding urban-rural development and the growth-equality tradeoff. Chinese experience is employed to showcase concrete challenges from the urban–rural disparity and how the proposed approach works for urban-rural integration.Theoretical and practical approaches with urban bias largely fail to counter the challenges. Building on China's recent practice probing beyond urban bias, IFPRI (2019) proposes the term rurbanomics with a highlight of equalized urban-rural economic partnership, whereafter Zhou and Chen (2021) enrich the term into a conceptual framework. This paper further improves rurbanomics as a new viable approach to integrated urban-rural development under the overarching goal of common prosperity. The approach prioritizes driving forces in the economic, demographic, eco-environmental, social institutional and technological aspects for the policy community to leverage. Long-term mechanisms are decerned to link urban-rural integration to common prosperity.China has leveraged ingredients of the rurbanomics approach in the political deployment to integrated urban-rural development. However, the application of this approach is yet to be adapted with local heterogeneities and live up to application's potential. Long-term mechanisms recommended by the rurbanomics approach will need to be carried out. Future improvements will need substantial theoretical extension and micro-level empirical studies.This paper streamlines the epistemological shreds regarding pursuits, challenges, global experiences and theoretical approaches of urban-rural development. The paper also develops rurbanomics to navigate urban-rural integration, Sustainable Development Goals and common prosperity. By decerning long-term mechanisms in the Chinese case accordingly, this paper provides clues for other economies to employ the new approach.

Does money matter for child nutrition? Exploration of a preschool nutrition program in rural South-Central China

大食物观引领下低碳减排与粮食安全的协同发展：现状、挑战与对策

The Greater Food approach implies a higher level of food security and puts forward higher requirements for agri-food system transformation in China.Meanwhile, the agri-food system has great potential for carbon sequestration and GHG emissions reduction, which can play an important role in achieving the goal of carbon neutrality.This paper aims to discuss how to achieve carbon neutrality in Chinese agri-food system under the Greater Food approach and further put forward the pathways of a win-win strategy of food security and a low-carbon agri-food system.Starting from the relation between the low-carbon agri-food system development and food security, this paper systematically analyzes the status quo, challenges, and pathways to achieve the goals of food security and low carbon.We find that the Greater Food approach oriented to demand provides a guideline for minimizing the trade-offs and identifying the synergy of food security and low-carbon agri-food systems.We conclude that transformation towards sustainable agri-food system can promote the realization of both goals.At present, the supply of major agri-food products in China can effectively meet the needs of Chinese residents.Meanwhile, China’s agri-food system had achieved its carbon neutrality in 2018,turning greenhouse gas emissions into a net carbon sink.However, with rising population and income in the future, the synergy between higher level of food security and low-carbon transformation of China’s agri-food system is still uncertain.Chinese agri-food system faces a number of challenges, including resource constraints, the dominance of smallholder farmers on the production side, unbalanced dietary structure, and sizable food loss and waste.The paper finally proposes the agri-food system transformation pathways under the Greater Food approach to overcome these challenges and achieve the win-win of lower GHG emissions and food security.

A method of deciding precision fertilization of rice based on spatio-temporal multi-modal knowledge graph of agriculture [in Chinese]

Mapping the potential northern limits and promotion extent of ratoon rice in China

Ratoon rice has emerged as a promising rice cropping system to improve grain production and reduce labor costs compared with traditional single/double rice in China. However, the potential planting areas of ratoon rice in China remain unclear. This research investigated the potential northern limits and promotion extent of ratoon rice in China by considering its climatic suitability based on the optimized maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model as well as terrain and land use conditions. The MaxEnt model derived by all environmental variables yielded a good performance, with average AUC (area under the curve) and TSS (true skill statistic) over the validation dataset of 0.940 and 0.825, respectively. The comparison with field samples and previous studies revealed the reliability of the derived potential promotion areas. Potential northern limits contained a closed curve surrounding the Sichuan Basin, and the other curve ran from Yunnan Province to Jiangsu Province. Safe promotion areas of ratoon rice in China were 472,003 km2, mainly located in Sichuan, Hubei, Guangxi and Hunan. Risky promotion areas were 74,150 km2, which were dominant in Henan, Anhui and Yunnan. Our study provides crucial information for rice planting pattern adjustment to alleviate national food insecurity caused by the loss of double rice.

Can information and communication technologies contribute to poverty reduction? Evidence from poor counties in China

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have received increasing attention in recent years as a promising means to address poverty challenges in rural China. This paper uses a unique three-wave panel data set of household surveys, collected from seven officially recognized poor counties in rural China during 2012–2018, to examine the effect of ICT adoption on poverty. The results show that ICTs contributed positively to poverty reduction in the sampled counties, which may have been primarily achieved through increased migration and off-farm income, instead of through improved agricultural production and farm income. This suggests that ICT development facilitated households escaping poverty by helping them diversify their livelihood strategies away from agriculture in remote mountainous areas. The findings highlight the importance of creating incentives to complement the opportunities brought by ICTs for local development. It is important to strike a balance between poverty reduction and food security objectives.

Theory, practice and upgrading of pairwise assistance: A literature review and inspiration

As a regional policy with distinct Chinese characteristics, the series of pairwise assistance policies play a key role in China’s poverty reduction, emergency management, regional governance, and other fields. Pairwise assistance policies are effective measures of narrowing regional gaps, promoting regional coordinated development, and optimizing the national governance system. Pairwise assistance policies are also very important to achieve common prosperity and boost Chinese-style modernization. Only a few studies focused on the topic of pairwise assistance, and there was no good summary review from the perspectives of the theoretical basis and practical experience of pairwise assistance.This paper summarizes the theoretical basis of pairwise assistance from the perspectives of horizontal transfer payment and input and transformation of production factors. The policy evolution of pairwise assistance in China is divided into four stages: the germination stage, development stage, improvement stage, and upgrading stage. Further, from economic and intellectual perspectives, the policy tools of pairwise assistance are analyzed. The practical effect of pairwise assistance is summarized from five aspects, which are economic driving, regional development coordination, poverty alleviation, governance, and public services. It is found that in the new era, pairwise assistance needs to refine the role of government, improve the enthusiasm of participants, and improve the efficiency of project implementation. We point out that future research on pairwise assistance should focus on the study of practical mechanisms, quantitative assessment of policy effect, and the scaling up of pairwise assistance models. This can further provide support to enhance the system building and improve the effectiveness of pairwise assistance policies.This paper contributes to the existing literature in four aspects: firstly, we attempted to sort out the economic theoretical basis for the implementation of pairwise assistance; secondly, we analyzed the possible paths and policy effectiveness of pairwise assistance to promote the socio-economic development of recipient areas; thirdly, we attempted to put forward targeted enlightenment for the optimization and upgrading of pairwise assistance based on the problems existing in the implementation of the policies, so as to meet the new requirements for the pairwise assistance in the new era; fourthly, we tried to summarize the possible gaps in existing related research and future research directions.With the gradual advancement of the process of Chinese-style modernization, the application field of pairwise assistance is more extensive. It is of great significance for us to summarize the practical experience of pairwise assistance in the past 40 years, to upgrade the pairwise assistance and conform to the development requirements of the new era. This paper can provide a useful reference for optimizing pairwise assistance, promoting economic development in underdeveloped areas, providing an experience for promoting coordinated regional development and upgrading the national governance system and governance capacity.

JEL Code: F127

Cluster-based agricultural development: A comparison between China and Africa

Clusters for high-value crops are ubiquitous in China and in African countries. Drawing from three case studies (potato cluster in China, medicinal and aromatic cluster in Egypt, and dates cluster in Tunisia), this chapter discusses the major challenges facing cluster development and the roles of different agents (e.g. entrepreneurs, business associations, and local governments). Cluster development involves supply-side or demand-side bottlenecks along the way, which are beyond the capacity of individual enterprises. Whether a cluster can develop to the next stage depends crucially upon whether the bottlenecks can be resolved. Because the bottlenecks are context- and temporal-specific, it would be impossible for a planner or outsider donor to prescribe a one-size-fits-all intervention to overcome all the binding constraints. Instead, local elites, such as business leaders and local officials, can play a greater role in identifying the emerging bottlenecks and figuring out indigenous solutions. In China, because local governments have an embedded interest in promoting local economic development, they are keen to provide local public goods or initiate joint actions to address the successive binding constraints and facilitate cluster development. By comparison, the role of the local government is more muted in Africa, limiting the growth potentials of agricultural clusters.

The political economy of reforming agricultural support policies

Agricultural support policies cost more than US$800 billion per year in transfers to the farm sector worldwide. Support policies based on subsidies and trade barriers are highly distortive to markets and are also regressive as most support is provided to larger farmers. On balance, the incentives this support creates appear to increase greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. In addition, some subsidies undermine the production of more nutrient-dense commodities that are otherwise critical for the improvement of dietary outcomes. This paper first highlights that better outcomes could be achieved if even a small portion of agricultural subsidies were repurposed into investments in research and development (R&D) dedicated to productivity-enhancing and emission-reducing technologies. This would create multiple wins — mitigating global climate change, reducing poverty, increasing food security, and improving nutrition. Nonetheless, the political economy challenges to doing so are sizeable. Because current support policies are often politically popular and serve well-organized interests, reform is difficult without committed political leadership and multilateral collaboration. Using several case studies of both successful and failed changes of agricultural support policies in China, India, and the EU and the United States, we highlight lessons learned about the political economy constraints on and possibilities for reform.

Integrated urban-rural development and common prosperity: Connotation, international experience and implementation path [in Chinese]

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China’s economicdevelopment has entered a new stage. Under the circumstances, the goal of “Common Prosperity” has attracted more and more attention over the past several years. China’s long-term implementation of urban-biased policies led to a huge gap between urban and rural areas for a long time and hindered the realization of common prosperity. The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward a new concept of “Integrated Urban-Rural Development” to solve the problem of unbalanced development between urban and rural areas. This study points out that integrated urban-rural development is an important path to achieve the goal of common prosperity due to the huge gap between urban and rural areas. Besides, narrowing the gap between urban and rural areas in various dimensions is also the main direction of common prosperity. Firstly, the study illustrates that through integrated urban-rural development, it is possible to (1) reduce the income gap between urban and rural areas to promote the realization of common prosperity in the material dimension; (2) facilitate the equal supply of basic public services between urban and rural areas to promote the realization of common prosperity in the dimension of rights; (3) balance urban and rural development capabilities to promote the realization of common prosperity in the dimension of development opportunities; (4) coordinate the construction of urban-rural spiritual civilization to promote the realization of common prosperity in the spiritual dimension; (5) stimulate the integration between urban and rural ecological environment to promote the realization of common prosperity in the ecological dimension. In addition, after sorting out the international experience of integrated urban-rural development, the study finds that major developed countries and some emerging countries have established (1) an urban-rural economic linkage mechanism of in-depth integration and benefit sharing; (2) an urban-rural ecological environment linkage mechanism of overall planning and sustainable development; (3) an urban-rural public service linkage mechanism of urban-rural equivalent and comprehensive coverage. Aiming at the goals of common prosperity concerning farmers’ rights, industrial development, education equity and ecological value conversion, the paper combines the opinions of the experts participating in the “Integrated Urban-Rural Development and Common Prosperity” academic seminar with literature to propose seven policy paths for integrated urban-rural development: (1) promoting urban-rural economic integration by achieving equal rights to urban and rural development; (2) taking advantage of industrial clusters development model to promote urban-rural economic integration; (3) improving the income distribution system to promote urban-rural economic integration; (4) promoting the ecological integration between urban and rural areas with the realization of ecological products value; (5) facilitating the integration of urban and rural public services with the cultivation of early childhood human capital; (6) stimulating the integration of urban and rural public services with the realization of education equity; (7) advancing the integration of urban and rural public services with the development model of “inter-village integration”. The paper reveals that urban-rural integration requires further institutional reform, as well as the different varieties of policies aiming at special demands. Therefore, grassroots innovation and careful consideration of the differences across different groups and different regions could be fully guaranteed to achieve common prosperity.

China’s fiscal expenditure on agriculture: Impact on the urban–rural income gap

Since the reform and opening-up in 1978, China’s income distribution gap has widened. The Gini coefficient of national residents’ income rose from 0.31 in 1981 to a historic high of 0.49 in 2008 and has continued to hover at a high of 0.46 in the recent years (Molero-Simarro, 2017; Li and Zhu, 2018; Luo et al., 2021). Narrowing the income gap between urban and rural residents is the key to reducing China’s Gini coefficient. The ratio of per capita income between urban and rural residents exhibited an overall growth trend before 2009, despite the increase in disposable income per capita of rural residents from 134 yuan in 1978 to 18,931 yuan in 2021. In 2007, the urban–rural income ratio exceeded 3:1 for the first time and contributed over 50% to the Gini coefficient of the national income distribution (Li and Wan, 2013). Since 2009, the urban–rural income gap has decreased; however, the decline has nearly halted post 2014. In 2021, the urban–rural income ratio was still as high as 2.5:1, almost equal to that in 1978 and larger than that in developed countries, which have a level of approximately 1:1 or lower.

Reforming support policies to improve Chinese nutrition and diet

On March 6, 2022, at the Fifth Session of the Thirteenth National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized that China needs to improve the lives and livelihoods of its people and to ensure an adequate food supply by providing enough meat, vegetables, fruit, and aquatic products for healthy diets. Understanding the changing trends of people’s dietary structure and encouraging people to eat more healthily is central to establishing the “Big Food” concept. The country should actively promote reform of the agricultural supply side in order to achieve a balance between the supply of, and demand for, various types of food and to better meet the increasingly diversified food consumption needs of the people.

Innovative finance mechanisms to protect water resources in the Xin’an River Basin

This brief shows how innovative financing can help cut agricultural pollution in the People's Republic of China’s Xin'an River Basin by plugging funding gaps for nature-based solutions that also mitigate against climate change. It highlights the importance of the basin that supplies drinking water to 10 million people and explains how insufficient financing is limiting the effectiveness of existing ecological compensation schemes. Offering policy recommendations to incentivize environmental protections, the brief details how two ADB-backed funds can be scaled up to support efforts by farmers and small businesses to make the watershed green, sustainable, and inclusive.

Reforming agricultural support policy for transforming agrifood systems: China and Global Food Policy Report 2022

Remarkable achievements in global food security have been made in the past several decades. Food production has grown significantly and outpaced the population growth. Household food consumption has increased, and undernourishment has declined dramatically. However, due to multiple risks and threats such as climate change, COVID-19, environmental degradation, trade frictions, and regional conflicts, global food security and nutrition face unprecedented challenges. In fact, the number of hungry people in the world has been increasing since 2015, with more than 800 million people now suffering from hunger. After decades of development, China has ended hunger. In the new development stage, the Chinese government has proposed even higher development goals; these include Healthy China 2030, Rural Revitalization, Ecological Civilization, Common Prosperity and Carbon Neutrality.

Repositioning agricultural support policies for achieving China’s 2060 carbon neutrality goal

Agrifood systems are both a contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and an important sector for achieving China’s 2060 carbon neutrality goal and mitigating climate change. Rising global temperatures and frequent extreme weather have greatly weakened agricultural production capacity (IPCC, 2021). The need to mitigate climate change by reducing GHG emissions has global consensus. In 2020, the Chinese government made an important commitment toward peaking its carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. Under China’s 2060 carbon neutrality goal, the contribution of agrifood systems to GHG emissions reduction cannot be ignored. According to estimates by the Academy of Global Food Economics and Policy (AGFEP) at China Agricultural University (AGFEP, 2021), GHG emissions from agrifood systems reached 1.09 billion metric tons (t) of CO2eq in 2018, accounting for 8.2 percent of total national GHG emissions. While ensuring food security as the top national priority, the combined measures can reduce GHG emissions by 47 percent by 2060, compared to 2020 levels; these measures include improving agricultural technologies, reducing food loss and waste, and shifting dietary patterns. When coupled with the carbon sequestration of land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF), agrifood systems can contribute significantly to achieving carbon neutrality (AGFEP, 2021).

Evolution of agricultural support policies

In recent decades, agricultural support policies in many countries have played an active role in promoting food production and reducing hunger and poverty. Remarkable achievements have been made globally in agricultural production, with rapid growth in output of agricultural products outpacing population growth. Populations’ food consumption has increased and the number of undernourished people has decreased significantly. Particularly in China, agricultural reforms that were initiated in the late 1970s have increased farmers’ incomes and improved dietary quality. By 2020, China had achieved a moderately prosperous society in all aspects and had eliminated hunger and poverty. This chapter reviews domestic and international agricultural support policies and their impacts. China's experience of developing agricultural support policies has been summed up in order to, on the one hand, provide a reference for other developing countries. On the other hand, China is now implementing new national development goals of nutrition and health, green and high quality development, common prosperity, and institutional opening. The analysis of the challenges being faced in the course of implementing the corresponding new agricultural support policies can help optimize these policies.

Repurposing agricultural support policies for improved nutritional outcomes and green and low-carbon development

China's economy has developed rapidly in recent years, achieved historic reductions in poverty, and has met the ambitious goal of creating a moderately prosperous society. In this new stage, the Chinese government has announced multiple development goals, including improving national nutrition and health, achieving green, low-carbon, and sustainable development, and achieving common prosperity, and made commitments to reach its carbon emission peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. Great changes have taken place in China's agrifood systems in this process, with a significant increase in agricultural productivity, extension of supply chains, an increased supply of agricultural products, and a significant improvement in residents’ food consumption, nutrition, and health. Agricultural support policies have played an important role in promoting agrifood systems transformation, increasing agricultural production, ensuring food quantity, and providing residents with abundant and diverse food.

Circular agriculture for sustainable and low-carbon development in the People’s Republic of China

Detailing the environmental impact of the PRC's previous high-growth agricultural policies, it outlines its plan to cut emissions from fertilizers, paddy fields, and livestock to help reach its 2060 carbon neutrality target. Drawing on ADB field studies, it recommends the PRC build institutional capacity, boost private investment, and develop bio-based value chains to create a low-carbon, circular model that helps the rural sector become more prosperous and sustainable.

MitigatePlus: Low-Emission Food Systems

The Mitigate+: Low-Emission Food Systems Initiative focuses on reducing GHGE from food systems in target countries by 1.1 gigatons per year (6.5 percent) by 2030, thus mitigating the predicted impact of climate change on sustainable development and social equity. The approach is consistent with the Paris Agreement, which aims to foster low-emission development without negatively impacting food production. An estimated 8 million people will benefit from these reduced emissions and associated benefits over the Initiative’s 10-year lifespan.

The role of public agricultural extension services in driving fertilizer use in rice production in China

The triple benefits of slimming and greening the Chinese food system

The Chinese food system has undergone a transition of unprecedented speed, leading to complex interactions with China’s economy, health and environment. Structural changes experienced by the country over the past few decades have boosted economic development but have worsened the mismatch between food supply and demand, deteriorated the environment, driven obesity and overnutrition levels up, and increased the risk for pathogen spread. Here we propose a strategy for slimming and greening the Chinese food system towards sustainability targets. This strategy takes into account the interlinkages between agricultural production and food consumption across the food system, going beyond agriculture-focused perspectives. We call for a food-system approach with integrated analysis of potential triple benefits for the economy, health and the environment, as well as multisector collaboration in support of evidence-based policymaking.

Property rights and land rental markets: Evidence from a quasi-experiment in China

Between 2009 and 2018, the Chinese government introduced a nationwide reform to register land title for rural individual households in over 600,000 villages. This paper examines the land rental market effects of increased tenure security as a result of the land reform. To estimate the causal effect of the land reform, we make use of differences across villages induced by a pilot project of the reform conducted between 2009 to 2013. Our estimates suggest that registering land title for individual households leads to a substantial increase in their participation in farmland rental markets, and a shift in land reallocation away from kin tenants to non-kin tenants with a higher willingness to pay.

Health information and the choice of overall diet in urban China

Unhealthy diet is a leading factor for death and disability globally (WHO, 2021). Chinese diets have shifted substantially from the traditional plant-based diets to animal- and plant-based diets due to economic and social development (Huang et al., 2021). On average Chinese residents eat too much meat while having insufficient consumption of whole grains, fruits, nuts, and milk (Sheng et al., 2021). There exist significant gaps between the current Chinese diet and the healthy diets, such as the Chinese Food Guide Pagoda diet and the EAT-Lancet diet. As a result, China has the highest rate of diet-related cardiovascular disease deaths and cancer deaths and disability adjusted life-years worldwide (Afshin et al., 2019). This health burden would in turn reduce human capital and threaten life expectancy (Nishida, 2004; Willett and Stampfer, 2013). In response to these challenges, transforming the Chinese diet to healthy one is critical and urgent.

Inequality of opportunity in children's nutritional outcomes in China

Misallocation, selection, and productivity: A quantitative analysis with panel data from China

We use household‐level panel data from China and a quantitative framework to document the extent and consequences of factor misallocation in agriculture. We find that there are substantial within‐village frictions in both the land and capital markets linked to land institutions in rural China that disproportionately constrain the more productive farmers. These frictions reduce aggregate agricultural productivity by affecting two key margins: (1) the allocation of resources across farmers (misallocation) and (2) the allocation of workers across sectors, in particular the type of farmers who operate in agriculture (selection). Selection substantially amplifies the productivity effect of distortionary policies by affecting occupational choices that worsen average ability in agriculture.

Does female labor scarcity encourage innovation? Evidence from China's gender imbalance

This paper studies how the scarcity of different types of workers in a region shapes firm innovation across industries, using the unbalanced regional sex ratios in China as a source of identification strategy. The empirical results show that the shortage of female workers has spurred firms in female‐intensive industries to innovate more, particularly in industries with low substitution between female and male workers, consistent with the price effect of the directed technical change theory. In male‐intensive industries with high elasticity of substitution and regions with more skewed local sex ratios, firms are more innovative, demonstrating that the market size effect of the directed technical change theory is also at play.

China’s small and medium-sized enterprises rebounded after the COVID-19 lockdown, but economic problems linger

Following the initial COVID-19 outbreak in Hubei Province in late 2019, starting in late January 2020 the Chinese government imposed draconian lockdown measures across the country to control the spread of the disease (Fang, Wang, and Yang 2020). Most small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) suspended operations. Then, as the pandemic eased in April, China began lifting the restrictions.

Risk sharing, benefit distribution and cooperation longevity: Sustainable development of dairy farmer cooperatives in China

The sustainable development of cooperatives is essential to agricultural sustainability and is determined mainly by cooperation longevity. The risk sharing and benefit distribution mechanisms are important governance arrangements that affect cooperation longevity in member-heterogeneous cooperatives. However, the relationship between cooperatives’ risk sharing and benefit distribution arrangements and cooperation longevity is not well understood. To address this research gap, we provide a conceptual framework to illustrate the relationship between risk sharing, benefit distribution, contract form and cooperation longevity. By conducting 23 interviews with three dairy cooperatives in China using a multiple-case-study method, we find that cooperation longevity is influenced by the alignment of the combination of risk sharing and benefit distribution for cooperatives and their members. Following the principles of risk-benefit equivalence and strategy-risk preference matching, we discuss four scenarios of match or mismatch of combinations of risk sharing and benefit distribution. We suggest that the government needs to strengthen risk mitigation capabilities for cooperatives and members, and to help them to build an effective risk sharing and benefit distribution arrangement to achieve sustainable development.

Towards 2035: Common Prosperity and Urban-Rural Poverty Management System [in Chinese]

Bt cotton area contraction drives regional pest resurgence, crop loss, and pesticide use

Genetically-modified crops expressing Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) proteins have been widely cultivated, permitting an effective non-chemical control of major agricultural pests. While their establishment can enable an area-wide suppression of polyphagous herbivores, no information is available on the impact of Bt crop abandonment in entire landscape matrices. Here, we detail a resurgence of the cosmopolitan bollworm Helicoverpa armigera following a contraction of Bt cotton area in dynamic agro-landscapes over 2007–2019 in North China Plain. An 80% reduction in Bt cotton was mirrored in a 1.9-fold increase of ambient H. armigera population levels, culminating in 1.5–2.1-fold higher yield loss and a 2.0–4.4-fold increase in pesticide use frequency in non-Bt crops (i.e. maize, peanut, soybean). Our work unveils the fate of herbivorous insect populations following a progressive dis-use of insecticidal crop cultivars, and hints at how tactically deployed Bt crops could be paired with agro-ecological measures to mitigate the environmental footprint of crop production.

Does villager social capital hinder poverty targeting? Evidence from poverty-stricken county of Western China

Governmental regulation induced pesticide retailers to provide more accurate advice on pesticide use to farmers in China

In China, pesticide retailers have often been accused of providing inaccurate advice on pesticide use to farmers in a chaotic pesticide market. However, it is unclear whether governmental regulation of sales and advice on pesticide use by pesticide retailers induces them to provide accurate advice.Using survey data of 242 pesticide retailers in 2016, this study analyzes how pesticide retailers in China provide advice on pesticide use to farmers and examines whether governmental regulation induces pesticide retailers to provide accurate advice. The surveyed retailers were found to advise farmers to use the correct active ingredients in only 75.6% of observations. Retailers recommended pesticide application rates higher than the scientifically recommended levels among 57.2% of observations. The bivariate probit model estimation results show that highly intensive governmental regulation increases the probability of correct advice on pesticide use of pesticide retailers in the county and township seats by 13% and 19%, respectively. Moreover, highly intensive regulation can also increase the probability of pesticide non‐overuse advice by the retailers from the retailers in the villages by 38%.Highly intensive governmental regulation can induce pesticide retailers to provide more accurate advice on pesticide use to farmers, but the effects differ across the locations of pesticide retailers. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry.

Effect of agricultural extension services in the post-reform era since the mid-2000s on pesticide use in China: Evidence from rice production

One year after COVID: The challenges and outlook of Chinese micro-and-small enterprises

Consumer acceptance of gene-edited food products in China

China’s accession to the WTO and its impact on global agricultural trade

China’s rapid rise as a leading global exporter of manufacturing goods since its accession to the WTO in 2001 has been the focus of both admiration and, increasingly, concern, but China is also a large importer of goods, particularly agricultural products. Since China's accession to the WTO, China agricultural exports have increased by 8 percent annually while imports have risen by almost twice that rate. China has become the world's largest importer of agricultural products and the first or second largest destination for many of the world's top agricultural exporters such as the US, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Argentina. This paper examines the evolution of China's agricultural trade since accession and discusses how agricultural trade and domestic support policies have evolved, with particularly emphasis on China's experience as complainant and respondent in WTO trade disputes.