China needs bigger farms to meet consumer demand for safer produce
Four-fifths of the nation’s farmland is divided up into plots of less than 3.3 hectares (8.2 acres) and most of those are even smaller—less than the size of a football field.
Chinese consumers have also been battered by a decade of food scandals that prompted many wealthier Chinese to favor foreign brands or small local and organic farms. They also want more exotic food and fresh fruit and vegetables throughout the year.
To meet the ballooning demand from China’s newly wealthy middle class for safer food and a greater variety of foods such as fruit and vegetables, China needs bigger, more efficient and safer farms, Bloomberg states. But that poses a huge dilemma for the state: if it allows all these little plots to be consolidated, it could put millions of rural workers out of a job.
Almost half the country’s population still lives in the countryside, said Hu Bingchuan, a researcher at the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. “If they can’t find jobs in the cities, it would create social unrest. Modern farms and small traditional household farming will co-exist for some time.”
China has taken steps to try to expand average farm size. Farmers can’t own land in China, but are allocated plots by a local collective, often on decades-long leases. In December, the government allowed the collectives to bundle together land rights and lease out bigger tracts to companies, who pay an annual rent.
It’s not aiming to create lots of mega-farms such as those found in the U.S., Canada or Australia, but by merging a few small plots, farmers can have enough land to efficiently use machinery and new technology. The Chinese government defines a “proper sized” family farm as around 7 to 13 hectares.
This presents a challenge for a new breed of farming entrepreneurs, who are leasing land or finding small spaces in cities to capitalize on the rising demand for untainted and varied produce.
source: bloomberg.com
