China's agriculture and rural society has undergone rapid changes in recent years. Many poorer farmers and younger people have moved to cities, and yet China has an immense challenge to feed a growing and more affluent population. This book provides a ‘bottom-up view’ of China’s agriculture, showing how the many millions of Chinese peasants make a living. It presents a vivid description of the mechanisms used by rural households to defend and sustain their livelihoods, increase their agricultural production and improve the quality of their lives. The authors examine the newly emerging trajectories of entrepreneurial and capitalist farming and assess whether such alternatives will be able to meet the enormous social, economic and environmental challenges that China faces. The book also explores the paradigm that has underpinned the organisation and development of China’s agriculture from ancient times to the present day. This shows the importance of balancing in the Chinese model as compared to the one-sided imposition of continual modernization in the western model. It is argued that such balancing is at the core of the current Sannong policy, referring to the three ruralities of food sovereignty, wellbeing for peasant households and an attractive countryside.

China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) has had profound consequences for the structure of its economy, and there will many more before the full benefits of an open trading regime will be realised. AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SECURITY IN CHINA explains the background to China's WTO accession and links accession to reforms beginning as far back as 1979. The book highlights China's policymakers' decision to move away from protectionism and grain self-sufficiency and illustrates how China's step away from direct participation in the agricultural sector to indirect regulatory involvement and liberalisation could encourage further economic growth. Yet not all economic growth is cost-free. AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SECURITY IN CHINA explores the short-term impacts of WTO accession as well as the mid and long-term implications of greater market involvement at an economy-wide and regional level. Growing divides between coastal and inland regions - and differences in rural and urban growth - will require a better understanding of the consequences of greater market dependency. AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SECURITY IN CHINA adds to the existing knowledge of China's agricultural growth as well as the impacts and interrelationships between WTO accession and China's participation in other regional free trade agreements.

China now faces the difficult choice of whether to pursue a food self-sufficiency policy or further integrate its agriculture into the world market. China's choice will have profound implications for the world trading system, as well as for its own economy. At the same time, China needs to reform its land tenure and grain marketing systems. This book examines these majority policy issues using up-to-date information and empirical evidence.

The pace of growth in China's agricultural sector is remarkable. Determining how this demand for food will be met requires a complex analytical framework whose parameters are the subject of an intense discussion. Thesse workshop proceedings provide a rich repository of material addressing the issue.

News: Mao Yushi, one of China''s most outspoken and influential activists for individual rights and free markets, has been named the 2012 winner of the Cato Institute''s Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty . The objective of publishing this book is to let the general public have a better understanding of the food security situation in China and better comprehension of the merit of allocating land through market mechanism. In addition, it makes the public aware of the inefficiencies of current government regulated land system.As a populous country in the world, China emphasizes too much importance of food to ensure people''s sufficient consumption. There is a national policy to protect farm land, farm land protection refers to 18 hundred million mu of farmland which is specifically designated for food production only. Unirule defined the national food security as the capability to solve food shortages, and calculated the gap between food supply and demand. Two approaches can be used to solve the above food gap. Food security problems will not happen under situations of free trade and factors substitution in market economy, substantial storage and foreign exchange income. In modern China, food insecurity or great famine only happened in planned economy. To link tightly farm land size and grain yield and even food security is baseless both in theory and practices. The previous red line of 21 hundred million mu was already broken through. The current red line of 18 hundred million mu will also be broken through, in view of the process of industrialization and urbanization. In fact, farm land protection should focus on protecting the employment right of peasant in land.

This conference proceedings reflects upon the likely impacts of freer trade on China’s agricultural sector. Based on the results of China’s WTO negotiations with key trading partners, it assesses the compatibility of China’s WTO commitments with domestic policies and the need for specific changes.