The bad earth? China's soils and agricultural development since the 1930s

Economic Development and Cultural Change

Volumn 47, Issue 4, 1999, Pages

  Lindert, Peter H ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT; ECONOMIC IMPACT; HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE; SOIL PROPERTY;

CHINA;

EID: 7444250304     PISSN: 00130079     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/452429     Document Type: Article

References (48)

1. The most cited map is L. R. Oldeman et al., World Map of the Status of Human-Induced Soil Degradation: An Explanatory Note (plus the map itself), rev. 2d ed. (Wageningen: International Soil Reference and Information Center [UNEP], 1990), a nd the rates of loss are implied regularly in World Resources Institute, World Resources (New York: Oxford University Press, various years). The phrase "losing ground," in this context, dates back to at least E. P. Eckholm, Losing Ground (New York: W. W. Norton, 1976).
2. The most cited map is L. R. Oldeman et al., World Map of the Status of Human-Induced Soil Degradation: An Explanatory Note (plus the map itself), rev. 2d ed. (Wageningen: International Soil Reference and Information Center [UNEP], 1990), a nd the rates of loss are implied regularly in World Resources Institute, World Resources (New York: Oxford University Press, various years). The phrase "losing ground," in this context, dates back to at least E. P. Eckholm, Losing Ground (New York: W. W. Norton, 1976).
3. The most cited map is L. R. Oldeman et al., World Map of the Status of Human-Induced Soil Degradation: An Explanatory Note (plus the map itself), rev. 2d ed. (Wageningen: International Soil Reference and Information Center [UNEP], 1990), a nd the rates of loss are implied regularly in World Resources Institute, World Resources (New York: Oxford University Press, various years). The phrase "losing ground," in this context, dates back to at least E. P. Eckholm, Losing Ground (New York: W. W. Norton, 1976).
4. The casual eclecticism of the larger literature on erosion and soil-degradation trends has been critiqued by Pierre Crosson and Anthony Stout, Productivity Effects of Cropland Erosion in the United States (Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 1983); Pierre Crosson, "Soil Erosion and Its On-Farm Productivity Consequences: What Do We Know?" Discussion Paper no. 95-29 (Resources for the Future, Washington, D.C., June 1995); W. H. Diemont et al., "Re-thinking Erosion on Java," Netherlands Journal of Agricultural Science 39 (1991): 213-24; and Peter H. Lindert, Joann Lu, and Wu Wanli, "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of North China since the 1930s," Journal of Environmental Quality 25, no. 4 (1996): 1168-78.
5. The casual eclecticism of the larger literature on erosion and soil-degradation trends has been critiqued by Pierre Crosson and Anthony Stout, Productivity Effects of Cropland Erosion in the United States (Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 1983); Pierre Crosson, "Soil Erosion and Its On-Farm Productivity Consequences: What Do We Know?" Discussion Paper no. 95-29 (Resources for the Future, Washington, D.C., June 1995); W. H. Diemont et al., "Re-thinking Erosion on Java," Netherlands Journal of Agricultural Science 39 (1991): 213-24; and Peter H. Lindert, Joann Lu, and Wu Wanli, "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of North China since the 1930s," Journal of Environmental Quality 25, no. 4 (1996): 1168-78.
6. The casual eclecticism of the larger literature on erosion and soil-degradation trends has been critiqued by Pierre Crosson and Anthony Stout, Productivity Effects of Cropland Erosion in the United States (Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 1983); Pierre Crosson, "Soil Erosion and Its On-Farm Productivity Consequences: What Do We Know?" Discussion Paper no. 95-29 (Resources for the Future, Washington, D.C., June 1995); W. H. Diemont et al., "Re-thinking Erosion on Java," Netherlands Journal of Agricultural Science 39 (1991): 213-24; and Peter H. Lindert, Joann Lu, and Wu Wanli, "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of North China since the 1930s," Journal of Environmental Quality 25, no. 4 (1996): 1168-78.
7. The casual eclecticism of the larger literature on erosion and soil-degradation trends has been critiqued by Pierre Crosson and Anthony Stout, Productivity Effects of Cropland Erosion in the United States (Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 1983); Pierre Crosson, "Soil Erosion and Its On-Farm Productivity Consequences: What Do We Know?" Discussion Paper no. 95-29 (Resources for the Future, Washington, D.C., June 1995); W. H. Diemont et al., "Re-thinking Erosion on Java," Netherlands Journal of Agricultural Science 39 (1991): 213-24; and Peter H. Lindert, Joann Lu, and Wu Wanli, "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of North China since the 1930s," Journal of Environmental Quality 25, no. 4 (1996): 1168-78.
8. One major time series does give a soil-quality dimension to its estimates of land area. The Ministry of Water Resources and Electrical Power has estimated the land areas thought to be "salinized," "easily flooded and drought damaged," or otherwise rendered less productive, by province in each year dating back to 1975. These time series show that the share of degraded lands in China's total land area rose across the mid-1980s (Jikun Huang and Scott Rozelle, "Environmental Stress and Grain Yields in China," American Journal of Agricultural Economics 77 [November 1995]: 853-64). While the ministry's series may be broadly correct in its portrayal of the spatial cross section, the areas cited are not specific to farmland, and the abruptness of their year-to-year jump from 1984 to 1985, which accounts for about half the reported rise in degraded area, suggests changes in official definitions rather than in soil condition.
9. Wen Dazhong, "Soil Erosion and Conservation," in World Soil Erosion and Conservation, ed. David Pimentel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
10. The official data on soil losses are cited in Leo A. Orleans, "Loss and Misuse of China's Cultivated Land," in China's Economic Dilemmas in the 1990s (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, 1992). Desertification trends are projected to 2000 in K. Forestier, "The Degreening of China," New Scientist 123 (1989): 52-58.
11. The official data on soil losses are cited in Leo A. Orleans, "Loss and Misuse of China's Cultivated Land," in China's Economic Dilemmas in the 1990s (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, 1992). Desertification trends are projected to 2000 in K. Forestier, "The Degreening of China," New Scientist 123 (1989): 52-58.
12. Vaclav Smil, The Bad Earth: Environmental Degradation in China (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1984), pp. 69-70.
13. Oldeman et al.; Harold E. Dregne, Impact of Land Degradation on Future World Food Production (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, International Economics Division, Economic Research Service, 1982); and World Resources Institute, World Resources, 1988-89 and World Resources, 1992-93.
14. Oldeman et al.; Harold E. Dregne, Impact of Land Degradation on Future World Food Production (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, International Economics Division, Economic Research Service, 1982); and World Resources Institute, World Resources, 1988-89 and World Resources, 1992-93.
15. The impossibility of using single snapshots to judge soil dynamics and the role of humans in those dynamics has been stressed by Peter H. Lindert et al. in "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of North China," and in "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of South China since the 1930s" (Soil Science 161, no. 5 [May 1996]: 329-42); and by Xiaoju Wang and Zitong Gong, "Assessment and Analysis of Soil Quality Changes after Eleven Years of Reclamation in Subtropical China," Geoderma 81 (1998): 339-55.
16. The impossibility of using single snapshots to judge soil dynamics and the role of humans in those dynamics has been stressed by Peter H. Lindert et al. in "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of North China," and in "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of South China since the 1930s" (Soil Science 161, no. 5 [May 1996]: 329-42); and by Xiaoju Wang and Zitong Gong, "Assessment and Analysis of Soil Quality Changes after Eleven Years of Reclamation in Subtropical China," Geoderma 81 (1998): 339-55.
17. Extremes of pH restrict the range of possible crops, with acid soils biased toward acid-tolerant rice and tree crops, and alkali soils restricted mainly to grasses. Organic matter and N in the root zone are of course crucial to plant growth and tend to cycle together, with a rise in either raising the other within a few years' time. Total N, P, and K are less directly relevant as nutrients than are plant-available N, P, and K, but we lack measures on the latter indicators before the 1980s. Nonetheless even studies having both "total" and "available" measures of N, P, and K (see e.g., Wang and Gong) find both useful, since the total values are a reserve released into plant-available form slowly over decades. For a representative ranking of soil-quality indicators, see J. W. Doran et al., Defining Soil Quality for a Sustainable Environment (Madison, Wis.: Soil Science Society of America and American Society of Agronomy, 1994). The soil quality index used in a recent study for Jiangxi province (Wang and Gong) gave 35% weight to the dependent variable chemical indicators (pH, OM, N, P, K) and another 37% to three physical variables used here (topsoil depth, texture, and slope).
18. China, Chung yang ti chih tiao ch'a so (China, national geographical survey), T'u Jang Chuan Pao (Soil Bulletin) 1 (1930)-24 (1994); and James Thorp, Geography of the Soils of China (Peking: National Geological Survey of China, 1939).
19. China, Chung yang ti chih tiao ch'a so (China, national geographical survey), T'u Jang Chuan Pao (Soil Bulletin) 1 (1930)-24 (1994); and James Thorp, Geography of the Soils of China (Peking: National Geological Survey of China, 1939).
20. These 55 profiles are from Viktor A. Kovda, Ocherki Prirody i Pochv Kitaia (Notes on nature and soils of China) (Moscow: Akademiia Nauk, 1959).
21. The focus here is on the topmost (A) horizons of mineral soils. I have excluded organic soils (bog or peat soils or those with OM > 20%) and geological profiles (where the A horizon extended deeper than 1 meter). To focus on comparable A horizons, instead of surface debris, the sample includes only horizons including the depth of 6 cm from the surface. Most of the profiles were taken in crop fields and grasslands, with small shares identified as being from forests or marshes or waste.
22. The regions are mapped in J. L. Buck, Land Utilization in China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1937), p. 27.
23. Lindert et al, "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of North China" (n. 2 above), and "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of South China."
24. On the experiment-based predictions about the effects of erosion, see W. E. Larson et al., "The Threat of Soil Erosion to Long-Term Crop Productivity," Science 219 (1983): 458-65; W. W. Frye et al., "Restoration of Crop Productivity on Eroded or Degraded Soils," in Soil Erosion and Crop Productivity, ed. R. F. Follett and B. A. Stewart (Madison, Wis.: American Society of Agronomy et al., 1985), pp. 339-41; and S. A. El-Swaify et al., Soil Erosion and Conservation (Ankeny, Iowa: Soil Conservation Society of America, 1985), chaps. 22, 23, 28, 29. On the evidence of illusory thinning of the topsoil, see Peter H. Lindert et al., "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of North China," and "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of South China." A similar definitional shift is evident for Indonesia, 1930-1980 (Peter H. Lindert, "A Half-Century of Soil Change in Indonesia," Working Paper no. 90 [University of California, Davis, Agricultural History Center, Davis, June 1997]).
25. On the experiment-based predictions about the effects of erosion, see W. E. Larson et al., "The Threat of Soil Erosion to Long-Term Crop Productivity," Science 219 (1983): 458-65; W. W. Frye et al., "Restoration of Crop Productivity on Eroded or Degraded Soils," in Soil Erosion and Crop Productivity, ed. R. F. Follett and B. A. Stewart (Madison, Wis.: American Society of Agronomy et al., 1985), pp. 339-41; and S. A. El-Swaify et al., Soil Erosion and Conservation (Ankeny, Iowa: Soil Conservation Society of America, 1985), chaps. 22, 23, 28, 29. On the evidence of illusory thinning of the topsoil, see Peter H. Lindert et al., "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of North China," and "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of South China." A similar definitional shift is evident for Indonesia, 1930-1980 (Peter H. Lindert, "A Half-Century of Soil Change in Indonesia," Working Paper no. 90 [University of California, Davis, Agricultural History Center, Davis, June 1997]).
26. On the experiment-based predictions about the effects of erosion, see W. E. Larson et al., "The Threat of Soil Erosion to Long-Term Crop Productivity," Science 219 (1983): 458-65; W. W. Frye et al., "Restoration of Crop Productivity on Eroded or Degraded Soils," in Soil Erosion and Crop Productivity, ed. R. F. Follett and B. A. Stewart (Madison, Wis.: American Society of Agronomy et al., 1985), pp. 339-41; and S. A. El-Swaify et al., Soil Erosion and Conservation (Ankeny, Iowa: Soil Conservation Society of America, 1985), chaps. 22, 23, 28, 29. On the evidence of illusory thinning of the topsoil, see Peter H. Lindert et al., "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of North China," and "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of South China." A similar definitional shift is evident for Indonesia, 1930-1980 (Peter H. Lindert, "A Half-Century of Soil Change in Indonesia," Working Paper no. 90 [University of California, Davis, Agricultural History Center, Davis, June 1997]).
27. On the experiment-based predictions about the effects of erosion, see W. E. Larson et al., "The Threat of Soil Erosion to Long-Term Crop Productivity," Science 219 (1983): 458-65; W. W. Frye et al., "Restoration of Crop Productivity on Eroded or Degraded Soils," in Soil Erosion and Crop Productivity, ed. R. F. Follett and B. A. Stewart (Madison, Wis.: American Society of Agronomy et al., 1985), pp. 339-41; and S. A. El-Swaify et al., Soil Erosion and Conservation (Ankeny, Iowa: Soil Conservation Society of America, 1985), chaps. 22, 23, 28, 29. On the evidence of illusory thinning of the topsoil, see Peter H. Lindert et al., "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of North China," and "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of South China." A similar definitional shift is evident for Indonesia, 1930-1980 (Peter H. Lindert, "A Half-Century of Soil Change in Indonesia," Working Paper no. 90 [University of California, Davis, Agricultural History Center, Davis, June 1997]).
28. On the experiment-based predictions about the effects of erosion, see W. E. Larson et al., "The Threat of Soil Erosion to Long-Term Crop Productivity," Science 219 (1983): 458-65; W. W. Frye et al., "Restoration of Crop Productivity on Eroded or Degraded Soils," in Soil Erosion and Crop Productivity, ed. R. F. Follett and B. A. Stewart (Madison, Wis.: American Society of Agronomy et al., 1985), pp. 339-41; and S. A. El-Swaify et al., Soil Erosion and Conservation (Ankeny, Iowa: Soil Conservation Society of America, 1985), chaps. 22, 23, 28, 29. On the evidence of illusory thinning of the topsoil, see Peter H. Lindert et al., "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of North China," and "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of South China." A similar definitional shift is evident for Indonesia, 1930-1980 (Peter H. Lindert, "A Half-Century of Soil Change in Indonesia," Working Paper no. 90 [University of California, Davis, Agricultural History Center, Davis, June 1997]).
29. For the full list of independent variables in this and other equations, see appendix R of the working-paper version of this article (WP83 and WP84; available from the Agricultural History Center, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, Calif. 95616 U.S.A.). On fertilizer, irrigation, and technology in general, see Brace Stone, "Chinese Fertilizer Application in the 1980s and 1990s: Issues of Growth, Balance, Allocation, Efficiency and Response, in China's Economy Looks toward the Year 2000, U.S. Joint Economic Committee, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, May 1986), pp. 453-96, and his "Developments of Agricultural Technology," China Quarterly 116 (December 1988): 767-822.
30. For the full list of independent variables in this and other equations, see appendix R of the working-paper version of this article (WP83 and WP84; available from the Agricultural History Center, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, Calif. 95616 U.S.A.). On fertilizer, irrigation, and technology in general, see Brace Stone, "Chinese Fertilizer Application in the 1980s and 1990s: Issues of Growth, Balance, Allocation, Efficiency and Response, in China's Economy Looks toward the Year 2000, U.S. Joint Economic Committee, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, May 1986), pp. 453-96, and his "Developments of Agricultural Technology," China Quarterly 116 (December 1988): 767-822.
31. 21 In(Elec · Cropshare) to the T-function. These extra terms for eqq. (2) and (3) are shown in appendix table A1.
32. Specifically, the underlying lobbying model of fertilizer supply and of multiple cropping at the county (xian) level says that they depend politically on the county's share of the province's urban population, collective-enterprise production, off-farm purchases, cotton, and oil production, and the province's shares of the same at the national level. The full equations for fertilizer inputs and multiple cropping are given in WP84, appendix F.
33. Institute of Soil Science, Academia Sinica, The Soil Atlas of China (Beijing: Cartographic Publishers, 1986); Nyle C. Brady, The Nature and Properties of Soils, 10th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1990).
34. Institute of Soil Science, Academia Sinica, The Soil Atlas of China (Beijing: Cartographic Publishers, 1986); Nyle C. Brady, The Nature and Properties of Soils, 10th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1990).
35. Lindert et al., "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of North China," and "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of South China" (n. 8 above).
36. Although two-stage least squares are used, the specification is not fully conventional. The equations for acidity in the south and for alkalinity in the north are two-stage tobit. The use of tobit is dictated by the bounded (nonnegative) nature of acidity and alkalinity as relevant to plant growth. Yet this choice mattered little to the effects of agriculture on the soil, since unreported regressions using unbounded pH as the dependent variable gave similar results in both north and south China.
37. The agricultural data come primarily from the annual agricultural yearbooks supplemented by employment data from the 1982 population atlas of China. I thank G. William Skinner for supplying a computerized version of the 1985 agricultural data, and Bing Zhang and Joann Lu for purging errors from the original data.
38. The estimated elasticities are evaluated at mean values of all independent variables. The elasticities would vary over the sample range, because the equations are not fully log-linear.
39. A puzzle relating to OM and N is why their coefficients should have opposite signs for total GVAO in the south in equation (1). This appears to be an omitted-variable effect, in which lands with high OM/N ratios happen to be more productive for producing secondary crops in some way not captured by all the physical soil-class variables. The most likely culprit is the incomplete reporting of land use in some of the southern provinces, where my interpretation of the raw data may have mistaken nitrogen-rich long-fallow lands for cultivated lands.
40. The favorable effect of non-main-crop yields on OM and N may be a hidden effect of organic fertilizers. Manures, green waste, and other organic fertilizers are not measured in the official fertilizer statistics and tend to be applied more intensively to specialty crops than to grains, oils, and cotton. On China's application of organic fertilizers since the 1930s, see Wen Qi-xiao, "Utilization of Organic Materials in Rice Production in China," in Organic Malter and Rice (Los Baños: International Rice Research Institute, 1984), pp. 45-56; and Stone, "Chinese Fertilizer Application" (n. 15 above). In addition, the non-main-crop category includes more nitrogen-fixing legumes and grasses.
41. The favorable effect of non-main-crop yields on OM and N may be a hidden effect of organic fertilizers. Manures, green waste, and other organic fertilizers are not measured in the official fertilizer statistics and tend to be applied more intensively to specialty crops than to grains, oils, and cotton. On China's application of organic fertilizers since the 1930s, see Wen Qi-xiao, "Utilization of Organic Materials in Rice Production in China," in Organic Malter and Rice (Los Baños: International Rice Research Institute, 1984), pp. 45-56; and Stone, "Chinese Fertilizer Application" (n. 15 above). In addition, the non-main-crop category includes more nitrogen-fixing legumes and grasses.
42. Kang Chao, Agricultural Production in Communist China, 1949-1965 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970), pp. 193-208.
43. See Frederick W. Crook, "Primary Issues in China's Grain Economy in the 1990s," in U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, China's Economic Dilemmas in the 1990s (Armonk, N.Y.: Sharpe, 1992), pp. 385-402.
44. See Lindert et al., "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of North China" (n. 2 above), and "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of South China."
45. Lindert et al., "Trends in the Soil Chemistry of North China."
46. Some, including the Economist ("Malthus Goes East," August 12, 1995), have mistakenly cited the 1994 official figure of 708,700 hectares of net loss of cultivated area as though it were lost to construction. But the adjacent columns in the China Statistical Yearbook, compiled by the State Statistical Bureau, People's Republic of China (New York: Praeger, 1996), p. 355, make it clear that agriculture's losses to construction were only the 245,800 hectares cited here. The rest were "lost" to orchards, ponds, temporary abandonment of flooded lands, etc.
47. Some, including the Economist ("Malthus Goes East," August 12, 1995), have mistakenly cited the 1994 official figure of 708,700 hectares of net loss of cultivated area as though it were lost to construction. But the adjacent columns in the China Statistical Yearbook, compiled by the State Statistical Bureau, People's Republic of China (New York: Praeger, 1996), p. 355, make it clear that agriculture's losses to construction were only the 245,800 hectares cited here. The rest were "lost" to orchards, ponds, temporary abandonment of flooded lands, etc.
48. Buck (n. 12 above); Wen Qi-xiao.