Glorious Role of Agriculture

Can you say which country in the recent years has enthralled the entire international arena? Let me put it in this way. Which country has attracted the maximum attention of the globe? In both cases the answer is same, it is China. Truly speaking, by the virtue of its economic miracle, this very country in the recent years has become able to capture the attention of the whole world, especially in respect of production, manufacturing, sourcing, FDI inflow and several other aspects. But how many of us do know that the agricultural sector is the one of the affluent sectors in the nation contributing substantially to the national economic development! It is to be remembered that in 1949 now PRC inherited an almost ruined country dominated by both natural and man made disasters like feudal chiefs, civil wars, rabid unemployment along with droughts, famine, and floods.

However, within a few years under the effective leadership of Mao Tse Tung, a change was noticed in the agricultural side due to extensive land reforms in the rural areas. Landless cultivators became owners that enthused them for more production. As a result there was a substantial development, though slow, but witnessed in 1953-57 period an increase of gross output by 4.5% on an average basis. Due to hardcore veneration to Marxist ethics and principles China witnessed negligible industrial development in those days and that was even under State monopoly. For these reasons the role of agriculture in the poor country was highly imperative, and the rate of development within few years equalized an ordinary Chinese farmer to any Soviet blue-collar proletarian.

Nevertheless, this sluggish rate was improved even better in the reform period of the post-1978 years. This was the period that also witnessed the introduction of contracts to farmers that modified the form of distribution of land till then. This in turn inspired the farmers for more production since that would meant greater money. As a result in the post-1978 years, agricultural output increased by more than twice along with the average growth rate, compared to the previous twenty-five years. The pragmatic reforms also fabricated the market in a new way to play a fundamental role that has progressed much in the following years.