PROBLEMS CONCERNING GRAIN PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION IN CHINA: THE CASE OF HEILONGJIANG PROVINCE

NDER its reform and openness policy initiated in 1978, the Peoples’ Republic of China has promoted reforms aiming at a transition from a governmentled socialist planned economy to a socialist market economy. These reforms began in the agricultural sector and in rural areas with various measures being implemented focusing on decentralization and the further development of a market economy. Decentralization in agriculture included the abolishment of collective farms under the people’s commune system, in favor of introducing the household production responsibility system. Farm household subcontracting, which accounted for no more than 1 per cent of total agricultural output in 1979, showed significant increases in 1982 as the result of government announcements that the people’s commune system was to be dismantled; and by 1984, almost all agricultural production was carried out under the household production responsibility system. The people’s communes, which had dominated agricultural production and agrarian life for some twenty years, were thoroughly dismantled in both name and substance by 1985, thus overcoming the problem of mal-equal income distribution stemming from the communal system. With the introduction of household production responsibility system, farmers were transformed from farm laborers to agricultural managers farming according to their own abilities and economic decisions. These reforms offered agrarian people greater work incentives and encouraged them to adopt new technologies that would lead to long-term growth in the agrarian economy. Between 1978 and 1984, over half of the increase in grain production