What kind of crops are grown in china

Grassland husbandry is well developed. This zone is characterized by rarefied air, high altitude, strong solar radiation and low temperatures. The area of natural grassland takes first place and forest takes second. Arable land is very rare and distributed in patches.

Water is plentiful but unevenly distributed. The management of agriculture and animal production is extensive and production level is low. Du, S. Rapid income growth adversely affects diet quality in China - particularly for the poor! Duan, J. Climatic suitability of single cropping rice planting region in China. Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology 23, Dynamics of decadal changes in the distribution of double-cropping rice cultivation in Chinese Science Bulletin 58, Foley, J.

Solutions for a cultivated planet. Nature , Grassini, P. How good is good enough? Data requirements for reliable crop yield simulations and yield-gap analysis. Field Crops Research , Kearney, J. Food consumption trends and drivers. Li, Y. An analysis of China's grain production: looking back and looking forward. Food and Energy Security 3, Meng, Q. Understanding production potentials and yield gaps in intensive maize production in China.

Peng, S. Current status and challenges of rice production in China. Plant Production Science 12, Qin, X. Wheat yield improvements in China: Past trends and future directions. From field to atlas: Upscaling of location-specific yield gap estimates. Wei, X. Plos One 10, e Xu, X.

Quantification of yield gap and nutrient use efficiency of irrigated rice in China. You, L. Wood-Sichra, S. Fritz, Z. Guo, L. See, and J. Yuan, L. Recent progress in breeding super hybrid rice in China. Hybrid rice for food security, poverty alleviation and environmental protection. Zhai, F. By the end of , The Chinese collective farms had virtually no mechanical equipment, but the peasants pooled their labor in various projects, such as water management, which were beyond the capacity of individual peasants.

In , the collective farms were merged into larger units as people's communes. The communes were concerned not only with agricultural output but also with subsidiary farm activities, such as light industry and handicrafts, usually produced for local consumption. Far-reaching changes in the organization of communes took place during — Formerly, the production brigade the major division of a commune , of which there were about , in , was regarded as the commune's "basic accounting unit.

The average production team consisted of 33 households and cultivated about eight ha 20 acres. Production teams functioned almost autonomously, making basic decisions on production and distribution of income, while the commune mainly exercised the functions of a township government.

In , in addition to the rural communes, which provided most of China's agricultural output, there were 2, state farms working approximately 4. These farms, under the Ministry of State Farms and Reclamation, generally served as commodity production centers and as research units for the improvement of crop and livestock yields.

In —84, a major reform of the agricultural system was launched. The 50, communes were disbanded and replaced by 92, townships, and the six million production brigades were broken up. Production decisions are now made by the household, which sets production targets in contracts with the government; households can sell their surpluses in the open market for cash.

Crop diversification is encouraged. The main food crops are rice, wheat, and corn, followed by kaoliang a type of sorghum , millet, potatoes, and soybeans. Items imported include large amounts of wheat, corn and soybeans American farmers are profiting from China's grain shortages.

In October , AP reported: China has made one of its biggest-ever purchases of corn on overseas markets, buying , metric tons of American corn and showing that growing Chinese demand will play an ever larger role in global grain prices.

The U. Department of Agriculture said Thursday that China had made the purchase, which comes despite an expected record grain harvest in China this year. He forecast that China will import between 7 and 10 million metric tons of corn over the next 12 months.

He said China's rising imports will have a big impact on global corn prices in the long run. Many fruits and vegetables consumed in the United States are produced in Guangdong Province. Farmers on the coast are producing mushrooms, and green produce for export to Japan and other countries.

Among the products exported to the United States are garlic, broccoli, lettuce and strawberries. For the fortunes of farmers to improve the need to switch from growing grain to producing more valuable crops. There is no money in grain. They can make more money producing crops for export.

Already farmers are replacing corn and wheat with chili peppers, sesame seeds and sweet potatoes. Ponds of fish are being dug and pens for hog pens are being set up. Competition from Chinese producer has caused U.

Particularly hard hot are garlic, broccoli, lettuce and strawberry growers. While farms have suffered. Consumers have benefitted. Shipments of plums, lemons, star fruit, kumquts, scallions and ginseng to the United States have been blocked by U.

Food and Drug Administration because of problems with pesticides and toxic additives. A study published in April found that half the 11, companies that exported food failed to meet hygiene and quality standards. Plastic farming crops for export WTO membership put pressure on millions of small, inefficient farmers who have difficulty competing against cheap imported grain but creates opportunities for farmers that grew products for export.

As is the case in industry, the advantage China has is its abundant sources of cheap labor. Farmers who grow wheat, corn and soybeans are expected to suffer because they can not compete with imports coming from the huge mechanized farms in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Argentina and elsewhere. Mechanized foreign farmers can raise corn for one fifth the cost of peasant Chinese farmers. China is expected to dominate markets for products that require lots of manual labor to produce and prepare such as green vegetables, nuts, fruit and dressed meats like shrimp and chicken.

While traders and exported are expected to profit handsomely, farmers are unlikely to earn much above subsistence level. Genetically-modified crops have been widely embraced in China and are widely grown. Already millions of acres of GM cotton has been planted. China has also grows GM tomatoes, corn, tobacco, sweet peppers, petunias and poplar trees. The Chinese government generally favors genetically-engineered food because it is always looking for new ways to produce enough food for its large population.

In one survey 79 percent of those asked said they supported the use of biotechnology to raise pest-resistant crops. The introduction of GN rice holds great promise in increasing grain yields but also poses dangers to the environment.

The Ministry of Agriculture indicated the licencing of the rice would soon be ready and seeds could be read to plant oi as a little 12 months. But final authorization never came and may have been held up because of biotech rice strain from field test interbreeding with normal rice strains.

As of , Genetically-engineered rice was being grown in China. Protein from this rice has show up in Europe, where GM rice is banned. In February , The EU placed restrictions on imported rice from China after some imports were found to contain a genetically-modified strain banned in the EU.

Cotton bioengineered to withstand attacks from the cotton bollworm were introduced to north China around the year The cotton was engineered o produce a toxinoriginally found in a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis that was effective keeping the bollworm away and reducing the need for pesticide. Opponents of GM crops warned that the bollworms would develop resistance to the toxin and become more damaging than ever. Instead by eliminating the bollworms as a threat a new pest emergedmirid bugsthat were not affected by the toxin and multiplied.

Not only did they end up causing more damage than the bollworms they also devoured crops other than cotton such as grapes, apples, peaches and pears. Farmers handled the problem by using more pesticides than they did before the GM cotton was introduced.

China has pumped billions of dollars into biotechnology with much of the research oriented towards boosting food supplies. Tan Ee Lyn of Reuters wrote: Ingo Potrykus, the retired, Swiss-based co-inventor of vitamin A-packed "golden rice", said China could fill a void in securing widespread use and recognition. His variety was withheld from the market for 10 years because of regulations surrounding transgenic food.

At the institute's laboratory, another geneticist, Zhang Gengyun, is working with colleagues on flasks containing rice saplings -- another Chinese staple. They want to identify gene segments in rice that are behind high yields and better root systems, so that more rice may be produced using less land and water. Extra fertilisers are dumped into our water system, which damage our environment," Zhang said.

Zhang's team hopes to identify the genes they want and transfer them into target rice species in three years using conventional breeding. That, he believes, will skirt whatever fears Chinese consumers may have. It is conventional breeding The problem is not China's alone. Leading economist Jeffrey Sachs published articles in Nature magazine in July calling for serious preparations to feed a global population that will grow to 9. Genetic modification technology will help, he said, but its consequences on human health and the environment must be closely monitored.

International experts believe China can take a leading role in promoting the eventual acceptance transgenic or genetically modified GM produce. Most wheat produced in China is grown in the northeast, which is suffering from the water shortages, droughts and the overpumping of aquifers Northeast China embraces the largest wheat-growing region in the world.

Wheat is one of the world's top food crops and one of the first to be cultivated. The development of wheat agriculture is credited with dividing the Stone Age from the age of civilized man.

Wheat can easily be grown, handled and stored and keeps so well it can shipped anywhere and stored for years. It yields a large amount of food for its weight and can be used in making a wide variety of foods: bread in Germany, noodles in China, pasta in Italy, couscous in North Africa, and breakfast cereal in the United States.

Most wheat is divided into two types: hard wheat and soft wheat. Hard wheat such as durums are used to make pastas and soft wheats are used in pastries, noodles and mixed with other grains for bread. Soft wheats alone lack the stickiness to make bread and stiffness for pasta.

Virtually all of the wheat grown in China is fairly low quality, which works fine for making noodles, an important food, particularly in northern China. China imports some high-grade wheat every year for use in bread and pastries, which are becoming increasingly popular in the cities. Chinese-grown wheat is almost never suitable for making croissants and other Western delicacies that are not easily baked, agriculture experts said. Wheat is a member of the grass family and thus is very hardy.

It grows well in areas with both plentiful rain and little rain but generally needs mm of rain or irrigation water a year,. The best soils for wheat are deep, well drained loams. Winter wheat is grown in places with mild winters. It is planted in the fall. After it takes root it stops growing until spring, when it starts growing again. It is harvested in the early summer with enough time to allow for the planting for another crop for the summer.

Winter wheats originated in the Crimea area, north of the Black Sea. In much of the world wheat agriculture is highly mechanized. After the ground is prepared with a tractor-pulled plough made up of steel disks, wheat is sown with mechanical sowers using both the broadcasting scattering and drilling methods.

Wheat is resistant to most diseases and pests. Once it starts growing it needs little maintenance. Its tall, thin stems grow close together to keeps weeds out. Timing is important for the harvest. If the wheat is cut too soon it will not keep well. If it is cut too late, the seeds will scatter in the harvesting process. In the old days wheat was harvested with a sickle. Now it is harvested with a mechanical cutter called a reaper. After harvesting wheat chaff and stalks need to be winnowed from the grains.

In the old days this was done by hand. Now it is done by machines called threshers. A combine is combination reaper and thresher that does both the cutting and threshing.

The machines used to harvest and winnow wheat had a great impact on agriculture by reducing the number of people needed to work the fields. Other experts say expect China to begin buying substantial amounts of wheat abroad soon. But those totals are small compared with global output that according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reached million metric tons in , the most recent year for which figures are available.

China accounted for one-sixth of global wheat production that year, which could make a broad failure of the Chinese crop hard to replace immediately. Winter wheat. There are concerns that if China needs to import wheat in volume it will create shortages elsewhere. Local and provincial governments are also providing financial help Wen toured drought-stricken regions in late January and then held a cabinet meeting to discuss the problem.

Agricultural experts say it is too early to assess the damage to the wheat harvest. Because of the recent precipitation, drought-control officials said last week that about one-tenth of the drought-stricken area had received adequate moisture for now. Some of it is made into soy sauce and tofu but much it is crushed into cattle feed. China produced about Most soybeans grown in China are produced in Heilongjiang province in the northeast.

The industry is threaten by imports from the United States, which produce beans with a higher oil content. In many cases soybeans can be sent more cheaply to crushing plants on the Chinese coast from the United States than from Heilongjiang. Soybeans are one of the world's most versatile foods. They can be dried, boiled.