1. Klatt, Cf. W., “Cost of food basket in urban areas of the People's Republic of China,” The China Quarterly, No. 70 (June 1977).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. The Committee is jointly sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Academy of Sciences and the Social Science Research Council.Google Scholar

3. Needless to say, the views expressed in this report are mine alone; I do not mean to implicate other members of the delegation, much less the Committee on Scholarly Communication. An abridged version of this paper will be included in the delegation's official report, Vegetable Farming Systems in the People's Republic of China, to be published by the National Academy of Sciences. That report will also include “The economics of municipal vegetable production in the PRC” by Thomas B. Wiens.Google Scholar

4. This estimate (and others to follow in the paragraph) are drawn from my as-yet unpublished study of regional urbanization in the People's Republic of China. That analysis is made in terms of the nine physiographic macro-regions delineated, described and mapped in “Regional urbanization in nineteenth-century China,” in Skinner, G. William (ed.), The City in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977), pp. 211–18. The urbanization figures are estimates for 1976 of the proportion of the population residing in centres of 5,000 and larger. For China as a whole the estimated urbanization index is 16·5 per cent.Google Scholar

5. Data collated from Chung-hua jen-min kung-ho-kuo fen-sheng ti-t'u chi (Provincial Atlas of the People's Republic of China) (Peking: Ti-t'u ch'u-pan-she, 1974).Google Scholar

6. See “Cities and the hierarchy of local systems,” in Skinner, (ed.), The City in Late Imperial China, pp. 286–88.Google Scholar

7. I am indebted to Thomas B. Wiens for some of the points in this paragraph.Google Scholar

8. “Chinese cities self-sufficient in vegetables,” NCNA-English (Peking), 28 December 1974.Google Scholar

9. “New industrial city in north-east China becomes self-sufficient in vegetables,” NCNA-English (Changchun), 10 March 1975.Google Scholar

10. “Northern China industrial city now self-sufficient in fresh vegetable supply,” NCNA-English (Changchun), 16 October 1975.Google Scholar

11. “Growing vegetables scientifically in all parts of China,” NCNA-English (Peking), 8 March 1975.Google Scholar

12. The situation in Shanghai may be estimated as follows. We were told that daily average vegetable production in the municipality was approximately 3,000 tons and daily urban supply 2,200–2,400 tons; imports were said to account for about 5 per cent of supply. If in Shanghai, as in Hangchow, the level of exports is twice that of imports, the latter would then amount to some 115 tons, exports would account for some 230 tons of production, leaving about 580 tons as the estimated daily input to the food-processing industry.Google Scholar

13. “Chinese cities self-sufficient in vegetables,” NCNA-English (Peking), 28 December 1974. According to this review of vegetable supply during the first 10 months of 1974, in 28 cities, including all of China's largest, imports accounted for “less than one-tenth” of the total supply, “3·5 per cent under the same 1973 period.”Google Scholar

14. A detailed study of urban vegetable supply published in 1961 asserted that vegetable acreage in 23 municipalities, including China's three largest, was expanded by “about 10 times” from 1949 to 1959.Google ScholarSee Sheng, O., “T'an ch'eng-shih chiao-ch'ü su-ts'ai sheng-ch'an chi-ti wen-ti” (“On the problem of peri-urban bases for vegetable production”), Ta-kung pao (Peking), 7 April 1961, p. 3. The large expansion in acreage between 1958 and 1960 is readily documented from contemporary press reports for Peking, Shanghai and other major municipalities.Google Scholar

15. Data collected by Thomas B. Wiens indicate that the acreage in year-round vegetable production was smaller in 1976 than in 1962 for both Peking (19 per cent less) and Shanghai (52 per cent less!).Google Scholar

16. The many technical improvements undertaken to increase yields, from the introduction of new strains to the control of pathologies, are treated in full in the delegation's forthcoming report.Google Scholar

17. An indication of the range of variation may be discerned for Shanghai, where population and vegetable acreage have both been stable for many years. The municipality produces on the average 1·0–1·1 million tons of fresh vegetables per year. Its peak annual production, given as 1·35 million tons [NCNA-English (Peking), 28 December 1974], implies that production during the worst year may have been as low as 0·86 million tons. Our hosts in Hangchow stated that vegetable production in 1976 was 30 per cent higher than in 1975.Google Scholar

18. No data were obtained for Sian or Kweilin.Google Scholar

19. It was in 1967 that ta pai-ts'ai was successfully introduced in Shanghai Municipality, specifically in Ch'ung-ming County. As of 1975, 75,000 tons of this variety were being produced annually within the municipality [NCNA-English (Shanghai), 3 October 1975]. Note that an earlier (over-enthusiastic?) release claimed that the annual production in Ch'ung-ming County alone exceeded 100,000 tons [NCNA-English (Peking), 28 December 1974]. The latter source also reported that in Wuhan (Hupeh, in the Middle Yangtze region) the Municipal Vegetable Company had invited peasants from Shantung to teach local peasants how to grow both giant scallions and ta pai-ts'ai.Google Scholar

20. The analysis in this paragraph and the next two owes much to my fellow delegation member, Dr Harwood, Richard R..Google Scholar

21. The proportion of continuous vegetable fields under glass and plastic appeared to be somewhat lower in Sian and Tsinan than in Peking, but we were told it was considerably higher in the major municipalities of the North-east (Manchuria).Google Scholar

22. In 1972 the autumn harvest of cabbage in Peking was 300,000 tons, of which 100,000 was “stored by vegetable-growing brigades and delivered to the market gradually during the winter” [“Peking has adequate vegetable supply at stable prices,” NCNA-English (Peking), 16 March 1973].Google ScholarIn 1976, when Peking's total annual production of all vegetables was stated to be 1·04 million tons, the autumn harvest of white Chinese cabbage was exceptionally good, 30 per cent above that in 1975 [NCNA-English (Peking), 18 November 1976].Google Scholar

23. It may be that the relatively coarse staple grains that form the mainstay of northern diets require more vegetables for balance than does rice, the major staple in southern cities.Google Scholar

24. It was suggested to us by cadres of the Shanghai Municipal Vegetable Company that the total figures for vegetable supply in Peking might be based on harvest weight, whereas those for Shanghai are based on wholesale weight.Google Scholar

25. The data provided for Nanking imply a year-round average per capita supply of 525 grams per day – the highest figure obtained for any southern city.Google Scholar

26. Data given in a 1973 news release [“Record harvest of spring vegetables on Peking outskirts,” NCNA-English (Peking), 19 May 1973] imply a per capita daily supply of fresh vegetables during April of approximately 270 grams in 1966, 350 grams in 1972 and 430 grams in 1973.Google Scholar

27. We have no basis for judging the adequacy of vegetable supply within communes. In most municipalities we were told that peasant households in peri-urban production units relied on reserved (private) plots for their own vegetable supply. (This would not imply, of course, that every household raised vegetables only for its own consumption: rural markets provide opportunities for exchange.) But we were struck by the fact that vegetables were not prominent on the private plots observed in most vegetable-producing teams. The most common private-plot crops appeared to be those producing materials for cottage industry (e.g., sorghum for making brooms, and jute for making rope and nets), snack food (e.g., sunflowers, sugar cane and fruit), and pig fodder of various kinds. During a visit to Wang-chuang Brigade (T'ai-an Commune, T'ai-shan County, Shantung), an outside scientist informed me that the brigade keeps some of its poor-quality vegetables for local distribution; this practice, which makes eminent sense given the poor prices received for low-grade vegetables, may well be commonplace in vegetable-producing brigades. In Nanking we were told that some of the most “advanced” peri-urban brigades produce vegetables on collective land for local distribution at prices that are approximately 40 per cent lower than those obtaining in suburban retail markets. Whatever the arrangement, the vegetable supply of commune members is not a matter of state concern.Google Scholar

28. The three small communes are Shuang-ch'iao (Yangchow Municipality), Hsüan-wu-hu (Nanking Municipality) and P'eng-p'u (Pao-shan hsien, Shanghai Municipality). The three large communes are Hsi-chiao (Tsinan Municipality), Hsin-chiao and Shih-ching (both Canton Municipality).Google Scholar

29. Clockwise from the south, the six communes are Hsin-chiao (south), Pai-hao-tung (south-west), Shih-ching (west-north-west), San-yüan-li (north), Sha-ho (north-east), and Tung-p'u (east). The two in the second ring are Jen-ho (north) and Huang-p'u (east).Google Scholar

30. The conference room at commune headquarters has a display board that shows cropping patterns by brigade for the entire commune.Google Scholar

31. The theoretical effect of city size on the width of the inner zone, holding regionally specific factors constant, may be indicated by means of a simple model. Assuming (1) that the shapes of both the city proper and its surrounding inner zone are circular, (2) that the population density within the urban area is 20,000 persons per sq. km., (3) that one-fifth of the total area of the inner zone is devoted to vegetable cultivation, and (4) that annual yield of that vegetable land is 60 tons/ha., then the theoretical width of the inner zone would vary by city size as follows: 0·5 million: 2·84 km, 1 million: 4·02 km., 2 million: 5·68 km., 3 million: 6·96 km., 4 million: 8·04 km., 5 million: 8·99 km., and 6 million: 9·85 km.Google Scholar

32. The latter variable can perhaps be expressed most precisely in terms of the length of the growing season. The average number of frost-free days for the major cities visited are as follows: Peking 241, Sian 268, Tsinan 270, Nanking 292, Shanghai 307, Hangchow 313 and Canton 364. A calculus combining this variable with city size (Shanghai 5·7 million, Peking 4·3, Canton 2·3, Nanking 1·4, Sian 1·2, Tsinan 1·1 and Hangchow 0·7) pretty well accords with variation not only in the width of the inner zone but also in the proportion of total supply from seasonal fields in the outer zone (higher the shorter the growing season and the larger the city).Google Scholar

33. For a preliminary analysis of policy cycles in the People's Republic of China, see William Skinner, G. and Winckler, Edwin A., “Compliance succession in rural communist China: a cyclical theory,” inGoogle ScholarEtzioni, Amitai (ed.), A Sociological Reader on Complex Society (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 2nd edit., 1969), pp. 410–38.Google Scholar

34. The critique relied on here is a wide-ranging review of problems of vegetable production for urban supply written by Sheng, O. (supra. note 14). Reference courtesy of Thomas B. Wiens.Google Scholar

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid.

37. On the basis of data collected during our visit, Wiens concludes that the economic significance of green feed is relatively minor compared to that of manure in brigades that combine vegetable growing and pig raising. He calls attention to limits on the biological or economic effectiveness of vegetable wastes, and notes that in all units visited a certain amount of fine feed (grain or processing by-products) was used and considered essential.Google Scholar

38. I base this distinction on an analysis by Richard R. Harwood. For a full treatment of cropping systems, see his paper in the forthcoming delegation report.Google Scholar

39. In some areas and for some crops, nightsoil is used as a base dressing. As practised in the environs of Canton, for instance, aquatic vegetable cultivation relies almost exclusively on nightsoil to the exclusion of pig manure. In Fo-shan, we were startled to learn that nightsoil per se is used there primarily in fish culture and on paddy fields; vegetable growers typically only use human urine which, accordingly, is separately collected by the Municipal Fertilizer Company whenever possible.Google Scholar

40. In Canton Municipality the price, exclusive of transport, is 1·33 yüan per ton.Google Scholar

41. We saw no sign that the mechanization of harvesting is even being considered. One merciful consequence is that in China plant breeders have had no incentive to develop tough varieties such as those bred in the United States to withstand the rigours of mechanized harvesting at whatever cost in flavour and succulence. I am happy to report that Chinese eggplants and cucumbers are as delicious as ever.Google Scholar

42. These data are inevitably out of date. Since the publication of this atlas, for instance, Liu-ho County has been annexed by Nanking Municipality, and four counties (P'an-yü, Tseng-ch'eng, Lung-men and Hsin-feng) have been added to Canton Municipality.Google Scholar

43. For instance, Wen-chou (Chekiang Province) is a prefectural-level municipality with no internal counties and the capital of a surrounding prefecture of the same name consisting of seven counties. By contrast, Tan-tung (Liaoning Province) is a prefectural-level municipality with six internal counties. Why was Wen-chou not made a prefectural-level municipality with seven internal counties? Or conversely, why was Tan-tung not arranged into two units, a municipality and a prefecture? (Each of these examples stands for half a dozen cases.)Google Scholar

44. These data are only very approximate. In addition to information supplied by our respondents in Nanking, I have used statistics presented in “The new conquers the old in Nanking,” China Reconstructs, Vol. 22, No. 3 (March 1973), pp. 21–26.Google ScholarThe figure used for the area of the six urban districts is that given for the intramural area by Sen-dou Chang (“The morphology of walled capitals,” in Skinner, (ed.), The City in Late Imperial China, p. 91).Google ScholarThe figure used for the area of Liu-ho County is that given in Wei-lan, Kuan (comp.), Chung-hua min-kuo hsing-cheng ch'ü-hua chi t'u-ti jen-k'uo t'ung-chi piao (Statistical Tables of Administrative Subdivisions Together with Land Area and Populations), Taipei, 1956.Google Scholar

45. As shown on the map, one of these “counties,” Men-t'ou-kou, is actually a district (ch'ü) administratively on a par with the other districts. I suspect the special status of this unit relates to water control, since the Yung-ting River, a major source of the city's water supply (including run-off of the Kuan-t'ing Reservoir) runs through it. None of our respondents in Peking, however, considered Men-t'ou-kou to be part of the municipality proper; all referred consistently to the “eight districts.”Google Scholar

46. These figures, too, are only approximate. The population of the city proper was cited as 4 million as early as March 1973 [NCNA-English (Peking), 16 March 1973].Google ScholarMore recent references specify “over 4 million” [e.g., NCNA-English (Peking), 30 June 1977].Google ScholarThe population of the inclusive municipality has been given as 8 million since mid-1976; one broadcast [FBIS (Peking), 28 July 1976]Google Scholarreferred to the 8 million inhabitants of the municipality, “including 5 million in Peking itself,” which I take to refer to the 8 districts of the municipality proper. Another release [NCNA-English (Peking), 26 September 1975] specified that 46 per cent of the municipality's total population live in “the outlying rural areas.” Applied to a total of 8 million, this yields an estimate for the city proper of 4·32 million.Google Scholar

47. It strikes me as highly unlikely that the delineation of prefecture-sized municipalities on the scale of Canton and Hangchow has anything to do with self-sufficiency in food supply. The inclusion of vast mountainous tracts 175 km. north-east of the city in the case of Canton and 175 km. south-west of the city in the case of Hangchow could make no positive contribution to self-sufficiency in grain and is wholly irrelevant to the urban supply of pork, fish, fruit or vegetables. I suspect that the motivating concern is regional development hinging on hydraulic projects, for in each case the boundaries of the inclusive municipality have been drawn to include the drainage basin of major tributaries and rivers flowing towards the city.Google Scholar

48. These are the figures given to the delegation at an informal briefing early in our visit. I note that they have been reported without change since 1973 (see, e.g., a dispatch published in the Washington Post, 16 September 1973) despite every indication that the city has grown rapidly in the past 4–5 years. At a later working session, we were told that as a consequence of industrial development the city's population had increased to 270,000, but this statistic was not placed in the context of the municipality as a whole.Google Scholar

49. The “economies” in question refer to labour costs only. Since the largest and most modern markets are found mostly in the larger cities, plant amortization may generally be higher there, offsetting lower labour costs. Moreover, there is no presumption that quality of service is independent of labour costs. It may well be that shoppers in Peking must travel further on the average to reach a major market and queue up longer than those in Hangchow. I am grateful to Thomas B. Wiens for these caveats.Google Scholar

50. Grain and meat are rationed in all the cities visited; fish, cooking oil and beancurd are variously rationed in certain cities but not others. Extremely popular in most of the markets visited are portions of chopped/sliced vegetables and meat (or vegetables and beancurd) ready for stir-frying. Displayed on plates, they are emptied into the customer's container on purchase. Prices range from 0·25 yüan to 0·50 yüan. Part of the popularity of these ready-to-cook combinations is that they require no ration coupons.Google Scholar

51. Some data on Peking's largest markets are given in “More markets and shops in Peking,” NCNA-English (Peking), 5 May 1976.Google Scholar

52. In Peking the vegetable company's eight district offices are apparently but component departments of the eight district agencies subordinate to the Second Commercial Bureau. That is, each of the bureau's foodstuff companies maintains in each of the bureau's district agencies a department that supervises the relevant sections of all food markets.Google Scholar

53. Known as Chieh-tao ko-ming wei-yüan-hui and Chu-min ko-ming wei-yüan-hui (literally, Residents' Revolutionary Committee).Google Scholar

54. See Ross, Terrill, Flowers on an Iron Tree: Five Cities of China (Boston: Little, Brown, 1974), p. 78. Terrill uses quite a different set of glosses for what I term wards and neighbourhoods.Google Scholar

55. In Peking during the first two weeks of November 1976, “tens of thousands of office cadres, workers, soldiers and students” helped with the transport, sale and home delivery of the autumn Chinese cabbage crop [NCNA-English (Peking), 18 November 1976]. These volunteers were most likely organized by neighbourhood and ward committees within the framework of marketing-cluster territories.Google Scholar

56. Pei-ching shih Hsüan-wu ch'ü fu-shih-p'in kuan-li-ch'u (Hsüan-wu District Non-staple Food Agency, Peking Municipality), “Hsüeh-hsi li-lun, cheng-ch'üeh ch'u-li nung-shang ho shang-ch'ün kuan-hsi” (“Study theory and correctly handle the relations of commerce with agriculture and with the masses”), Jen-min jih-pao, 23 November 1975, p. 2.Google Scholar

57. The urban core of Ta-lien is subdivided into five urban districts. Ta-lien is the major city in Lü-ta Municipality at the southern tip of the Liaotung peninsula in Liaoning Province.Google Scholar

58. It may appear that way simply because early in the trip I did not have the wit to inquire more fully into the details.Google Scholar

59. I failed to ascertain the number of brigades with only seasonal fields that are under contract with the Peking Municipal Vegetable Company, but it may be in the vicinity of 50. One dispatch speaks of 280 brigades producing vegetables on contract [NCNA-English (Peking) 16 March 1973], 52 more than the number of brigades with continuous vegetable fields.Google Scholar

60. The first post-Cultural Revolution market-brigade link-up in Peking may have been that established in 1970 between Hsi-ho-yen market in Hsüan-wu District and P'u-huang-yü Brigade in Nan-yüan Commune (see Jen-min jih-pao, 23 November 1975, cited in full, supra, note 56). It would appear that the one-to-one policy has been strongly pushed in the last year or so and that many of the links have been newly forged. A general article describing Peking's vegetable procurement published in December 1975 indicated that only 55 per cent of “non-staple food stores in the whole municipality” were linked up with production units. SeeGoogle Scholar“Pei-ching shih ti ch'ih-ts'ai wen-t'i shih tsen-yang chieh-chüeh-ti?” (“How is the problem of vegetables for Peking solved?”), Jen-min jih-pao, 10 December 1974, p. 4.Google Scholar

61. It is asserted in Jen-min jih-pao (23 November 1975Google Scholar: supra, note 56) that the linking of markets and production units is “a socialist new thing born in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,” but in fact it was first introduced during the liberalization of 1956-57 in the wake of initial experience with socialized vegetable marketing. See Kuo-chen, I, Wen-chin, Ku and Chih-hui, Wu, “Tui ta ch'eng-shih su-ts'ai tzu-yu shih-ch'ang ti i-hsieh i-chien” (“Opinions concerning the free market in vegetables in large cities”), Ts'ai-ching yen-chiu, 1957 (No. 2), p. 80. I am grateful to Thomas B. Wiens for this last reference.Google Scholar

62. District registration statistics cannot be translated directly into demand estimates for at least three reasons. (1) Other things equal, most persons would prefer to shop in the large, better-stocked centre-city markets; this means that daily commuters to downtown areas often shop there and that most households make excursions to these markets for special occasions. (2) Many breadwinners of non-agricultural households in peri-urban communes work in urban areas and do at least some of their shopping there. And (3) dependency ratios vary from one district to another, families with small children, for instance, being concentrated in the areas of new worker apartments.Google Scholar

63. The explicit quid pro quo is the state's guarantee to vegetable-producing communes of an adequate supply of grain. A history of difficulties in this regard may be glimpsed from the post-Leap review of peri-urban vegetable cultivation already cited (O. Sheng: supra, note 14): in a section devoted to “developing the production ardour” of peasants, O. Sheng states “Rational arrangement of the supply of grain for commune members in vegetable-producing areas is an important measure for allaying their anxieties. Generally speaking the standard of food-grain allotments should be set slightly higher in areas specially designated as vegetable production bases than … in grain-producing areas.”Google Scholar

64. For an excellent treatment of decision-making freedom on the part of vegetable production teams, see Wiens's paper in the forthcoming report of the delegation. He concludes inter alia that in general the planning process “probably does not stifle producer initiative.”Google Scholar

65. The interests of the state (i.e., the vegetable company) were specified differently in different municipalities, ranging from earning a slight profit (e.g., Hangchow and Canton) to minimizing financial losses (e.g., Peking). Pricing policy is treated in extenso by Wiens in his forthcoming article.Google Scholar

66. These average prices are the total value of supply divided by total quantity. They are lower than might be surmised from the range of prices across varieties since over the whole year the bulk of vegetables sold are of the lowest-priced varieties.Google Scholar

67. The difference in average retail prices as between Nanking (8¢) and Shanghai (10¢) may not be wholly independent of the marked difference in average per capita consumption: 525 grams in Nanking as against 403 grams for Shanghai.Google Scholar

68. For instance, one NCNA release (Peking, 28 December 1974) states that the income of vegetable growers in Peking, Shanghai and Shenyang Municipalities is “about that averaged by city workers.”Google Scholar

69. Despite considerable variation in the range from one region to another, peri-urban communes are generally larger (at least in terms of population) than other, more strictly rural communes. In at least some of the municipalities visited, communes specializing in vegetables are more populous than others in the municipality proper. This was true, for instance, of Hsin-chiao and Shih-ching Communes in Canton; Chien-ch'iao, Tung-feng and Ch'ang-ch'ing Communes in Hangchow; and Hsi-chiao Commune in Tsinan. Moreover, we found that within peri-urban communes the largest brigades were often those specializing most heavily in vegetables. For instance, whereas on the average brigades in Hsin-chiao Commune (Canton) contain 736 households in 11–12 teams, the one brigade (Lien-sheng) that specialized most heavily in vegetables includes over 1,700 households in 27 teams. In Hsi-chiao Commune (Tsinan), the two brigades we visited, Lao-t'un and Tung-fang-hung, both heavily specialized in vegetable production, were the largest in the commune, with 19 and 12 teams respectively as against an average of 5·5 teams for the remaining 41 brigades.Google Scholar