Between 1959 and 1961, an estimated 30 to 45 million Chinese people died in a famine resulting from Leader Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward. … At the same time, the state tried to expand agricultural production by breaking in unsuitable land.
Chinese agricultural officials experimented with schemes such as “deep plowing,” which involved planting seeds a meter below ground in the irrational belief they would produce hardier, higher-yielding crops. This was combined with “close planting,” a pseudoagronomic Soviet theory of clumping crops close together to increase yields. Widespread crop failures resulted.
China has learned much from the past, and is ten years into an agricultural revolution that is reshaping international markets. China cannot become totally independent in many food categories …. But China is working hard to reduce the degree of its dependence.
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Driven not only by a need for food security but also by a dwindling rural labor force, China is applying some of the world’s most advanced farming techniques. Many are not of its own invention, but most are being commercialized at a scale that few markets have been able to meet to date.
