Impact of Globalization on

Farming

China’s Entry into WTO

• Challenges• custom duties on foreign agricultural

products would decrease• prices of imported agricultural product

would decrease• quality of imported agricultural

products may be better, and so are more competitive

• the local farmers may lose their jobs.

What can we do?• Lesson from Mexico• Establish plantations • Employment small farmers as worker• Grow more cash crop / market-oriented• Export-oriented• Regional specialization• e.g. Apple enterprise in ShannXi and Shan

dong• e.g. in Mengniu Nei Mongol

What can we do?

• agriculture entrepreneurialsation / (commercial farming)

• Development of township business to provide employment opportunities

• Government aid in technology, credit system

• Improvement in education and transportation

China’s Entry into WTO

• Opportunities• bring in more foreign capital to invest in a

griculture• speeding up the pace of agriculture entrep

reneurialsation• improving crops and agricultural producti

on technology• enhancing the competitiveness of Chinese

agricultural products.

China’s Entry into WTOChina’s Entry into WTO

• Opportunities• promoting agricultural and rural

reforms• benefiting the development of

township business and provide job opportunities

• improving Chinese legal system, providing protection for peasants

Fair Trade in AgricultureFair Trade in AgricultureFair Trade in AgricultureFair Trade in Agriculture

• http://www.maketradefair.org.hk/trad/index.html

New Hopes for New Life

Migrant Workers

• Rush into cities in the eastern part of China to seek for employment

• Rural areas of the Western and Central China

• Most of them come from the Sichuan province

Farmers leave their home

• Seek for employment opportunities• Loss their job• Without farmland• Under production responsibility system• Low price of farming products• Under free market• Natural hazards• Rural poverty

Farmers leave their home

• Greater gap between urban and rural under open door policy

• According the "Statistical Communique 2001" released by the National Bureau of Statistic of China, the annual per capita disposable income of urban households was RMB$6,860 in 2001, with a real increase of 8.5 percent. The per capita net income of rural households was RMB$2,253.

Migrant Workers

• Guangdong (Pearl River Delta), Shanghai (Chang Jiang Delta), Fujian, and Beijing to look for jobs.

• According to official estimation, half of the migrant workers in the whole country now concentrate in the Pearl River Delta

• World factory / foreign investment

Problems• Urban problems• They sacrificed their family, and health • exploited by the employers • Social problems• industrial accidents • the urban residents hold biased views

to these migrant workers, seeing them as causes of corruption and heavy burdens to the urban social system

• Pressure on transport during new year

China’s entry into WTO • Competition of imported farming product

s• Further drop in the price of agricultural pr

oducts• agriculture entrepreneurialsation • More farmers lose their job• Decline of rural economy• Greater gap between urban and rural• More migrant workers