With more than one-fifth of the world’s population and only 7% of the
world’s arable land, China has the potential to become a major importer
of land-intensive products such as feed grains. This development would
be of particular interest to the United States and Canada, which together,
have more than 17% of the world’s arable land but only 5% of the
world’s population.1 Per capita private consumption in China has been
increasing at an average annual rate of 6.8% over the past decade.
Given the low average income level in China, consumption of feedgrain-intensive
products, such as meat, dairy products, and alcohol, can
be expected to increase with continued income growth. These factors
take on greater significance given the fact that China has applied to join
the World Trade Organization and trade liberalization may soon occur.
Use of grain-intensive products should increase if China liberalizes its
agricultural markets, and China should eventually reverse the current
trade situation and begin to import large quantities of feed grains and
meats. The combination of these observations has stimulated interest in
China’s agricultural data, and the research and policy prescriptions based
on these data are greatly affected by the data’s quality