NEW WORLD FOOD CROPS IN CHINA: FARMS, FOOD, AND FAMILIES IN THE WEI RIVER VALLEY, 1650-1910 (POPULATION, SHENSI, MAIZE, FAMINE, AGRICULTURE)

Food crops native to the western hemisphere, including maize, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, peanuts, chili peppers, squashes, snap beans, tomatoes, and sunflowers were widely dispersed throughout the world during the post-Columbian era. The introduction of these crops to China has been broadly linked to several major developments of the Ch'ing (1644-1911) period, including unprecedented population growth, internal migration, and commercialization of the rural economy, but the mechanisms underlying these developments are unclear.; The Wei River Valley, located in central Shensi province in northwest China, was chosen as the site for a case study of the problem. Data concerning trade, land use, agriculture, food consumption, population, climate, and natural disasters were collected from local histories and agricultural manuals.; Analysis of the data showed that population in the valley grew at an average annual rate of about six per thousand from 1650 until the early nineteenth century. By that time the average area of cultivated land per person was at a minimum subsistence level, about three mu (half of an acre). Population declined sharply during the Muslim uprisings and famines of the mid-nineteenth century, but growth resumed after the disasters.; The entry of the new crops into the valley occurred in a two-stage process. The first stage began in the eighteenth century, when hardy crops such as maize and potatoes were cultivated almost exclusively by immigrants to peripheral upland areas where other crops were not viable. The link between the new crops and population growth was strongest in those areas. The second stage occurred after the late nineteenth-century disasters, when the new crops were adopted by residents of the central valley. At that time broader domestic markets were opening for cotton, opium, and tobacco. Maize is more productive and less labor-intensive than millet, and farmers who grew cash crops often substituted maize for millet in the summer crop rotation. Thus in both stages the desire to take advantage of new economic opportunities was the chief stimulus behind acceptance of the new crops.