The Development Of Rural Economy And The Transition Of Peansant Household Economy In Jianghan Plain

It is theoretically and practically important to understand the process of Chinese agricultural and rural development. As China is with huge territory which characterized by different geographic features and economic development levels, a sub-regional study on agricultural and rural development, and a peasant household - based investigation, will help to build in-depth understanding of Chinese agriculture and rural communities.This research takes Jianghan Plain in Hubei province as research geographic site and peasant household as basic research unit in investigating Chinese agricultural and rural development. The rational for this is that Jianghan Plain is one of the biggest plain in central China and one of the main grain production areas in China, and farmers' welfare is in between the east regional with more economic development and the west with less development. The purpose of the research includes twofold: to explore economic behaviors of peasant households and the development of rural economy of Jianghan Plain during different economic development period; and to investigate factors that lead to the transition of peasant households' economic behavior and the development of the rural economy development in Jianghan Plain for a long time period.The dissertation is divided into five parts, including eleven chapters.The first part includes chapters 1-3. This part described the background and settings of the research, including description of research objectives, literature review, and introduction of studied area, and etc. A brief introduction to Jianghan Plain is also included in this part. Jianghan Plain is well known as 'the Barn of Central China' due to its relatively well-organized agricultural infrastructure. The population pressure, however, had led to over utilization of natural resources, which in turn led to its vulnerable to natural disasters.The second part includes chapters 4-5. This part is concerned with the market situation, economic behaviors and the living state of peasant households before 1949 in Jianghan Plain. Because of population pressure, high frequent nature disasters, fluctuation of market price and society turbulent, peasant households faced great uncertainty. Most of their livelihood was subsistent basis. They grew grain crops mainly for their own consumption, cash crops were with relatively small share in production. They did not have much mobility, i.e. less migration over regions. In sum, most of them are subsistence farmers.The third part includes chapters 6-8. This part analyzes economic behavior of peasant households, the market change and the running process of collective organization during theperiod of planned economy and the period of Household Responsibility System (HRS). A econometric analysis on modeling farmers' rice production activities is employed. After thirty years in the planned economy, the peasant households in Jianghan Plain has successfully dealing with food security problem," risk aversion" is no longer their main principle of behavior. The peasant household's production is primarily commercially orientated. They incline to look for job from out of agriculture and out of rural area, and part-time working and no-farm working are very popular.The fourth part includes chapters 9-10. This part investigates the development path of the agriculture and rural economy from a macroeconomic view in Jianghan Plain. Chapter 9 analyses the development of agriculture and rural economy in Jianghan Plain; Chapter 10 studies the headspring and path of the agriculture and rural economy development in Jianghan Plain. It is concluded that the agricultural and rural development in the period of planned economy is primarily expressed by the growth in grain production, and it is then expressed by growth in different industries including manufacturing and services, and growth in fanners' income and consumption. It is worth to note that the infrastructure constructed in the period of planned economy is playing crucial role in leading to the development, especially to grain production growth, in the time period of HRS.The last part includes Chapter 11, it draw a conclusion of this research and put forward policy aspects.Research topic and the perspectives Jianghan Plain is a main agriculture production area in China, and few research had focused attention on this area on development of agricultural and rural economy from a long time period, much less from the perspective of transition of peasant households' economic behaviors. Because of special geographical features and nature condition of Jianghan Plain, this research discussed some fundamental facts led to development of rural economy in this area by the relation of population, farmland and nature disaster for a long time from a perspective of historical ecology.Research methods and analytical framework This research employs the research methods of both regional economic history and empirical study. It not only made use of large quantity of survey data conducted by the government before 1949, but also carried out a large scale investigation to the peasant household in Jianghan Plain. On the foundation of previous work, this research introduces an analytical framework to analysis the peasant households' economic behavior during different economy development period.Research findings Subsistence bias and "risk aversion" are not inherent characters of peasant households in Jianghan Plain, and commercial production is not completely stand opposite with the small farmland size of peasant household.During the traditional period, risks and uncertainties coming from nature disasters and market undulation led to the substances bias and risk aversion of the peasant households, but during HRS period, peasant households are totally different from the previous ones, they have intimate relationship with market and take many non-farm works.The concept of peasant household is variable, their purpose and behaviors are different with the changing of production environment, market term and living stand level. This may challenge the view that small farmers are always subsistence farmers and far lag behind.In addition, this research pays more attention to the influence of nature disaster especially flood disaster to the development of agriculture and rural economy in Jianghan Plain. An important conclusion is that water conservancy facilities built during planned economy period is playing a key role to the economic development in this region, it reduced the influence of flood disaster, increased irrigated area, and established strength foundation for increasing of grain output, at same time, it provided a stable expectation for peasant households' production that lead to transition of peasant households' behaviors.