The Evolution Of The Spatial Distribution Of China's Food Industry

China's food industry is the industry which is closely related to human needs. Their level of development not only review a country's development and civilization, but also be an important pillar of agriculture, industry, tertiary industry and other related industry. The development of the food industry has an important role to improve the quality of life, promote economic development and maintain social stability. Since 1996, industrial output value of China's food industry has among the first of the industrial sector several times. In 1996, about 725.067 billion Yuan output value of China's food industry, and an average annual rate of more than 10% year on year growth, the growth rate much higher than United States, Japan, Europe and other western countries. China's food industry for our country has an important role in effectively solving the "three rural" issue, increasing revenue, expanding employment, and to maintain sustained economic development. In recent years, academics study from different angles on the development of China's food industry, but mainly concentrated in the food industry of market concentration, the regional distribution of the food industry and its evolution is rare. According to the China Industry Economy Statistical Yearbook, China Food Industry Yearbook, China Statistical Yearbook and the provincial and municipal statistical data related to the food industry, this thesis investigates the status and geographical concentration trends of China's food industry using the concentration ratio of the main products and four major sub-sectors of five (eight) provinces of food industry. This thesis analyses and studies the spatial distribution of China's food industry based on the changes of geographical distribution of main products output in the past thirty years.The food industry is a continuous and organized industrial system of economic activity. It produces, extracts and processes food or semi-finished products with the raw material of agricultural, fishery, animal husbandry, forestry or chemical industrial products or semi-finished products. According to the statistical classification of China Food Industry Yearbook, there are five categories of the food industry. They are agricultural food processing industry, food manufacturing industry, beverage manufacturing industry, tobacco products industry and salt mining industry. According to the statistical classification of China Statistical Yearbook, there are four categories of the food industry. They are agricultural food processing industry, food industry, beverage manufacturing and tobacco products industry. The agricultural food processing industry refers to the processing activity of grain, feed, vegetable oil and sugar, meat, aquatic products, and vegetables, fruits and nuts, etc. The food manufacturing industry mainly includes the manufacturing of baking food, candy, chocolate and candied fruit, convenient food, liquid milk and dairy products, canning and condiments, fermentation products, etc. Beverage manufacturing industry mainly includes the manufacture of alcohol, wine, soft drink and the processing of refined tea, etc. The tobacco products industry includes tobacco redrying, tobacco cigarette manufacturing and other tobacco products processing, etc.China's food industry started relatively late compared with western countries. Early stages of development mainly as raw materials for agro-food primary processing, the production level is relatively low. Since reform and opening, with the continuous development of our economy, people's living standard has greatly improved. The food industry's growth rate has gradually accelerated. From the overall development of the food industry, China's food industry output changes over time can be divided into 1978-1990,1991-2003 and 2004 to the present three stages. From the ratio between four sub-sectors of food industry, within the food industry, agriculture food processing industry has the largest proportion. Especially in recent years, its proportion has significant upward trend. Tobacco products industry has a diametrically opposite change, which is the smallest proportion and show a declining trend. Food manufacturing and beverage manufacturing industry's proportion did not change significantly. Proportion of food industry's output value and Agricultural output is rising. In 2005.food industry's output value first exceeded agricultural output.Main products of the food industry and the evolution trend of the regional distribution show that, the distribution evolution of different industries of the food industry quite different. The concentration ratio of the main products and four major sub-sectors of five (eight) provinces of food industry and the output value of the food industry sub-sectors measured results show that, the food industry shows the trend of agglomeration as a whole, but the changing trends of sub-sectors are not the same, even big differences. The reason is that the food industry depends on natural conditions seriously and its distribution range is affected by both the raw material origin and the place of sale. With the interaction of various factors, the agricultural food processing industry shows a greater trend of agglomeration and it can influence the whole industry. Food manufacturing industry and beverage manufacturing industry are in the frequent fluctuations but a slight of agglomeration and it's not obvious. Tobacco products industry shows the characteristic that it gathers first and disperses later,the factors that can affect the spatial distribution of China's food industry based on the preceding part, and investigates the effects of distribution of agricultural raw materials, socio-economic conditions, labor factors, market conditions and institutional and policy factors on the spatial distribution of China's food industry. By the comparative analysis, we find the spatial distribution of food industry is a result of joint action of multiple factors. With the continuous development of market economy, natural resources, regional economic conditions, labor costs, transportation costs and regional economic policies and local management structure will further impact on the spatial distribution of China's food industry. From the analysis, it's hard to say which factor is more important than others, because in different historical periods there are great differences in the manners in which the gathering and dispersing factors affect the spatial distribution.Due to many factors, China's food industry is mainly characterized by the unbalance of regional development, the irrational industrial structure, and the gap in the layout of agricultural product and other issues, and these gradually evolved into bottlenecks to further development of the food industry. On this basis, we present suggestions to solve these problems. The food industry should give full play to its advantages in resources, and then optimize the industrial structure and improve the competitiveness. At the same time, we should increase the scientific and technological input, develop intensive processing of food, and improve the conversion efficiency of the processing of agricultural raw materials. The government should conform to the trend of industrial development, and formulate feasible development policy for the food industry in order to create a favorable external development environment for the industrial agglomeration.