WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Since 1949, China lost one fifth of its arable land to urbanisation and industrialisation and currently only about 10 to 15 per cent of the land is left good for agriculture (compared to 1 percent in Saudi Arabia, 50 percent in India, 20 percent in the United States, and 32 percent in France).

Detailed explanation-2: -Furthermore, the limited agricultural land resource in China is distributed to 231 million households, resulting in an average farm size of only 0.96 acres per household (China Agricultural Development Report 2016), and even such small farms are usually scattered in several separate plots.

Detailed explanation-3: -Chinese agricultural land ownership only increased about 550 acres from 2015 to 2019. Then ownership jumped 30% from 2019 to 2020, from some 247, 000 acres to roughly 352, 000.

Detailed explanation-4: -Rice, maize and wheat are the three major crops, and the production of these three crops accounts for more than 90% of China’s total food production.

Detailed explanation-5: -SHANGHAI, Aug 27 (Reuters)-China’s total arable land amounted to almost 1.28 million sq km (490, 000 sq miles) by the end of 2019, down nearly 6% compared with a decade earlier, according to a once-in-a-decade survey of the country’s land use published on Thursday.