both irrigation and transportation on a scale comparable to that of the network of water courses in Kiangsu-Chekiang. For Hopei, Honan, Shantung, Anhwei and Kiangsu, 100-percent irrigation was targeted and the canal irrigation in the lower reaches was to be made deep enough to absorb flood runoff, as well as to provide for irrigation. However, the entire water resources of the Yellow River and its tributaries could not meet the projected demands for irrigation in the lower reaches, except at a very thin level; consequently plans called for diversion of water from the Han (a tributary of the Yangtse) and from the Yangtse itself to the Yellow River system.63

The first-stage construction work on the Yellow River system began in 1958 and continued through 1959, along with the construction of some 60 water gates and extensive major and minor channels on the banks of the lower reaches and the concomitant development of irrigation systems in the Huai basin of northern Anhwei and Kiangsu. Of the immense increase in claimed irrigated acreage of 32 million hectares in 1958, the five provinces benefiting from these projects (Hopei, Honan, Shantung, Kiangsu and Anhwei) accounted for 56 percent. But not long thereafter work was stopped on many of the incompleted projects, the overall plans were shelved, and most of the claimed increase in irrigation "evaporated," probably because many areas had been ordered to stop irrigation. Since this meant abandoning hopes for rapid extension to the north of securely irrigated acreage and high-yield crops, such as paddy rice, and thereby forced a revamping of the entire agricultural development strategy, the reasons for the (temporary) collapse of this program deserve careful examination.

67

65

In some part, the postponement of many major projects was due to substitution of small, local projects. This reflected the victory of Maoist development strategy, but also a shortage of cement and steel, which could meet only 20-30 percent of the demands for dam construction.66 Small local dams could use earth and rock fill with, if necessary, a concrete core or facing and could serve as the first market for the new, small-scale rural cement and steel production.6s The growing demand for irrigation water (and retention of runoff in local storage facilities) reduced the electricity-generating potential and thus the economic justification of some planned dams below original levels. The policy of simultaneous and uncoordinated development of major and minor facilities, on main rivers and tributaries, which exploited the mass enthusiasm of the moment, was replaced by a more rational bottom-up development policy.70 The Soviet withdrawal of technical and material aid also doomed some major projects, and the large-scale floods of 1959-61 may have clinched matters by forcing a return to the earlier emphasis on flood prevention, at the expense of irrigation and electricity generation.

69

63 Ibid., pp. 75-77, 79, 87 and 90.

4 C. I. A., op. cit., pp. 38-39; Ninmin Chugoku 6 (1973), p. 23.

65 Hsiung Yi, "On the Prevention of Soil Alkalization in the North China Plain," JMJP, December 18, 1962: Su Tsung-sung, op. cit.

66 Tojin Sha, eds., op. cit., p. 164.

67 Nung-t'ien shui-li, op. cit., pp. 30-31.

63 C. I. A., op. cit., p. 11. Such a policy is not without drawbacks: The reinforcement of dams to prevent collapse has now become one of the highest priority tasks of capital construction work in the rural areas. See FBIS, February 10, 1978, p. E10.

69 Tojin Sha, ed., op. cit., p. 63.

70 Su Tsung-sung, op. cit.

In addition, two fatal technical errors were made, which might have been avoided through more careful and extensive study. First, the major factor that historically had precluded extensive irrigation in the Yellow River basin was the extraordinary silt content of the river, which has led to an elevation of the bed, the silting of irrigation channels, and consequently to frequent and devastating floods. Soviet and Chinese planners and engineers proposed to deal with the problem both by afforestation in the northwest and by constructing a series of dams from San Men Gorge upstream, which were expected to drastically reduce the silt content downstream."1

The afforestation program ran well behind schedule (and today remains far from complete), probably because the northwest is underpopulated and the local benefits of afforestation have been insufficient incentive to mobilize the necessary local labor.72 Construction of the San Men Dam nevertheless was completed in October 1960, but the effects on silt content in the lower reaches of the river were not significant, apparently because the scouring of banks and beds below San Men Gorge allowed the river to again pickup large quantities of silt. Silt thus continued to clog irrigation works in the lower reaches, which had been constructed on the assumption that this problem would be solved. Consequently, at least one major intake and many smaller channels failed to take in water; 73 moreover, the continued buildup in the river bed, canals, and irrigation channels "became a causative factor in the large floods" of 1959-61.74

Second, the serious potential for waterlogging and alkalization does not seem to have been foreseen, largely because there were not enough data on the level of the water table in the various areas that were to benefit from irrigation. Only in discussing the longrun plans for the diversion of Han and Yangtse River water into the Yellow River system was it noted that "there will be the possibility of great increases in ground water in Hopei and Anhwei." Hence systematic study of the problem was advised.75 But the explosive growth of irrigation in this area during 1958-59, combined with the effects of the 1959-61 floods, led to rapid and drastic elevation of the water table, and thus to potential or actual alkalization of large areas of land.76

It is not clear how far this process had gone before a decision was made to stop further extension of irrigation in the Yellow River basin and halt irrigation in some areas where it had already been underway. By late 1959, official policy had shifted from an emphasis on storage to one on drainage, in order to protect against waterlogging and alkalization." By late 1962, some areas had been ordered to stop irrigation, and emphasis had shifted to curing, which was attempted only for newly alkaline land.78 Moreover, the significance of the problem had been officially elevated to third rank among the four most serious problems of north China agriculture (the others being drought, flooding

71 Tojin Sha, ed., op. cit., p. 83. On the history of the problem, see Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, vol. IV:3, pp. 232-45.

72 Su Tsung-sung, op. cit.; Ninmin Chugoku, op. cit., p. 22. As a result, the useful lifespan of the San Men Dam was reduced. On the latest campaign to enlarge afforestation in the northwest, see FBIS, Feb. 23, 1978, p. E9. 73 Su Tsung-sung, op. cit.

74 Tojin Sha, ed., op. cit,. p. 53.

75 Ibid., p. 79.

76 Egypt, also with Soviet aid, has unfortunately repeated the Chinese error in its Aswan project, but has not yet faced the full consequences. See the Wall Street Journal, Sept. 24, 1976.

77 Ho Chi-feng, "The Glorious Achievements of China's Irrigation Construction During the Last Ten Years, "Shui-li shui-tien chien-she 18 (1959), pp. 16-17.

78 Hsiung Yi, op. cit.

and silting) and was cited as the main obstacle to rapid expansion of irrigation.

79

The forced postponement of the surface water schemes for the north China plain left two feasible lines of attack in the short run: It was necessary on the one hand to deal directly with the problems of drainage and runoff storage to lay the groundwork for resumption of surface irrigation, and on the other to exploit subsurface water sources for irrigation purposes. The former task was inevitably slow and difficult: The terrain is flat, and not only surface flow but also ground water must be drained off. Deep subsurface channels and drainage pipes under the fields were required, and in addition, low-lying fields would have to be elevated, employing the dual-purpose traditional method of removing silt from irrigation channels and rivers and piling it onto fields. The process requires vast amounts of slack-season labor, and peasants accustomed to dry-field cultivation in droughtstricken areas had first to be persuaded that there was good reason to invest considerable effort in order to allow hard-won irrigation water to "drain away." 80 While it might be expected that this process could be speeded up through provision of heavy earthmoving machinery (in the Peking area, land-leveling alone requires 150 to 270 labordays/hectare without machinery; more than ¥300/hectare with earthmoving equipment), it should be remembered that the opportunity cost of slack-season labor is low and earthmoving machinery damages soil fertility more than human labor by bringing large quantities of subsoil to the surface (reducing yields by 25 to 60 percent relative to hand-leveled land, in the absence of compensating fertilizer, and reqiring 4 to 5 years for recovery even with heavy fertilizer applications). Moreover, the main payoff comes only when the land of an entire district or region is so improved and surface irrigation can be resumed.

81

It is sometimes suggested by foreign observers that large-scale resumption of surface irrigation in the north China plain is a matter for the distant future, because of the immense costs involved. It should be stressed, however, that the Chinese have been laying the groundwork for two decades, and have invested heavily in this goal; the major question which requires further study is how far they have to go. At this point it seems that major irrigation use of the Yellow River in its lower reaches still awaits resolution of the silting problem, but that diversion of water from the Han and/or Yangtse to the North China Plain will come within a decade. The Tan-chiang-kou project on the Han River, originally intended to divert water to the north, was basically completed in 1969. Of greater interest, though, is the fact that a project for diverting Yangtse water more than 500 kilometers north to irrigate the North China Plain is included within the 10-year development program recently announced by Chairman Hua. 82 The second line of attack, the use of subsurface water, proved to be an important means for rapidly expanding the scope of irrigation in north China, albeit at a thin level. Surveys in the mid-1960's

79 It was treated as a minor problem in some areas in Ministry of Agricluture, Propaganda Bureau, eds Nung-yeh sheng-ch'an chi-shu chi-pen chih-shih vol 14: Tu-jang (Peking, 1956), pp. 22-23 and 26-28, but as described above in Su Tsung-sung, op. cit.

89 Hsiung Yi, op. cit.

81 Ai Yun-hang and Huang Hung-ch'üan, “The Study of a Few Economic Questions Concerning Land Levelling," Ching-chi yen-chiu 3 (1964), pp. 53-54.

82 FBIS, March. 7, 1978, p. D15 and Mar. 10, 1978, p. E8.

83

first determined that reliable, deep-strata water resources existed in this area. The use of subsurface water for irrigation posed less danger than did the use of surface water, since the former only replaced what it had removed from ground water levels.

What was required were cheap and efficient pumps and drilling technologies. Large-scale production of submersible pumps designed for wells that are more than 30 meters deep seems to have begun in the mid-1960's, and was supported by increasing rural electrification. 84 The well-drilling technology employed, on the other hand, was "improved traditional," that is, human powered but with components of steel plate, pipe, and cable (the process compressed roughly 324 labordays per well sunk in soft soil into one week of continuous labor). Well linings were made of local handicraft-factory products (such as ceramic, cement, bamboo. sorghum rope, and paper), and were installed in an ingenious fashion. This "package" of product and process, combining minimal but essential inputs from modern industry, maximum use of local semi-handicraft products and labor, and systematized and innovative techniques, epitomizes the "bootstrap" mode of rural technological improvement which has been promoted since the Great Leap.

86

85

Moreover, it was successful: More than 1 million such tubewells were installed in north China, accounting for about 7 million hectares of irrigated land-about 70 percent of the increase in irrigated acreage since 1957. Chinese studies suggest that, even in the absence of other improvements, such land yields about 70 percent more in years of drought, and 10-20 percent more even in wet years.87 Far more important in the long run, irrigation opens up opportunities for a fullscale transformation of local agricultural technology.

However, the utility of tubewells is limited by the availability of subsurface water in adequate quantities outside the North China Plain, and especially in the more mountainous regions, ground water supplies are less ample and less accessible. Moreover, both ground and surface water irrigation schemes can be stymied by the expense or impossibility of lifting and distributing water among dispersed, tiny, terraced plots. In these conditions, which characterize many parts of interior China, the optimal solution may be the introduction of spray irrigation, which saves water, labor, and the land absorbed by canals, ditches, and furrows in surface flow systems. Spray irrigation has only recently begun to develop in China, perhaps because it requires fuelefficient pumps and reductions in cost of pipes or tubing and nozzles. However, the rapid expansion of spray irrigation has now become a high-priority goal of current mechanization policy, and is especially pushed for mountainous provinces such as Szechuan where the introduction of more intensive cropping systems has long been blocked by the inability to extend irrigation. Since the laggard performance of a number of such areas has acted as a drag on the overall performance of the entire agricultural sector, this development could prove

83 Jack Chen, A Year in Upper Felicity (New York: Macmillan, 1973), pp. 209-212.

84 The state of pump technology through 1965 is described in Ministry of Agriculture, Nung-t'ien shui-li op, cit., pp. 31–71; Chich-fang jih-pao, July 20, 1965.

83 The well-drilling process and technology are described in Jack Chen, op. cit., pp. 215-20.

se Wiens, op. cit., pp. 118-19.

87 Liu Pai-t'ao, "Basic Research on the Economic Efficiency of Irrigation," Ching-chi yen-chiu 8 (1964),

p. 30.

85 FBIS, Feb. 10, 1978, p. E10; Feb. 24, 1978, p. J3; British Broadcasting Corp. Summary of World Broadcasts, Jan. 25, 1978, p. A6.

as important as the spread of tubewells in north China. In areas with already developed surface flow systems (excepting paddy-producing areas), spray irrigation may permit recovery of some land currently occupied by water distribution channels, and help stretch available water resources, at the expense of the more severe pest problem intrinsic to this form of water delivery.

MECHANIZATION

89

The optimal pace and forms of farm mechanization have been the subject of considerable controversy since the inception of the People's Republic, although the issue remained largely academic until the production capacity of the machine-building industry reached significant levels (after the Great Leap). On the one hand, mechanized farming, as practiced in the Soviet Union or the United States, symbolized modernity and the elimination of the distinction in technique and psychology between farm and factory labor. On the other hand, introducing machinery at an early stage of agricultural development might save labor without concomitant increases or even with a decrease in land or capital productivity. It was accepted as a general principle that China should develop and produce machinery that would contribute to all three measures of productivity and that labor-saving machinery should be introduced only where released labor could be used profitably to intensify cultivation, open or improve land, repair water works, or increase sideline activities.90

Of a variety of mechanizable farming activities, plowing seemed to offer the greatest potential for economically justifiable innovation. It has been argued that improvements in the traditional Japanese plow made during the late Meiji period were a prerequisite to the takeoff in fertilizer usage which contributed so much to subsequent growth in Japanese agricultural productivity." While the significant improvement in the Japanese case was due to the increased depth of plowing (permitting better developed root systems and thus more fertilizer-absorption capacity and less tendency to lodge), in the Chinese multiple-cropping regimen the potential labor savings were also significant because of the time pressures on the labor supply in the short period during which harvesting, plowing, and sowing or transplanting had to be done in succession. 92

The traditional Chinese plow, like its Japanese counterpart, was light, small, simply constructed, and cheap due to its minimum metal requirement (¥12 for dry field; ¥4.67 for paddy plow), but it required considerable human and animal effort, plowed to an average depth of only 4 to 5 inches, and did not turn over the soil well. Beginning in the early 1950's, the Chinese began producing and distributing on a large scale various improved traditional plows, characterized by enlarged share and moldboard and, on some dry-field plows, the addition of a guide wheel. These implements increased average plowing depth to 6.5 inches and significantly reduced the labor requirement per hectare (by 40 percent for dry field and 17 percent for paddy plows),

89 Chinese admiration for mechanized farming is well reflected in William Hinton, Iron Oren (New York, Vintage Books, 1970).

0 Hsiang Te, “A Discussion of the Problems of Mechanizing China's Agriculture," JMJP, July 2, 1963. Takekazu Ogura, ed., Agricultural Development in Modern Japan (Tokyo: Fuji, 1967), p. 370.

For further discussion, see Kenneth Walker, "Organization of Agricultural Production," in A. Eckstein W. Galenson, and T. C. Liu, eds., Economic Trends in Communist China (Chicago: Aldine, 1968), pp. 405-13.