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A reform triggered by hunger

16 October 2010 19:51 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. When the 18 farmers in east China’s Anhui Province, their bellies rumbling, stamped red fingerprints on the land-contracting agreement three decades ago, they never expected they might be making history, APA reports quoting Xinhua News Agency.

"We had no other choice," said 70-year-old Yan Lixue. Prior to World Food Day this Saturday, he recalled the bitterness and successes from those past days.

The elderly man used to be head of the production team at Xiaogang Village in Fengyang County.

At that time, Fengyang was dubbed the "hometown of beggars", and was infamous for its poverty. It was the hometown of Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor (1368-98) of the Ming Dynasty. Ironically, Zhu, started as an insurrectionary army leader, though he used to be a beggar, too. The local opera in Fengyang was said to be sung for begging, at the beginning.

With stubble on his square chin, Yan said his only memory of those days was hunger.

"At that time, we ate from the ’big cooking pot’," he recalled. The "big cooking pot" referred to the public kitchen. Establishment of the Peoples’ Commune was made official state policy in 1958. In the Commune, everything was shared and people were encouraged to eat in the commune’s kitchen. Private cooking was then banned and replaced by communal dining.

But the food from the "big cooking pot" was not enough. In Yan’s memory, the days were horrible when there were fewer than 0.25 kilograms of grain per person.

"Sometimes people ate wild herbs or bark from the trees," he said.

As a result, 67 people died of hunger during the Great Leap Forward from 1959 to 1961 when six out of over 30 households in Xiaogang disappeared. In Fengyang, 90,000 people, or one in four people, died.

"Sometimes you would see a person tumble and never stand up again," Yan said.

The nightmare was shared by another villager, Guan Youjiang.

"I had four children. When they cried with hunger, my heart ached," he recalled. In his home there were only pots and beds.

Yan went out to beg in 1976. At first he begged in nearby Huaiyuan County, and then roamed further to the richer Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.

He then refused to lead the production team any more. "The young people mostly went out to beg and few were left to work on the field."

In fact, they were not allowed to beg all year long. "We took turns going out. There had to be someone working for the village."

Realizing that they could starve to death, Yan believed that they had nothing to lose, although "signing the land contracting agreement could mean severe penalties, like imprisonment or even execution," he said.

The agreement was signed one night in November, 1978 in Yan’s cottage. In the dim light of a kerosene lamp, 18 villagers, including Guan, vowed to divide the farmland owned by the People’s Commune into family plots.

On the agreement covered with 17 fingerprints and four seals there was a line saying: if we succeed, we pledge to turn in the grain according to quotas and not to ask the country for money and food; if we fail, we, the team leaders, are willing to receive punishment and other team members share the responsibility to bring up our children until he or she is 18.

They were scared after the move. Some didn’t even tell their wives and some were frightened at every knock at the door.

Despite their caution, the People’s Commune eventually learned about the contract. To punish those who signed, the Commune refused to provide farmers like Yan with fertilizer and seed.

"We had acquaintances from other villages, and we borrowed from them," Yan said.

Guan recalled that those who signed were very enthusiastic about working after signing the agreement. "I went to the field with my wife before dawn. The cattle were not enough, so I pulled the plough myself."

Due to their hard work, they were, at last, proven successful. That year, Xiaogang village harvested more than 69,600 kilograms of grain, which equaled the total yield during the 15 years from 1955 to 1970. As agreed, villagers turned in 12,500 kilograms to the state and divided the rest.

The Spring Festival in 1979 was the happiest one they ever had.

"The households took turns giving dinner parties for other villagers," Guan Youjiang grinned. "We cooked pork, chicken and fish. The Party chief of the county dropped in at every family to ask if we had meat to cook...Warehouses were full of grain."

Their ideas on farming won the support of Deng Xiaoping, chief architect of China’s reform and opening-up.

By the end of 1984, more than 96.6 percent of China’s production teams adopted the contract responsibility system. The yield of grain that year topped 420 billion kilograms, 400 kg per capita. For the first time, the amount of grain grown in China reached the world average.

There is still a bulletin in Xiaogang village bearing the words Deng uttered in May 1980: "Most of the production teams in Fengyang adopted the contract responsibility system and turned over a new leaf....Some people were worried about whether such practices would undermine the collective economy, but as I see it, that worry was unnecessary."

In memory of Deng, Guan recalled that many villagers at that time cut his photo out of the newspaper, mounted it in a frame and displayed in their living rooms. Even if they built new houses later, they still continued displaying Deng’s photos.

Wang Kaiyu, a sociologist with the provincial academy of social sciences in Anhui, visited Xiaogang and praised the reform. "The element of human beings are the most important in grain production. Although seeds and technology are important, without reform in the organizing system they couldn’ t help much."

Li Guoxiang, a research fellow in rural development with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, noted that China’s reform started in rural areas due to the establishment of the contract responsibility system.

He remembered that in 1985, for the first time, the supply of grain greatly exceeded demand. "This is proof of productivity enhancement," he said.

Similarly, Xu Xiaoqing, deputy director of the agricultural economy research institute in the Development Research Center under the State Council, believed that the significance of the new system provided an incentive by setting up a direct link between farmers’ benefits and their work.

Now, Yan and Guang no longer had to worry about food.

According to China’ s State Ministry of Agriculture, the country’s grain output reached 530.8 million tonnes last year, the sixth consecutive year of growth. The figure almost doubled grain output from 1977.

However, villagers in Xiaogang still continue storing enough grain to feed themselves in their warehouse. "This is the sequel to the old days," Guan said.

He said his grandson and granddaughter could not believe the story he told them about hunger in the old days. "They are particular about food because they have never starved."

His view was shared by his fellow villager, Yan Lixue. "The young people always waste food. They should be frugal and save food, even if food is sufficient. Remember, in the past, even if you had money, you could not buy food."

China issued a landmark policy document in October 2008 by allowing farmers to lease their contracted farm land or transfer their land-use right to boost rural development.

Later, Guan leased his land to an enterprise from Shanghai and opened a restaurant. The name of the restaurant was "Land-Contracting".

Yan was to work as a volunteer to clean the main path in Xiaogang. "I am polishing the image of Xiaogang," he said proudly. At the end of the path sits the Land-Contracting Memorial.