China feeds 22 percent of the world's population with only 7 percent of the planet's arable land. The land is heavily used for agriculture. Vegetables are planted on road embankments, in traffic triangles and along the walls of many buildings. However, since 1949, China has lost a fifth of its arable land. In China, only 10 to 15 percent of land is 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). There are 545,960 square kilometers of irrigated land in China. Forty percent of cultivated land in China is irrigated, compared to 23 percent in India. The average yield per acre in China is double that of India. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay China has always struggled to feed its vast population. Even in the 20th century, famines periodically ravaged the Chinese population. Great importance has always been placed on agricultural production, but weather, wars, and politics have often dampened good intentions. With the start of reforms in the late 1970s, the relative share of agriculture in gross domestic product (GDP) began to increase each year. Driven by sharp increases in prices paid for crops and a trend toward privatization of the agricultural sector, agricultural production increased from 30 percent of GDP in 1980 to 33 percent of GDP in 1983. Since then , however, the share of agriculture in the economy has declined. at the same time as the service sector has grown. In 2004, agriculture (including forestry and fishing) produced only 15.2 percent of China's GDP, but it remains enormous by any measure. In 2004, some 46.9 percent of the total national workforce was engaged in agriculture, forestry and fishing. [Source: Library of Congress] China is the world's largest consumer of meat and grains. As the country becomes wealthier, people consume more meat and cooking oil, which has led to increased demand for soybeans as an oil source and livestock feed. China also uses more fertilizer than any other country. David Pierson wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “Unlike large, highly mechanized American farms, a typical Chinese farm is less than an acre and worked by hand. It's a legacy of communist reform, when the state took control of China's farmland and subdivided it into tiny plots. Although this system has kept people in rural areas employed, it has slowed China's ability to increase its income. With China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, food export opportunities expanded, leading to even more efficient agricultural techniques. As a result, traditional areas such as grain production declined in favor of commercial vegetable and fruit crops for domestic trade and export. [Source: Library of Congress] Keep in mind: This is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get a personalized essay. Improved agricultural policies and technologies have given China a high level of self-sufficiency and growth. But the country's top economic planning body warned that this would be difficult to maintain. The lack of agricultural subsidies and the expropriation of agricultural land for urban construction have paralyzed agriculture. As more and more.”