Food demand in rural China: evidence from rural household survey

Abstract

The recent rural reforms in China have had great cffects on agricultural production and productivity as weil as rural household consumption. While much has been writtcn on production and productivity cffccts of these reforms, very few Chinese studies have attcmptcd to analyze the changes in rural consumption patterns. This paper uses a dynamic AlOS model to estimate various food demand parametcrs for Chinesc rural households using rural household survey data recently rcteased by the China State Statistieal Bureau. The results show that ail important food commodities including riec, wheat, coarse grains, vegetables, meat, tobacco and alcohol have positive expenditure e!asticities. Riec, wheat and coarse grains arc necessities, while meat, vegetables, alcohol and tobacco arc Iuxurics. The expenditure clasticitics for riec, coarse grains and tobaceo arc declining, but those for whcat, meat, vegetables and alcohol are increasing. As per capita income rises and population incrcases, the dcmand for these items will continue to increase. Therefore, China must continue to increase its food production by a grcatcr rate in the future in order to avoid food shortagcs, 1 For more details on production and productivity effccts of the Chinese rural reforrns refer to Lin (I988, 1(92), Fan (I (91) and Sicular (I (88).

Projecting meat and cereals demand for China based on a meta-analysis of income elasticities

“…For example, people tend to consume more rice in southern provinces, while people in the north prefer wheat (Fan et al, 1994). In the primary studies, some estimates focus on the national level (e.g.…”

“…Abler, 2010;Chern and Wang, 1994;Fan et al, 1994;Fan et al, 1995;Gao et al, 1996;Gould and Villarreal, 2006;Huang and Rozelle, 1998;Jiang and Davis, 2007;Lewis and Andrews, 1989;Liu, 2003;Wu et al, 1995;Yen et al, 2004;Zheng and Henneberry, 2009). However, the estimated demand elasticities in the literature are quite varied, and some even controversial (Abler, 2010).…”

Dynamic food demand in urban China

“…After three decades of remarkable economic growth, the dietary structure changes dramatically in China and a large volume of literature has been devoted to this topic (e.g. Lewis and Andrews, 1989;Fan et al, 1994;Fan et al, 1995;Gao et al, 1996;Ma et al, 2004;Yen et al, 2004;Wan, 2005;Jiang and Davis, 2007;Zheng and Henneberry, 2009;Tian and Yu 2013).…”

At‐home meat consumption in China: an empirical study*

“…As the country with the world's largest population, China's rapid economic development has attracted much attention (Chow 1984;Fan et al 1994;Rozelle et al 1997;Zhou et al 2003). With rapid economic development, many changes are occurring in Chinese society, and one marked change in food consumption is the increasing consumption of meat that has occurred during the last two decades (Figure 1).…”