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Arguments - Data Quality |
Agricultural Policy |
While policy measures and
legislation are crucial factors of food security, they are difficult or impossible to
measure quantitatively. China's agricultural policy, its land-related legislation, and the
government's price or market regulations can usually be described only verbally and
through anecdotal evidence. |
Moreover, there is often a
big difference in China between official policy and legislation and actual practice or
implementation. A good example is China's recent Grain Bag policy, which assigns greater
autonomy - but also additional responsibility - to the provincial governments for managing
the grain sector. Depending on the political and economic orientation of the provincial
leadership, measures are implemented rather differently. There is also the problem of
corruption, which further widens the gap between official policies and actual practice. |
However, the greatest
obstacle to gaining detailed insight into China's (agricultural) policy, is the reluctance
of Chinese officials to provide access to certain statistics, such as even simple grain
trade statistics between provinces (presumably because they are afraid outsiders might
learn about grain deficits or production crises in certain provinces). From a Western
perspective, it appears that in China statistical data that show negative trends
are still considered an embarrassment and not just a simple warning indicator; therefore,
if possible, they are better not reported. The same pattern seems to prevail in
policy-making. Policies are typically presented in the media as great achievements, even
if they are only preventing a situation from getting worse. The real intentions
of policy measures are usually not clear initially, because they are hidden behind a
curtain of political phraseology (a typical case is, again, the Grain Bag policy). Only
after a few years does it becomes clear to outside observers what the real purpose of a
certain policy measure was. Even political observers who have lived in China for years
have indicated their ignorance of the inner workings of Chinese politics. For all its
openness to the outside world, China is still a very secretive country, and it is usually
a mistake to take easily available information at face value (particularly in the field of
politics). |
Related Arguments |
Agricultural Policy: Trends
Impact Data Quality
Prediction Error Intervention
Possibilities Intervention
Costs
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Revision 2.0 (First revision published in 1999)
- Copyright © 2011 by Gerhard K. Heilig. All rights reserved. (First revision: Copyright © 1999 by IIASA.) |
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