Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

"However, in 1959, things started to go wrong. Political decisions/beliefs took precedence over commonsense and communes faced the task of doing things which they were incapable of achieving. Party officials would order the impossible and commune leaders, who knew what their commune was capable of doing or not, could be charged with being a "bourgeois reactionary" if he complained. Such a charge would lead to prison.

Quickly produced farm machinery produced in factories fell to pieces when used. Many thousands of workers were injured after working long hours and falling asleep at their jobs. Steel produced by the backyard furnaces was frequently too weak to be of any use and could not be used in construction – it’s original purpose. Buildings constructed by this substandard steel did not last long.

Also the backyard production method had taken many workers away from their fields – so desperately needed food was not being harvested. Ironically, one of the key factors in food production in China was the weather and 1958 had particularly good weather for growing food. Party leaders claimed that the harvest for 1958 was a record 260 million tons – which was not true.

The excellent growing weather of 1958 was followed by a very poor growing year in 1959. Some parts of China were hit by floods. In other growing areas, drought was a major problem. The harvest for 1959 was 170 million tons of grain – well below what China needed at the most basic level. In parts of China, starvation occurred.

1960 had even worse weather than 1959. The harvest of 1960 was 144 million tons. 9 million people are thought to have starved to death in 1960 alone; many millions were left desperately ill as a result of a lack of food. The government had to introduce rationing. This put people on the most minimal of food and between 1959 and 1962, it is thought that 20 million people died of starvation or diseases related to starvation."

And recently the Chinese wheat-buying delegations started to travel to wheat producing nations and the wheat prices went up worldwide more quickly than it would otherwise.

Should not China be offered assistance towards becoming self sufficient in food?

China is not cleaning up the sulfur from its coal burning power plants. The sulfur dioxide nuclei are preventing rainfall by forming very small water droplets that float by Brownian motion. Water shortages in the east and north of China are harming agricultural yields.
China has decided that buying food abroad is cheaper than cleaning up its power plants. This will continue until the demand for meat protein in China causes world food prices to rise in reaction to the demand for food grains.

China is not cleaning up the sulfur from its coal burning power plants. The sulfur dioxide nuclei are preventing rainfall by forming very small water droplets that float by Brownian motion. Water shortages in the east and north of China are harming agricultural yields.
China has decided that buying food abroad is cheaper than cleaning up its power plants. This will continue until the demand for meat protein in China causes world food prices to rise in reaction to the demand for food grains.

"China is not cleaning up the sulfur from its coal burning power plants..."

And that sits pretty nicely to somebody's dumping the Kyoto Protocol, no?

The first place I heard about the famine in China was in an article in the magazine "Problems of Communism," in 1965. The article quoted the University of Manitoba subcontracted to the Canadian Wheat Board in 1961 on the starvation as having been the first group to have noticed what was happening during the Great Leap.

I guess market research is one form of academia that really has to produce for its clients.

My guess is that weather is not their worst problem in food production. Good example is citrus. They're the 3rd largest citrus producer (at least by acreage), yet I believe they're a net buyer. Why? Railcars full of oranges can usually be found rotting in the sun around the citrus production regions, I'm told. I guess that since nobody owns them (well, I guess the "state" does), nobody has a vested interest in seeing them processed.

The Dude: "Steel produced by the backyard furnaces was frequently too weak to be of any use and could not be used in construction – it’s original purpose."

Dangit! If it weren't for Brad's last post on grammar, I could treat that incorrect usage of "it's" with scorn. :)

Summam scrutemur - Let's look at the bottom line

Crudelius est quam mori semper timere mortem - It is more cruel to always fear death than to die. (Seneca)