Agriculture has, until recently, been the dominant force in the Chinese economy. It is only recently that manufactured goods have been produced in sufficient volume to satisfy internal demand as well as being exported to foreign markets. For an excellent analysis of Chinese Agriculture by faculty at the University of British Columbia, click here.

There are still some large commune-type farms such as the enormous cane fields we saw west of Wuhan, but much of the land is divided up into plots leased by a single household and whose size depends on the number of people in the household. The average farm is now about one acre.