Unified Purchase and Supply of Grain
계획구매·계획공급 (퉁거우퉁샤오)
A planned-economy policy of the early People's Republic of China for state control of grain, cotton and other agricultural resources: beginning in 1953, the state carried out planned grain procurement in the countryside (统购, tonggou) and rationed supply in the cities (统销, tongxiao).
In depth
Tonggou tongxiao assigned each province a grain-procurement quota, purchased grain from the countryside at fixed prices, and reserved the remainder for peasant subsistence rations, seed, fodder and local reserves.
Background and formation
Rising urban-industrial and peasant consumption, together with grain-merchant speculation, produced a grain-supply strain in 1953; by June 1953 the state treasury grain deficit reached 4 billion jin, prompting the Government Administrative Council to adopt the policy.
Its formation proceeded as follows:
- 1953-10-10: Chen Yun's speech 《实行粮食统购统销》 (On Introducing the Unified Purchase and Supply of Grain) at the national grain conference
- 1953-10-16: the CCP Central Committee decision 《关于实行粮食的计划收购与计划供应的决议》 (Resolution on Planned Purchase and Planned Supply of Grain)
- 1953-11-23: the Government Administrative Council order 《政务院关于实行粮食的计划收购和计划供应的命令》 (Order on Implementing Planned Purchase and Planned Supply of Grain)
- From early December 1953, implemented nationwide except in Tibet
Basic content
In the countryside grain was requisitioned by purchase (统购), with prices and grain types set nationally (per-100-jin prices: flour 18.56 yuan, rice 10.82, millet 9.19, corn 6.57, sorghum 5.67, soybean 9.25); in the cities rationed supply (统销) applied. The grain market was strictly state-controlled and private merchant trade strictly restricted. In September 1954 the Government Administrative Council extended planned procurement to cotton, and the scope of the monopoly gradually widened.
Assessment
Recorded positive effects: it eliminated market speculation, stabilized grain prices, alleviated the grain crisis, secured economic construction and people's needs, and became a landmark in establishing the early planned-economy system by bringing grain and edible oil under state control and small-peasant agriculture into the planned economy. Recorded negative effects: the unified-price system formed a highly concentrated monopoly-management structure that ignored market mechanisms, undermined the role of the law of value in price and resource allocation, seriously dampened peasant initiative and grain output, and reinforced the urban-rural dual structure, widening the urban-rural gap. Some hold that under this system China's countryside and peasants were economically exploited by the state from the 1950s to the 1980s and ultimately "impoverished to the bone"; peasants, excluded from most ration quotas, had to bear the scissors-differential exchange between agricultural and industrial goods.
In 1985 a contract-purchase system for grain and cotton replaced it, ending unified purchase and supply for grain-based agricultural products.