The Politics of Agricultural Mechanization in the Post-Mao Era, 1977–87

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Abstract
Analyses of rural reform in post-Mao China have focused mainly on changes in the production unit, the incentive system and the expanded decision-making power of the rural household in production and marketing. They have largely neglected the evolution in policy toward the- inputs of agricultural production: farm machinery, fertilizer, soil, irrigation, seed and plant improvement, and so on. There have been few studies about the relationship between the changes in rural production organizations and incentive systems on the one hand, and peasant choices among various production input options on the other. On the whole, post-Mao agricultural policies slighted what could be called the mechanical package of agricultural inputs in favour of the biological package. Yet no Western analyses have dealt exclusively with this, which is quite surprising, given the enormous significance attached to the mechanical package in general and mechanized farming in particular during the whole period of Mao's rule.

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