Agricultural Cooperation

Despite the quick recovery of agricultural production, poverty remained one of the major problems haunting rural China in 1950s. To help the farmers shed off poverty, the Chinese government started the socialist transformation of agriculture to guide the farmers onto the road of cooperation.

Launched in 1953, the movement of agricultural cooperation had undergone three stages, i.e., the agricultural production mutual-aid teams, elementary agricultural producers' cooperatives and advanced agricultural producers' cooperatives. The state monopolized the purchasing and marketing of farm produce like grain, cotton and oilseeds and established supply and marketing cooperatives and credit cooperative across the country.

From 1953 to 1957, China's agricultural production grew very fast with total agricultural output value increasing annually by 4.5%; grain output, 19%; and farmers' income, 5.4%.