From Rice Paddies to an Industrial Economy: Lessons from China

By Muhammad Abdussalam

China has been cultivating rice for thousands of years. Rice cultivation techniques were spread from China to East Asian countries–Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Rice cultivation is a painstaking effort, requiring dedication and hard work. Rice paddies are built from marshland and river plains and require irrigation. A complex system of dikes has to be built around the land, and “channels must be dug from the nearest water source, and gates built into dikes so the water flow can be adjusted precisely to cover the right amount of the plant.”[1] Additionally, to prevent the water from sinking to the ground, the paddy would have a hard clay floor, but at the same time, the rice seedlings can’t be planted in hard clay; therefore, atop the hard clay must be a thick soft layer of mud.

It doesn’t stop there. Rice needs to be fertilised repeatedly and must be done with an optimum level of conscientiousness to get the right amount at the right time–another intricate task which adds to the painstaking nature of paddies. The seeds were first planted in a specially prepared seedbed and would be transferred to the field after a few weeks. Weeding was done by hand, and sometimes each rice shoot was groomed with a bamboo comb to clear away insects. Farmers had to monitor water levels to make sure they didn’t get too hot in the summer. And when the rice is ready for harvest, farmers gather all their family and friends to quickly harvest it in order to plant for the second time before winter. This was how rice paddies were run in Southern China some decades ago. Rice was for breakfast, lunch and dinner, albeit processed differently. Rice was what they sold to buy other necessities of life.  Anthropologist Gonçalo Santos had this to say about rice: “Without rice, you don’t survive. If you want to be anyone in this part of China, you would have to have rice. It made the world go around.”[2]

There is a clear relationship between hard work and reward in rice farming. And more importantly, what made rice paddies remarkable in China was their size. They are tiny. A typical Asian paddy is about a room, and a typical Asian rice farm might be about two to three paddies (3 rooms). A village of “fifteen hundred people might support itself entirely with 450 acres of land, which in the American Midwest would be the size of a typical family farm.”[3] In the West, farmers can be more efficient and increase their yield by deploying sophisticated machines that replace human effort. They can increase their land and cultivate more since they have machines that can do more. But in contrast to that, in Japan or China, farmers don’t have the money to throw on machines, and more so, there isn’t enough available land to expand their rice fields. Instead, Chinese farmers, whilst working hard, also worked smarter and better managed their time. They made better choices and took deliberate actions. It was an art that needed to be mastered. If they wanted to make more yield, they’d have to be hard workers, adept at applying fertilisers, weed more diligently, constantly monitor water levels, and utilise every square inch of their rice paddy.

Enough of these paddy technicalities, although the story is important to visualise the hard work that goes into paddies. Despite these hard-working farmers producing almost enough food for themselves and the populace, China as a country knew that if it had to create a reasonable amount of wealth and lift people out of poverty, it needed to shift from this primitive farming method, as well as from an agrarian economy. Some three to four decades ago, China’s economy was almost purely an agrarian one, with the agricultural sector contributing about 30% of its GDP. Today, that has changed.  In 2024, manufacturing and industry were reported to have contributed about 36.5%, while agriculture in 2023 contributed a mere 6.9% of GDP.[4] “The reason for the decline was a deliberate policy shift from rural to urban development and from an agrarian to industrial economy.”[5]

What most people don’t realise is that China is challenged ecologically. About 70% of the Gobi Desert lies within the Chinese territory. Apart from the desert, China is also mountainous. Around 90% of its 1.4 billion population lives on about one-quarter (23-25%) of its land space. Despite these impediments, a determined China became an industrialised nation. With a population more than that of Africa, it lifted itself out of poverty in about 35 years to become the second-largest economy. China, being the fastest-growing economy in the world, has, on average, grown its GDP by 9.5% in 35 years. That’s a brilliant leap.

In 2008, 34 Chinese firms made it to the list of Fortune Global 500 companies (the world’s 500 largest companies), and by 2015, over 100 Chinese firms made it to the list. In the same 2015, “Beijing toppled New York in producing the highest number of billionaires.”[6] Furthermore, China is the only country that met the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) poverty reduction target and contributed to 92% of global poverty reduction.

This is a story of China’s transition from an agrarian economy to an industrialised nation. But the lessons are things we could learn and apply to Nigeria and Africa at large. I know we are always quick to say that there are lots of Western or external forces pinning Africa down from development. While I am not oblivious to the presence of those factors, I believe it’s not the strongest force holding us down, and we could, like China or the Asian Tigers, overcome those negative influences and propel our country and continent to growth. Africa has remained underdeveloped because it has simply kept itself underdeveloped despite the abundance of natural and human resources that could be harnessed for growth and development.

In summary, the lessons we could learn from China’s success story include, but are not limited to:

1. Work hard and harder, especially if you don’t have a comparative advantage. Chinese farmers had no comparative advantage in rice farming since they had limited land and money, yet they worked harder than an average farmer in order to make up for what they didn’t have.
2. Manage your time better and channel your energy into impactful things.
3. Manage resources efficiently and diligently. Since Chinese farmers do not have much land, they use their land more efficiently and cultivate it twice before Winter.
4. Use what you have to get what you want. These farmers used the little land they had to feed themselves. They weren’t importing food or buying what they didn’t need.
5. Focus on adding value, especially significant value.

China knew it needed to add value and offer something to the world if it were to create wealth and lift people out of poverty. And since labour is readily available in China, China created an avenue where companies (both local and foreign) could benefit from its labour force. But the value in cheap labour wouldn’t always be significant. For instance, Apple, despite having its headquarters in the U.S, assembles most of its iPhones in China due to cheaper labour compared to the U.S. Paradoxically, China only gets about “3.7% of the final price paid, because it only adds labour. Japan gets 34%, Germany 17%, the USA 6%. Africa gets nothing but pays 100%.”[7] China knows that it will not ultimately benefit the most by adding only labour, which is why it isn’t relying solely on its cheap labour force. They have created competing solutions for almost everything in the world, from Weibo to WeChat–its version of Facebook, X and WhatsApp; BYD, NIO, Xpeng Motors, among others–its version of Tesla or any electric vehicle; ARJ-21 and recently AC919–its version of Airbus’ or Boeing’s regional and single-aisle planes.

References:

Gladwell, M. (2009). Outliers: The Story of Success. London: Penguin Books. p. 264

Investopedia, National Bureau of Statistics of China

Emewu, I. (2021). China: Rise & Global Influence in the 21st Century. Lagos: Afri-China Media Centre. p.63-67

Fasua, T. (2015). The Race for Capital (And Other Out-of-the-Box Economic Arguments). p. 24

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