The Research For The Ownership Changes Of Chinese Rural Cattle In1950s

The level of agricultural technology is still in the traditional animal-drawn cultivation stage in the1950s in China. The cattle are important tools of production in rural areas. As an agriculture and forestry area which focuses on agricultural production, Longquan County, Zhejiang Province is lacking in the amount of arable land, so the limited amount of arable land makes the relationship between farmers and cattle more close. The land reform movement made some poor peasants and farm laborers have cattle, which helped them obtain the rights to the ownership of cattle, and their production enthusiasm was increased. But as the poor farmers had no experience in raising cattle and no conditions to raise cattle, cattle’s death and disease increased, and agricultural production ran into some difficulties. During the cooperative movement started, cooperate in resolved to a large extent the farmer’s cattle shortage situation, but during the climax of elementary and senior agricultural cooperative movement, cattle ownership changed once again. The cattle which originally belonged to the farmers have now belonged to country again. And the number of cattle also changed, meanwhile a large number of cattle deaths occurred in most parts of the country. The change of cattle’s number had a direct impact on local agricultural production and the peasants’ production enthusiasm. Meanwhile, the governments also had taken measures to protect and control the cattle, but wavering policies eventually could not get out of the Woods, resulting in failing to get rid of the production trap. When famers had lost their cattle in senior group, they were no longer dependent on the cattle. After the movement of people’s Commune, the manufacturing enthusiasm of the farmer dropped to a record low. And during the three years of great famine, the areas of planting decrease greatly and farmer’s standard of living can’t be compared as before. So the large number of cattle’s death is inevitable while farmers could not take care of themselves.