This study, based on the data of China's agricultural census of 1997, focuses on the land distribution among rural households and its effects on crop production structure and employment of labor and capital. The Census data show that the size of holdings surprisingly differs among households, and land rental activities has started to play an important role in land allocation. Grain production accounts for 80% of total sown area for each household group, indicating that self-sufficiency in grains production is still an important factor to farmers. Family members are a dominant source for China's agricultural labor force, regardless of the size of land held in each household. Machinery use in crop production is still not popular, while the scale of land held by households has an impact on the use of machinery in crop production. Moreover, the small land holdings of agriculture may lower labor productivity, even though there are more non-agricultural employment activities among these small scale households.

The paper has been prepared for the International Seminar on China Agricultural Census Beijing, China, September 19-22, 2000.