<P> China's limited space for farming has been a problem throughout its history, leading to chronic food shortage and famine . While the production efficiency of farmland has grown over time, efforts to expand to the west and the north have met with limited success, as such land is generally colder and drier than traditional farmlands to the east . Since the 1950s, farm space has also been pressured by the increasing land needs of industry and cities . </P> <P> Such increases in the sizes of cities, such as the administrative district of Beijing's increase from 4,822 km2 in 1956 to 16,808 km2 in 1958, has led to the increased adoption of peri-urban agriculture . Such "suburban agriculture" led to more than 70% of non-staple food in Beijing, mainly consisting of vegetables and milk, to be produced by the city itself in the 1960s and 1970s . Recently, with relative food security in China, periurban agriculture has led to improvements in the quality of the food available, as opposed to quantity . One of the more recent experiments in urban agriculture is the Modern Agricultural Science Demonstration Park in Xiaotangshan . </P> <P> About 75% of China's cultivated area is used for food crops . Rice is China's most important crop, raised on about 25% of the cultivated area . The majority of rice is grown south of the Huai River, in the Zhu Jiang delta, and in the Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan provinces . </P> <P> Wheat is the second most - prevalent grain crop, grown in most parts of the country but especially on the North China Plain, the Wei and Fen River valleys on the Loess plateau, and in Jiangsu, Hubei, and Sichuan provinces . Corn and millet are grown in north and northeast China, and oat is important in Inner Mongolia and Tibet . </P>

Where does most farming take place in china