In June 1958, as China’s Great Leap Forward campaign gained traction, state media began reporting astronomical agricultural yields, including claims from central Henan province of over 3,000 jin per mu – more than 22 tonnes per hectare.
That month, scientist Qian Xuesen, father of China’s rocket programme, published theoretical calculations on maximum solar energy conversion during crop photosynthesis, which political cadres cited to validate the claims.
In the following months, reported yield claims soared from 5,000 to 7,000 and even 10,000 jin per mu. The exaggerated statistics led to nationwide chaos in agricultural production and one of the deadliest famines in human history.
Now, Chinese farms are once again reporting yields of 3,000 jin per mu – not in single unverified harvests but through annual two-crop rotations.
A farmland programme in Dezhou in China’s eastern Shandong province has achieved these ultra-high yields.