The World - News from Jan. 1, 1985

Faced with a grain surplus and eager to diversify its farming industry, China announced that peasants will no longer be required to sell part of their harvest to the state. The grain-purchasing program, one of the last vestiges of the collective farming system introduced by Mao Tse-tung 30 years ago, has left state granaries overflowing after four record harvests. In October, the Communist Party said the law of supply and demand would be allowed to unclog the rigid planned economy of the past.