Contesting the Future of Chinese Agriculture and Rural Society: Is there Hope on the Horizon for Family Farming?

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

Chinese agriculture has undergone a series of profound changes in the past decade and is now at a critical juncture where the path of its future development is being shaped and contested. The exodus of rural labor force into migratory wage work and demographic changes in the past three decades have accelerated the de-population in rural areas. Both agriculture and rural areas have become increasingly seen by the state, mainstream media, and urban population as something ‘left behind’. More recently, food-related problems that range from rising incidence of food contamination, to challenges in maintaining national grain self-sufficiency, and controversies surrounding GMO foods have deepened the public perception that Chinese agriculture is in a ‘crisis’ and fundamental changes are in order. Yet, the directions and paths of the intended changes are still debated intellectually and contested in real practice.
A growing body of literature has developed around the study of agrarian change in contemporary China, examining how the transformation of agriculture is shaping – and shaped by – other social changes in rural China. The central question that animates studies in this panel is whether there is hope of prosperity and dignity for smallholding family farmers in China’s agrarian transition. Researchers from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Singapore will address questions that range from the subsumption of farmers by capital and technology, to the resilience of smallholding family farming and the conditions this depends on, and the role of local state intervention and central subsidies in shaping class dynamics.

Area of Study

• China and Inner Asia

Session Organizer

• Qian Forrest Zhang, Singapore Management University

Chair

• Qian Forrest Zhang, Singapore Management University

Individual Presentations

• Family Farming in China’s Agrarian Change: Being Autonomous or Subsumed by Agro-Capital? - Yiyuan Chen, Chinese Agricultural University

• Can the Small Peasantry Resists the “Big Households' Monopoly”?: Dynamics of Class Formation in China’s Re-Cooperatization Movement - Yu Huang, Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Discussing the Developmental Model of "Leading Enterprises" with Small Peasant—the Case of Buckwheat Tea Industry in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture Sichuan - Chiyin Ruan, Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Closing the door on Cooperatives: Analyzing the Failure of Farmers’ Professional Cooperatives as a Viable Development Model in Rural China - Zhanping Hu, Singapore Management University; Qian Forrest Zhang, Singapore Management University

• The Tale of Sweetness: The Subsumption of Sugarcane Farmers and their Resistance in Guangxi Region, China - Chunyu Wang, Chinese Agricultural University

Discussant

• Shaohua Zhan, Nanyang Technological University