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Articles 1 - 7 of 7
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Producing Industrial Pigs In Southwestern China: The Rise Of Contract Farming As A Coevolutionary Process, Forrest Qian Zhang, Hongping Zeng
Producing Industrial Pigs In Southwestern China: The Rise Of Contract Farming As A Coevolutionary Process, Forrest Qian Zhang, Hongping Zeng
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The literature on contract farming (CF) has to date focused on how outside capital uses CF to vertically integrate non-capitalist producers into agro-industrial value chains. We argue that in places where multiple dynamics of capitalist growth co-exist, CF relationships can also emerge between different types of capitalist producers that are already in capitalist production using other organizational forms. In this situation, the well-studied drivers that fuel the spread of CF become less consequential; the emergence of CF is instead more contingent on the complex interactions between producers and the specific conditions and events in the local environment. We conceptualize the …
Bringing Agriculture Back In: The Central Place Of Agrarian Change In Rural China Studies, Qian Forrest Zhang, Carlos Oya, Jingzhong Ye
Bringing Agriculture Back In: The Central Place Of Agrarian Change In Rural China Studies, Qian Forrest Zhang, Carlos Oya, Jingzhong Ye
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Since the mid-2000s, rural development and politics in China has entered a new phase that revolves around what the central government calls ‘agricultural modernization’. Transforming the once-dominant smallholding, family-based agriculture has become a focal point of the government's programme of rural rejuvenation, where a range of economic changes unleashed by urbanization and industrialization also converge. We argue that in this new context, agrarian change has become the key vantage point from which to study rural China. We review key contributions of the papers in this special issue and highlight their insights on rural differentiation, land politics and rural livelihoods. We …
Rural China In Transition: Changes And Transformations In China’S Agriculture And Rural Sector, John A. Donaldson, Forrest Q. Zhang
Rural China In Transition: Changes And Transformations In China’S Agriculture And Rural Sector, John A. Donaldson, Forrest Q. Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Agribusiness companies operating in China are transacting in various forms with small agricultural producers, and in doing so, transforming the household-based agriculture in rural China. We argue that the presence of these distinct forms and the diverging relations between agribusiness and producers show the central importance of China’s collective land rights. China’s unique system of land rights – featuring collective ownership but individualized usage rights – has acted as a powerful force in shaping interactions between agribusiness and direct producers. It provides farmers a source of economic income as well as political bargaining power – albeit to various degrees – …
China’S Agrarian Reform And The Privatization Of Land: A Contrarian View, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
China’S Agrarian Reform And The Privatization Of Land: A Contrarian View, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Many media and scholars outside China are advocating for the privatization of land ownership in China, claiming it to be a necessary step before China can transform its agriculture into large-scale, market-oriented and technology-intensive modern agriculture. Chinese scholars advocating land privatization, on the other hand, typically argue that land privatization would offer farmers more protection of their rights. In this paper, we present a contrarian view to these calls for land privatization published in both mainstream media and academic journals. We argue that, under China’s current system of collective land ownership and individualized land use rights, the aforementioned goals can …
From Peasants To Farmers: Peasant Differentiation, Labor Regimes, And Land-Rights Institutions In China's Agrarian Transition, Q. Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
From Peasants To Farmers: Peasant Differentiation, Labor Regimes, And Land-Rights Institutions In China's Agrarian Transition, Q. Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The development of factor markets has opened Chinese agriculture for the penetration of capitalism. This new round of rural transformation—China’s agrarian transition— raises the agrarian question in the Chinese context. This study investigates how capitalist forms and relations of production transform agricultural production and the peasantry class in rural China. The authors identify six forms of nonpeasant agricultural production, compare the labor regimes and direct producers’ socioeconomic statuses across these forms, and evaluate the role of China’s land-rights institution in shaping these forms. The empirical investigation presents three main findings: (1) Peasant differentiation : capitalist forms of agricultural production differentiate …
Beware Of Radical Change: China’S Agrarian Revolution, John A. Donaldson, Forrest Q. Zhang
Beware Of Radical Change: China’S Agrarian Revolution, John A. Donaldson, Forrest Q. Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
No abstract provided.
On Changes In Rural China: The Rise Of Agrarian Capitalism And Dissolution Of The Peasantry In Contemporary China, Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
On Changes In Rural China: The Rise Of Agrarian Capitalism And Dissolution Of The Peasantry In Contemporary China, Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
For decades, Mr. Hong and his family have toiled the ground of Dounan Village, an area of Yunnan Province that became well-known throughout China for the quality of its fresh vegetables. While Hong and his neighbors have, since the early 1980s, concentrated on the small plot of land that the state allocated to them, in recent years, Dounan village has begun producing vegetables in large enough scale to market to distant, wealthy coastal areas, bringing new-found prosperity to the area. After gaining experience producing vegetables both on the plot that the government allocated to his family, and on his neighbors’ …