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Articles 1 - 30 of 30
Full-Text Articles in Agribusiness
The Smallholder’S Dilemma In Agroecological Transitions: The Diseconomy Of Agroecology For Small Farmers In Industrial Agriculture, Qian Forrest Zhang
The Smallholder’S Dilemma In Agroecological Transitions: The Diseconomy Of Agroecology For Small Farmers In Industrial Agriculture, Qian Forrest Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
A scalar contradiction exists between agroecology's three goals: while ecological sustainability is best pursued at the landscape scale, social equity and livelihood goals often require organizing production at the small scale of family farms. In China's ‘industrial agriculture of small farmers’, ecological farming practices became economically unviable at small farmers' minuscule scales. Agroecological transitions almost always first go through a scale expansion, a process fraught with tension. The empirical analysis focuses on three ‘ecological farms’ that enjoyed favorable conditions unattainable to smallholders. Yet, lock-ins across five dimensions have either made their operations economically unsustainable or forced compromises in agroecological principles.
Producer-Oriented And Consumer-Oriented Alternative Food Networks And Rural Revitalization In China: Distinct Trajectories And Variegated Impacts, Meiling Wu, Qian Forrest Zhang
Producer-Oriented And Consumer-Oriented Alternative Food Networks And Rural Revitalization In China: Distinct Trajectories And Variegated Impacts, Meiling Wu, Qian Forrest Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Alternative food networks (AFNs) have been increasingly perceived as an engine for rural revitalization, yet AFNs can differ in their founding motivations, operational methods, and organizational forms, which thus produce varying economic, social, and environmental outcomes. Despite this, the complexity of AFNs in the role of rural revitalization remains surprisingly under-researched. This study, drawing a distinction between producer-oriented and consumer-oriented AFNs in China, explores the dynamics of how producer-oriented and consumer-oriented AFNs are formed and give rise to distinct trajectories of rural revitalization. When AFNs prioritize producers' pursuit of alternatives to conventional agrifood systems over merely catering to urban consumers’ …
Alternative Agrifood Systems And The Economic Sustainability Of Farmers' Cooperatives: The Chinese Experience, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang
Alternative Agrifood Systems And The Economic Sustainability Of Farmers' Cooperatives: The Chinese Experience, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Most registered farmers' cooperatives in China are de facto private enterprises; while many bring economic gains to farmers, they do not function as cooperatives. Among the small minority that started as authentic cooperatives, however, most struggled to provide economic benefits to members, unable to achieve economic sustainability. The failure of true farmers' cooperatives in China has been widely studied; the success of the few that did become economically sustainable, however, remains poorly understood. Using a sample of 70 farmers' cooperatives across the country and comparing three “extreme cases”—cooperatives that are both authentic and economically successful—with the rest, this study argues …
From Sustainable Agriculture To Sustainable Agrifood Systems: A Comparative Review Of Alternative Models, Qian Forrest Zhang
From Sustainable Agriculture To Sustainable Agrifood Systems: A Comparative Review Of Alternative Models, Qian Forrest Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper reviews, compares, and critically evaluates two broad groups of sustainable agriculture models: “sustainable agriculture” and “sustainable agrifood systems”. The “sustainable agriculture” models—comprising organic farming, regenerative agriculture, climate-smart agriculture, carbon-capture agriculture, and nature-based solutions—focus primarily on improving ecological sustainability through farm-level practices. These models emphasize reducing external, industrial inputs, enhancing biodiversity, and promoting climate resilience, relying on technological and market-based solutions to address environmental concerns. On the other hand, the “sustainable agrifood systems” models—agroecology, alternative food networks, and permaculture—offer more ambitious visions of systemic transformation. These approaches not only seek to implement environmentally sound practices but also aim to …
Post-Productivism And Rural Revitalization In China: Drivers And Outcomes, Meiling Wu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Post-Productivism And Rural Revitalization In China: Drivers And Outcomes, Meiling Wu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
We propose that post-productivism offers a useful analytical framework for understanding the multi-scalar and diverse changes that are taking place in China’s rural revitalization. As a theoretical framework that emerged from the study of rural changes in the Global North, the applicability of post-productivism in the Global South has been contested. This paper offers the first comprehensive analysis of the emergence of post-productivism in rural China and uses post-productivism as a framework to conceptualize a wide range of changes in China’s rural revitalization. We conceptually clarify the driving forces that give rise to post-productivism and the outcomes these drivers produce. …
Horizontal Concentration And Vertical Concentration In Capitalist Agriculture: Re-Interpreting Marx And Chayanov, Qian Forrest Zhang
Horizontal Concentration And Vertical Concentration In Capitalist Agriculture: Re-Interpreting Marx And Chayanov, Qian Forrest Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
How capitalism transforms peasant farming is a central question in agrarian studies. The two most important theoretical perspectives on this question—Marxist and Chayanovian theories—both have limitations. The former overlooked how commercial capital can transform smallholders’ production through vertical integration and extract surplus from smallholders through commodity relations; the latter neglected how labor commodification transforms smallholders’ family economic behaviors. These two theories, however, complement each other on these two fronts. Through critically re-interpreting Marxist and Chayanovian theories, this paper offers a synthesis that integrates the two perspectives into a coherent theoretical framework and proposes that capitalist agriculture expands through both “horizontal …
Why Do Farmers’ Cooperatives Fail In A Market Economy? Rediscovering Chayanov With The Chinese Experience, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Why Do Farmers’ Cooperatives Fail In A Market Economy? Rediscovering Chayanov With The Chinese Experience, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In The Theory of Peasant Cooperatives, Chayanov develops the theories of differential optima and vertical integration, which stress the vulnerability of peasant farming in capitalist markets, and argues that cooperatives can support smallholders only if they operate as ‘a cooperative movement’, are buttressed by a strong ‘cooperative culture’, and achieve ‘vertical integration’. Based on extensive fieldwork in China, we identify six major obstacles that explain the failure of most cooperatives. Chayanov’s arguments caution us to not only the vital importance of cooperatives to the resilience of peasant farming, but also the apparently insurmountable obstacles that cooperatives face in market economies.
The Resilience Of Diversified Clusters: Reconfiguring Commodity Networks In Rural China During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang
The Resilience Of Diversified Clusters: Reconfiguring Commodity Networks In Rural China During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
We conceptualize typical rural communities in China as diversified economic clusters. In normal times, economic actors in these communities rarely cooperate with each other, but are integrated into separate commodity chains. These “diversified clusters”, however, show resilience and flexibility when an external shock—the COVID-19 pandemic—disrupts the spatial connections throughout the existing commodity chains. In this study, we use primary field data collected from one typical rural community in Northern China to show how economic diversity, aided by social networks and space-shrinking technologies, allowed for the vertical commodity chains to be reconfigured temporarily into localized horizontal commodity networks to cope with …
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 …
Farmers In Singapore? Collective Action Under Adverse Circumstances, Yu Fong Ho, John A. Donaldson
Farmers In Singapore? Collective Action Under Adverse Circumstances, Yu Fong Ho, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
How can individuals with contrasting interests in a declining industry, at odds with the country’s identity, and facing an illiberal and sceptical government, band together to promote collective goals? This article addresses this question by examining Singapore’s Kranji Countryside Association, one of Singapore’s few civil society organisations to focus on community organising. To Association members, the material and time costs of organising were high, the odds of success were low and the material rewards of success were modest. The article evaluates two views that purport to explain collective action: the rational choice approach that focuses on selective incentives and the …
Becoming Citizens: Policy Feedback And The Transformation Of The Thai Rice Farmer, Jacob Ricks, Thanapan Laiprakobsub
Becoming Citizens: Policy Feedback And The Transformation Of The Thai Rice Farmer, Jacob Ricks, Thanapan Laiprakobsub
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Over the past twenty years, Thailand’s rice farmers have become one of the country’s most important and active political constituencies, a sharp contrast from the previous decades wherein they were treated with neglect or even derision by the Thai political elite. These “political peasants” now actively advocate for and successfully receive extensive subsidies from both authoritarian and democratic governments. What has driven this change? In this essay, we draw on theories of the policy feedback loop wherein policies yield both material and cognitive benefits, which change the political behavior of populations. We argue that the Thaksin Shinawatra government’s (2001-2006) paddy …
Obstacles To Accessing Pro-Poor Microcredit Programs In China: Evidence From Penggan Village, Guizhou, Deborah Shu Yi Tan, Track Tze Tuan Tan, Shao Tong Ling, John A. Donaldson
Obstacles To Accessing Pro-Poor Microcredit Programs In China: Evidence From Penggan Village, Guizhou, Deborah Shu Yi Tan, Track Tze Tuan Tan, Shao Tong Ling, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Why do poor farmers not take up microcredit loans, even when the terms are designed to be pro-poor? Fieldwork in a village in China’s Guizhou province revealed a puzzle: although the county government had designed a loan program that was intended to be unusually pro-poor, only three of the 349 eligible households had successfully applied. This article analyzes three potential hypotheses: farmer failure (risk aversion or financial illiteracy), market failure (lack of viable or stable market opportunities), and institutional failure (structural or institutional barriers precluding taking up loans). Based on evidence from intensive interviews, we reject the first hypothesis, and …
Farmers' Cooperatives In China: A Typology Of Fraud And Failure, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Farmers' Cooperatives In China: A Typology Of Fraud And Failure, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Since the 1990s, agricultural cooperatives—particularly what China calls Farmers’ Specialized Cooperatives—have experienced rapid expansion in China. After more than two decades of growth and policy support, what is the overall performance of the ever-increasing numbers of these cooperatives? We visited 50 cooperatives across the country, most of which had officially been lauded as successful, to make a first-hand evaluation of their overall status and performance. We argue that, judging by either international or Chinese standards, the vast majority of these agricultural cooperatives are not authentic and fail to deliver expected benefits to smallholders. We categorize them into five types: genuine …
Betting On The Big: State-Brokered Land Transfers, Large-Scale Agricultural Producers, And Rural Policy Implementation, Weigang Gong, Qian Forrest Zhang
Betting On The Big: State-Brokered Land Transfers, Large-Scale Agricultural Producers, And Rural Policy Implementation, Weigang Gong, Qian Forrest Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
As rural governments have become hollowed out and detached from rural society, can they still effectively implement policies that lack popular support? This article examines a county in Hunan Province, where local governments had strong incentives to implement a national policy of increasing double cropping in rice farming. Small farmers rejected double cropping as unprofitable. Local governments’ limited capacity prevented them from either reshaping small farmers’ economic calculus or coercing compliance. They strategically selected a policy tool acceptable to most small farmers (paid land transfers) and gave new private large-scale producers incentives to double crop by providing subsidies and access …
Providing Rural Public Services Through Land Commodification: Policy Innovations And Rural-Urban Integration In Chengdu, Qian Forrest Zhang, Jianling Wu
Providing Rural Public Services Through Land Commodification: Policy Innovations And Rural-Urban Integration In Chengdu, Qian Forrest Zhang, Jianling Wu
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Zhang and Wu offer a detailed account of the innovative local policies in Chengdu, China, where a national land-use policy that has created widespread problems in other trial areas has been turned into a positive, transformative force in rural reconstruction. There are three key innovations in this so-called ‘Chengdu model’: First, leveraging on the most important resource in rural area, land, and through the commodification of land development rights, creating a financial source that can fund rural public services provision; second, transforming traditional rural residential patterns and concentrating the rural population in newly built residential communities; and, finally, using both …
How Agribusiness Can Win In Partnership With Small Farms, John A. Donaldson
How Agribusiness Can Win In Partnership With Small Farms, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Can large-scale agribusiness reduce costs and obtain less-expensive food while also reducing poverty and inequality by engaging small-scale farmers? Many conclude that such an attractive outcome is unimaginable, but innovative pilot projects hold promise that such a reality is within reach and replicable.
Understanding The Failure Of China’S Specialized Cooperatives In China, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Understanding The Failure Of China’S Specialized Cooperatives In China, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
At first blush, contemporary China seems ripe for the rapid development of agricultural cooperatives. After all, cooperatives have not only enjoyed a long history in China, but the country’s recent experience with agricultural communes should make it more amenable to the reestablishment of joint production and spontaneous bottom-up cooperation. Agricultural cooperatives in China date to the 1930s, as Rural Reconstruction Movement advocates promoted cooperatives as a “third road” between capitalism and socialism. Although Mao’s regime disbanded most bottom-up cooperatives, rural cooperatives began to reemerge in rural China by the end of the 20th century, particularly after 1998, when farmer cooperatives …
Achieving Regulatory Excellence In The Agri-Food Biotechnology Sector: Building Policy Capacity, Michael Howlett, Ishani Mukherjee
Achieving Regulatory Excellence In The Agri-Food Biotechnology Sector: Building Policy Capacity, Michael Howlett, Ishani Mukherjee
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
What capacities are needed on the part of policymakers in areas such as the agri-food biotechnology sector in order to attain excellence at the individual, organisational and systemic levels of regulatory operation? To address this question, this paper draws upon work recently carried out on regulatory excellence by the Penn Programme on Regulation and couples it with recent studies on how to build policy capacity. Derived from a multi-jurisdiction, multi-sector review of regulation, the Penn programme identified three core areas or `pillars' of regulatory excellence - namely, stellar competence, empathic engagement and utmost integrity -which reflect the kinds of individual …
On The Social And Political Effects Of Opening In Rural China, Housi Cheng, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
On The Social And Political Effects Of Opening In Rural China, Housi Cheng, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
What are the economic, social and political effects when previously isolated villages are opened to the outside world? Scholars from different traditions expect different sorts of positive or negative affects to occur. Rural China presents an ideal environment to study this question empirically. Villages within rural China are in the process of being opened to the outside world in different forms, such as through being connected by road, the investment of agribusiness, or urbanization. Moreover this opening is being driven and shaped by different actors, including local residents, government and businesses. The different ways and actors that this opening occurs …
State Political Identity And Meta-Governance: Comparative Analysis Of Governance Modes In Vegetable Retail In Urban China, Qian Forrest Zhang
State Political Identity And Meta-Governance: Comparative Analysis Of Governance Modes In Vegetable Retail In Urban China, Qian Forrest Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
A government's political identity is a key factor in meta-governance; it powerfully shapes a government's policy aims and implementation preferences at the most abstract level and forms a stable governance mode. Dissonance between a pre-existing governance mode and the government's evolved political identity will lead to governance failures and pose political challenges to the government. In the case of vegetable retail in Shanghai, the neoliberal developmental state transformed the hierarchical governance into market governance; but as it evolves into a corporatist welfare state, market imperfections come to be perceived as governance failures, and the government responds by reintroducing hierarchical measures.
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 – …
The Transformation Of Urban Vegetable Retail In China: Wet Markets, Supermarkets, And Informal Markets In Shanghai, Qian Forrest Zhang, Zi Pan
The Transformation Of Urban Vegetable Retail In China: Wet Markets, Supermarkets, And Informal Markets In Shanghai, Qian Forrest Zhang, Zi Pan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The state-monopolised system of vegetable retail in socialist urban China has transformed into a market-based system run by profit-driven actors. Publicly owned wet markets not only declined in number after the state relegated its construction to market forces, but were also thoroughly privatised, becoming venues of capital accumulation for the market operators now controlling these properties. Self-employed migrant families replaced salaried state employees in the labour force. Governments’ increased control over urban public space reduced the room for informal markets, exacerbating the scarcity of vegetable retail space. Fragmentation in the production and wholesale systems restricted modern supermarkets’ ability to establish …
The Political Economy Of Contract Farming In China's Agrarian Transition, Qian Forrest Zhang
The Political Economy Of Contract Farming In China's Agrarian Transition, Qian Forrest Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
How does rural China’s political economy determine the motivations and constraints that drive small farmers and agribusiness companies into contract farming and shape its practice and impact? This paper identifies three distinctive features of contract farming in China—varied impact on rural inequality, unstable contractual relations, and lack of competitiveness with other alternatives—and proposes tentative explanations with three features in rural China’s political economy: strong collective institutions, active state support for agriculture, and strong domestic markets. The recent turn in China’s agrarian transition toward vertical integration of agriculture with industries is, however, undermining these conditions and may move China toward more …
The Transformation Of China’S Agriculture System And Its Impact On Southeast Asia, Phoebe Mingxuan Luo, John A. Donaldson, Qian Forrest Zhang
The Transformation Of China’S Agriculture System And Its Impact On Southeast Asia, Phoebe Mingxuan Luo, John A. Donaldson, Qian Forrest Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The increased role for agribusiness and larger scale production in China’s agricultural system is limited by China’s severe lack of arable land. The Household Responsibility System provides farmers a measure of power, hampering agribusiness from acquiring land needed for expansion. Some Chinese companies have sought cheaper and often more accessible land in nearby regions, including Southeast Asia. While such investments have the potential to deliver benefits, including increased productivity, structural constraints such as weak land ownership and environmental laws, highly unequal distribution of land and underdevelopment of peasant organizations prevent many poorer farmers from benefiting from these investments.
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 …
Reforming China's State-Owned Farms: State Farms In Agrarian Transition, Qian Forrest Zhang
Reforming China's State-Owned Farms: State Farms In Agrarian Transition, Qian Forrest Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
China’s 2000 strong state-owned farms are experiencing a dual transition in the country’s economic reforms: the market transition (from state-owned enterprises embedded in the redistributive system to independent enterprises in the new market economy) and agrarian transition (from small-scale, household-based agriculture to large-scale, capitalist forms of agriculture that rely on market exchanges of land, labor and products). This paper highlights the results of a comparative analysis of the state farms and rural farming households in the agrarian transition to address the theoretical debate about agrarian transition. Using field research data from state farms in HeilongJIANG Province and drawing extensively from …
The Beginning Of The End? Agricultural Modernization And Dissolution Of The Peasantry In Contemporary China, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
The Beginning Of The End? Agricultural Modernization And Dissolution Of The Peasantry In Contemporary China, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
No abstract provided.
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.
The Rise Of Agrarian Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics: Agricultural Modernization, Agribusiness And Collective Land Rights, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
The Rise Of Agrarian Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics: Agricultural Modernization, Agribusiness And Collective Land Rights, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The article discusses the agricultural transformation taking place in the rural areas of China. Details about the Chinese laws regarding rural reform and the effect they have had on rural Chinese farmers and families are included. The authors examine the expansion of agrarian capitalism in China and describe the rise of agribusiness in rural Chinese areas. The practices of Chinese agribusinesses and the Chinese land rights laws are explored. The relationships between individual farmers and agribusinesses is also examined.
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’ …