How coalitions of multiple actors advance policy in China: ecological agriculture at Danjiangkou

ABSTRACT

Ecological agriculture (EA) is commonly regarded as a top-down agricultural reform plan in China. However, the policy process is more complicated than that. Taking Xichuan, Henan province, the water source area for the Middle Route of South–North-Water-Transfer (MR-SNWT) project, as a case study, this paper tracks the participation of various agencies and their interactions with Xichuan’s government, to reveal how EA has been integrated into local rural development. As agents were assembled to promote Xichuan’s development, EA in Xichuan was considered both as a goal in itself and as a tactic employed to meet the multiple goals of various participants: water protection, poverty alleviation, follow-up support for people who lost their land to the reservoir and changing customer food preferences. With the dominant initiative from a strong central state, the local government and other stakeholders integrated their investments and concerns into policy process, seeking to maximise their own interests; however, they sometimes had to compromise on some standards. This study expands our understanding of ‘fragmented authoritarianism’ by illustrating the overlap and interaction of different actors in advancing similar policies even if they have varied and sometimes competing interests, and it encourages the study of policy processes over space that incorporate multi-actors.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecological agriculture
• water diversion project
• local development
• fragmented authoritarianism
• China

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In February 2020, Xichuan county exited the list of national poverty counties.

2 https://www.moa.gov.cn/xw/qg/201901/t20190115_6166620.htm.

3 https://henan.people.com.cn/GB/n2/2017/0221/c353054-29747511.html.

4 A production base is a farm organisation that coordinates farmers’ choices and timing of crop planting and uses standardised production methods (Ding et al., 2015).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Australian Research Council [Discovery Project number DP170104138].

Notes on contributors

Nahui Zhen

Dr Nahui Zhen is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne’s School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies. Her research focuses on hydropolitics, risk, water pollution, and agrarian change in China.

Yue Zhao

Yue Zhao is a PhD candidate at the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, the University of Melbourne studying agribusinesses and organic farming in China.

Hong Jiang

Hong Jiang is a PhD candidate at the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, the University of Melbourne where she is completing a thesis on the geomorphic transformation of the Han River.

Michael Webber

Michael Webber is Professor Emeritus at the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, the University of Melbourne and his primary research interest is water and environmental management in China.

Mark Wang

Mark Wang is a professor at the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and the Director of the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Melbourne. His recent research concerns China’s land acquisition, resettlement/displacement, migration, and water management.

Vanessa Lamb

Dr Vanessa Lamb is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Melbourne. In research and teaching, she focuses on human-environment geographies and political ecology of Southeast Asia.

Min Jiang

Dr Min Jiang is an environmental policy and climate change specialist at the City of Whittlesea, Australia.