Beyond the ownership question: who will till the land? The new debate on China’s agricultural production

ABSTRACT

A high-profile debate is taking place in China concerning the organization of agricultural land and production, with profound implications for China’s countryside. This debate is between those advocating for agricultural production to be taken over by large-scale agribusinesses, and those against this. Proponents regard agribusinesses as embodying modernity and progress, while those against forewarn of the channeling of profits out of peasant hands, the loss of peasants’ autonomy over labor and land, and the destruction of rural life. Recent English language publications on China’s agrarian change highlight the growing power of agribusiness and related processes of depeasantization, implying the Chinese debate on “who will till the land?” is futile. But this view obscures efforts by Chinese scholars and policymakers to promote forms of agricultural organization conducive to maintaining peasant livelihoods. By examining the Chinese debates on agribusinesses, family farms, and cooperatives, this article highlights points of contestation among policymakers and alternative possibilities, which may yet shape the course of China’s agrarian change. This article contributes to scholarship on China’s agrarian change, broader questions concerning depeasantization, and developmental possibilities under collective ownership.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• peasants
• land reform
• agrarian change
• privatization

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Chen Sheng, Du Lei, Gao Yuning, Hao Ren, Hu Angang, Hu Dongcai, Huang Jikun, Rebecca Karl, Li Chenggui, Lin Chun, Toby Lincoln, Pan Bin, Moss Roberts, Daniel Rossner, Sun Jin, Tian Peipei, Tian Xinsheng, Tong Zhihui, Wang Qizhen, Wang Yahua, Wen Tiejun, Yang Zhusong, Zang Liangzhen, Ellen Zhang, Zhang Junna, Zhang Yangyang, Zhang Yinghong, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Jane Hayward is a research fellow from the United Kingdom working on contemporary and reform-era China – in particular, the processes by which China’s state and society are becoming increasingly integrated into the global capitalist economy, and what this means for Chinese people. Her work focuses on the politics of China’s peasant question, as well as related questions of urbanization, and processes of policymaking more generally.

Notes

1 Chen Xiwen, quoted in He 2013.

2 There is more than one way to categorize the positions in this debate. In my interpretation, the key division is whether the profits of production flow primarily into the hands of local peasant producers, or are extracted by incoming corporations.

3 Schneider 2017, 6; Luo, Andreas, and Li 2017, 27; Gong and Zhang 2017.

4 Ye 2015, 327; Yan and Chen 2015, 376; Luo, Andreas, and Li 2017, 29; Zhan 2017, 28; Schneider 2017, 9; Gong and Zhang 2017.

5 Yan and Chen 2015, 379; Huang 2015; Hu, Zhang, and Donaldson 2017.

6 Chuang 2014; Yan and Chen 2015, 388; Andreas and Zhan 2016; Huang 2015.

7 Zhang and Donaldson 2008, 44; Post 2008, 324; Huang, Yuan, and Peng 2012.

8 “The Western view, and especially the agricultural paradigm entailed in it, is strongly based on linearity: that history only proceeds in one direction.” van der Ploeg and Ye 2016, 10.

9 Gao 2017, 40.

10 Zhang 2016.

11 van der Ploeg and Ye 2016, 1.

12 Gao 2017, 40.

13 As discussed by Ho 2013, 1090.

14 Debates over the question of China's land privatization flourished in Chinese policymaking circles since the 1990s, see, Qin 2003; Wen 2007; Zhang and Donaldson 2013; Gao 2017, 35–37.

15 “[T]his modern version of primitive accumulation  …  amounts to the greatest enclosure movement in history  …  And, as in the past, this process is hothousing the emergence of a class of newly rich capitalists, side-by-side with growing millions of unemployed and starving.” Smith and Holmstrom 2000; see also Walker and Buck 2007, 42.

16 Zhang and Donaldson 2008, 44. See also Post 2008, 324; Huang, Yuan, and Peng 2012, 164–165.

17 Pun and Lu 2010; Webber 2008, 302.

18 Post 2008, 324. Also: “‘[c]apitalist agriculture’ as usually understood accounts for only a very small portion of Chinese agriculture today[.]” Huang, Yuan, and Peng 2012, 167–168.

19 Prosterman 2003; Saich 2007.

20 “This latest law  …  will not bring the full property-rights revolution China's development demands.” The Economist 2007.

21 Ford 2007. See also Zhu and Prosterman 2007, 9.

22 Wong 2008.

23 Liang Jing quoted in Li 2009, 2.

24 The Economist 2008a, 2008b.

25 Post 2008, 323; Buck and Walker 2007, 45.

26 Ho 2013, 1110.

27 Li 2009, 2; Ye 2015.

28 W.L. 1953.

29 Araghi 2009, 125–129.

30 Akram-Lodhi, Kay, and Borras 2009, 221–222.

31 Marx 1937 [1851–1852], 63. For contemporary discussions, see Krishna 2004; Akram-Lodhi 2007.

32 McMichael 1997, 642.

33 Araghi 2001; Araghi 2009, 133. See also McMichael 1997, 638; Cammack 2002.

34 Li 2008.

35 Erickson 2008.

36 Zhang and Donaldson 2013, 264–265; Sargeson 2013.

37 On the social functions of China's agricultural land, see van der Ploeg, Ye, and Pan 2014.

38 Lin 2015, 34.

39 Huang and Yang 2017, 122, 124.

40 It is disputed that large-scale mechanized farming is necessary, or ideal, in the Chinese case. Philip Huang, for example, argues that China's small-scale agriculture is better suited to the labor-intensive production of vegetables, fruit, livestock, poultry and fish, see Huang 2011.

41 Sargeson 2013, 1068.

42 Li 2003.

43 Wen 1999.

44 Lin 2004.

45 Ye 2016, 5.

46 On the evolution of China's land transfer policies since the 1980s, see Ye 2015, 324–327.

47 Huang and Yang 2017.

48 Grains, and labor-intensive products in which China has a comparative advantage, have largely withstood international competition. Imports of land-intensive products have increased, however, and China's soybean sector has been hit hard. Yan, Chen, and Ku 2016.

49 Wilson 2016.

50 Niu 2002.

51 PRC 2008.

52 Jinrong Jie [Finance World] 2008.

53 In practice, perhaps better described as a “quasi-market” given the complex localized social and political relations in which it is embedded. Zhang 2015, 352.

54 Day 2008; Huang 2011.

55 State Council 2012. The No. 1 Document indicates the policy document of highest priority.

56 Gao 2016.

57 Yan and Chen 2015, 375.

58 Gao 2017, 39.

59 Wen 2000.

60 Feng 2001; Zhang 2000.

61 Waldron, Brown, and Longworth 2006.

62 Schneider 2017, 7.

63 Zhang and Donaldson 2008.

64 Lu and Li 2015.

65 Interview with Wang Yahua, School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, June 3, 2015.

66 Chen Xiwen, reported in Gongchan Dangyuan [Communist Party Member] 2010; see also He 2013.

67 Yu 2011.

68 Interviews conducted between July 16–21, 2015.

69 Zhang 2013, 40.

70 Li 2013.

71 Zhang, Oya, and Ye 2015, 307.

72 Huang 2015, 401.

73 Luo, Andreas, and Li 2017; Gong and Zhang 2017.

74 Chuang 2014; Andreas and Zhan 2016; Zhan 2017.

75 Ji et al. 2016, 54. Cf. Yan and Chen 2015, 376.

76 Ji et al. 2016, 50–51; Gao 2017, 37.

77 Interview with Huang Jikun, China Center for Agricultural Policy, Peking University, May 16, 2017. The question arises as to what extent the shirking of labor on agribusiness farms is an act of resistance by local employees deprived of their own autonomy over production.

78 Stanway 2016.

79 Interview with Zhang Yinghong, Ministry of Agriculture Research Centre for the Rural Economy, Beijing, May 9, 2017.

80 For a history of family or tenant farms in China since the 1980s, see Yan and Chen 2015, 382–386.

81 Qian Forrest Zhang identifies “politically assisted accumulation,” an alternative trajectory whereby farmers are politically connected cadres or entrepreneurs able to leverage their relationships to gain favorable benefits and access to land – often “wasteland” beyond the usual jurisdiction of the household contract system which remains “under greater egalitarian constraints.” Zhang 2015, 348–352.

82 Zhuang 2013. Cf. Ji et al. 2016, 52, estimated the area at twenty percent.

83 Han 2012; Wang, Shi, and Wen 2013; Zhou and Xia 2014. Cf. Yan and Chen 2015, 386.

84 Qin 1981.

85 Wang, Shi, and Wen 2013.

86 Zhang 2015, 362.

87 Zhang 2015, 353–354; see also Yan and Chen 2015, 378, 388. Central government subsidies are currently awarded to farms exceeding 150 mu, or 250 mu, varying by province.

88 Interview with Huang Jikun, China Center for Agricultural Policy, Peking University, May 16, 2017.

89 Ji et al. 2016, 42–43.

90 Huang 2017.

91 Yuan 2016, 264.

92 Interview with Huang Jikun, China Center for Agricultural Policy, Peking University, May 16, 2017.

93 For comprehensive English language discussions of this movement, see Day 2008; Yan and Chen 2013.

94 Fang 2016.

95 Ji et al. 2016, 54.

96 Hancock 2017.

97 He 2013.

98 Li 2008; Wang 2010.

99 Zhongguo Zhengquan Bao [China Securities Journal] 2014.

100 Anonymous interview, Chengdu, July 19, 2015.

101 Interviews conducted in Chengdu, May 12–15, 2017.

102 Yan and Chen 2015, 379; see also Huang 2015.

103 Hu, Zhang, and Donaldson 2017.

104 Liu 2010, 54.

105 Hale 2013; Zhang 2017.

106 I am grateful to Lin Chun for this point.

107 Zhou 2017.

108 He 2017.

109 Interview with Zhang Yinghong, Ministry of Agriculture Research Centre for the Rural Economy, Beijing, May 9, 2017.

110 Zhang and Donaldson 2008.

111 Huang 2015, 409.