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.
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
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.
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 Citation2016, 10.
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 Citation2000; see also Walker and Buck Citation2007, 42.
18 Post Citation2008, 324. Also: “‘[c]apitalist agriculture’ as usually understood accounts for only a very small portion of Chinese agriculture today[.]” Huang, Yuan, and Peng Citation2012, 167–168.
20 “This latest law … will not bring the full property-rights revolution China's development demands.” The Economist Citation2007.
37 On the social functions of China's agricultural land, see van der Ploeg, Ye, and Pan Citation2014.
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 Citation2011.
46 On the evolution of China's land transfer policies since the 1980s, see Ye Citation2015, 324–327.
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 Citation2016.
53 In practice, perhaps better described as a “quasi-market” given the complex localized social and political relations in which it is embedded. Zhang Citation2015, 352.
55 State Council Citation2012. The No. 1 Document indicates the policy document of highest priority.
65 Interview with Wang Yahua, School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, June 3, 2015.
68 Interviews conducted between July 16–21, 2015.
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.
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 Citation2015, 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 Citation2015, 348–352.
87 Zhang Citation2015, 353–354; see also Yan and Chen Citation2015, 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.
92 Interview with Huang Jikun, China Center for Agricultural Policy, Peking University, May 16, 2017.
99 Zhongguo Zhengquan Bao [China Securities Journal] Citation2014.
100 Anonymous interview, Chengdu, July 19, 2015.
101 Interviews conducted in Chengdu, May 12–15, 2017.
106 I am grateful to Lin Chun for this point.
109 Interview with Zhang Yinghong, Ministry of Agriculture Research Centre for the Rural Economy, Beijing, May 9, 2017.
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