Comparing local models of Agrarian transition in China

• Main Authors: ZHANG, Forrest Q., DONALDSON, John A.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2011
• Subjects: agrarian transition; agribusiness; family farming; cooperatives; capitalism; China; Agribusiness; Agricultural and Resource Economics; Asian Studies
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2060; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3317&context=soss_research
• Institution: Singapore Management University

The development of markets and the penetration of capital into agriculture have started theagrarian transition in rural China, which is transforming smallholding, household-basedagriculture into various forms of capitalistic production. This raises again in a new historicaland social context the long-debated question in the agrarian transition literature: Can familyfarms survive the onslaught of capitalist agriculture based on wage labor and what shapes theconfrontation between family farms and agro-capital? I argue that it is the local politicaleconomy—rather than some natural obstacles in agriculture to the penetration of capitalism—that shapes this confrontation and gives rise to a variety of local patterns in how familyproducers interact with agro-capital. Conceptually, the primary dimension in which localpatterns diverge is how direct producers’ transactions with the product market are mediated.Based on this distinction, I identify three distinct local paths of agrarian transition—agribusiness-led corporate production, independent household production, and cooperativeproduction. I use data collected from fieldwork and secondary sources to show how, in eachmodel, characteristics of the local pattern are shaped by the local political economy.