In the past two to three decades, amidst a backdrop of changing food demand, sustained transfer of rural labour into urban jobs, decline of the natural birth rate in the rural population, rural development and politics in China entered a new phase that revolves around what the central government calls ‘agricultural modernisation’.
Transformation of the once-dominant smallholding, family-based agriculture has become a focal point of the Chinese government's programme of rural rejuvenation, where a range of economic changes unleashed by urbanisation and industrialisation also converge.
In this video, Forrest Zhang, Associate Professor of Sociology, examines the agriculture transition in China, the role of agribusiness in the rise of agrarian capitalism, and its socio-economic implications.
Research Interests
Agrarian political economy, Social class, Family and social mobility, Self-employment and informal economy, Contemporary chinese society,
References
Zhang, Q. F., & Wu, Jianling. (2017). Political dynamics in land commodification: Commodifying rural land development rights in Chengdu, China. Geoforum, 78, 98-109.
Zhang, Qian Forrest. (2015). Bringing Agriculture Back In: The Central Place of Agrarian Change in Rural China Studies. Journal of Agrarian Change, 15(3), 299-314.
Zhang, Q. F. (2015). Class Differentiation in Rural China: Dynamics of Accumulation, Commodification and State Intervention. Journal of Agrarian Change, 15(3), 338-366.
Zhang, Q. F., & Pan, Z. (2013). The Transformation of Urban Vegetable Retail in China: Wet Markets, Supermarkets and Informal Markets in Shanghai. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 43(3), 497-518.
Zhang, Q. F., & Donaldson, J. A. (2008). The Rise of Agrarian Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Agricultural Modernization, Agribusiness and Collective Land Rights. The China Journal, (60), 25-47
Brown, Lester Russell. (1995). Who will feed China? : wake-up call for a small planet. New York : W.W. Norton & Co.
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Office of Research & Tech Transfer (ORTT)
Singapore Management University