The Role of Government in Ecological Agricultural Development in China: Changing from State-driven to State-coordinated

Abstract

Along with the dramatic growth of ecological agriculture worldwide during the past several decades, actors involved in this process have attracted extensive academic interest. As one of the pivotal actors, the state has caught great attention and is usually portrayed as a latecomer in ecological agriculture studies in developed countries. Critical scholars often criticize state regulation for being one of the key reasons for conventionalization of organic agriculture. However, this is not the case in China. The Chinese government has been deeply involved and played a significant role since China's modern ecological agriculture genesis. By analyzing the role of the Chinese central government, this research analyzes the interactions between government and other actors by using first-hand data collected through interviews and conference participation on newly emerging bottom-up ecological agricultural development as well as historical data on development of China's ecological agriculture, including the Chinese Ecological Agriculture Project, Green Food System, Organic Agriculture Certification and Pollution Free Agricultural Product System, etc. This research argues that although the Chinese government has shown a strong appearance since the very beginning of China's modern ecological agriculture, the role has been changing significantly, moving from state-driven to state-coordinated. This move goes along with the neo-liberalization of China's market system and the slow but growing social power. The changing role of government also shows that the stakeholders collaborating with the government are changing from farmers and village collectives to private actors, especially large-scale actors like dragon-head enterprises. By examining the changing role of government, a clear difference could be seen between the trajectory of ecological development in China with that in developed countries: the organic agriculture in developed countries has developed in a “＜” model (bifurcation). In contrast, ecological agriculture in China has developed in a “＞” model (convergence). By recognizing the changing role of government in ecological agricultural development in China, this research tries to contribute to the study on ecological agriculture development trajectory in Global South and enrich the study about the government role in ecological agriculture.