Chinas Peasant Agriculture
and Rural Society
Chinas agriculture and rural society has undergone rapid changes in recent years. Many poorer farmers and younger people have moved to cities, and yet China has an immense challenge to feed a growing and more affluent population. This book provides a bottom-up view of Chinas agriculture, showing how the many millions of Chinese peasants make a living.
Chinas Peasant Agriculture and Rural Society provides a vivid description of the mechanisms used by rural households to defend and sustain their livelihoods, increase their agricultural production and improve the quality of their lives. The authors examine the newly emerging trajectories of entrepreneurial and capitalist farming and assess whether such alternatives will be able to meet the enormous social, economic and environmental challenges that China faces.
The book also explores the paradigm that has underpinned the organisation and development of Chinas agriculture from ancient times to the present day. This shows the importance of balancing in the Chinese model as compared to the one-sided imposition of continual modernization in the Western model. It is argued that such balancing is at the core of the current Sannong policy, referring to the three ruralities of food sovereignty, well-being for peasant households and an attractive countryside.
Jan Douwe van der Ploeg is Professor of Transition Studies at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and Adjunct Professor of Rural Sociology at the College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agricultural University, Beijing. He is the author of the influential book The New Peasantries (Earthscan, 2008).
Jingzhong Ye is Professor of Development Sociology and Dean of the College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agricultural University, Beijing.
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Chinas Peasant Agriculture
and Rural Society
Changing paradigms of farming
Edited by
Jan Douwe van der Ploeg
and Jingzhong Ye
First published 2016
by Routledge
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2016 Jan Douwe van der Ploeg and Jingzhong Ye, selection and editorial material; individual chapters, the contributors
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Ploeg, Jan Douwe van der, 1950 editor. | Ye, Jingzhong, editor.
Title: Chinas peasant agriculture and rural society: changing paradigms of farming / edited by Jan Douwe van der Ploeg and Jingzhong Ye.
Description: London; New York : Routledge, 2016. | Series: Routledge contemporary China series; 149 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015047045| ISBN 9781138187177 (hbk) | ISBN 9781315643250 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Peasants China. | Farmers China. | Rural population China. | Agriculture China. | Rural development China. | China Rural conditions.
Classification: LCC HD1537.C5 C4753 2016 | DDC 338.10951 dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015047045
ISBN: 978-1-138-18717-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-64325-0 (ebk)
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by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK
Contents
JAN DOUWE VAN DER PLOEG AND YE JINGZHONG
JAN DOUWE VAN DER PLOEG AND YE JINGZHONG
JAN DOUWE VAN DER PLOEG, YE JINGZHONG AND PAN LU
JAN DOUWE VAN DER PLOEG, YE JINGZHONG, WU HUIFANG AND WANG CHUNYU
JAN DOUWE VAN DER PLOEG, YE JINGZHONG, ZHAO YONG AND PAN LU
JAN DOUWE VAN DER PLOEG AND YE JINGZHONG
JAN DOUWE VAN DER PLOEG, YE JINGZHONG AND WU HUIFANG
XIANDAN MENG, SABINE DE ROOIJ AND JAN DOUWE VAN DER PLOEG
SABINE DE ROOIJ, WU HUIFANG AND JAN DOUWE VAN DER PLOEG
JAN DOUWE VAN DER PLOEG, WU HUIFANG AND HE CONGZHI
JAN DOUWE VAN DER PLOEG
JAN DOUWE VAN DER PLOEG AND YE JINGZHONG
He Congzhi
Associate Professor of Development Studies at the College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China