The Political Process Of Agriculture:Agricultural Changes Under International Competition And State-led Development

Agriculture is an important sector of national economy,however,the peasants who are doing the agricultural jobs cannot secure their livelihoods,nor do their own dignity.Based on the examination of agrarian change in Li village of Hebei Province,this thesis tried to give an explanation to this question from the perspective of political process,and at the same time to give an understanding of the real conditions in which peasants' livelihood and agricultural production is embedded.The purpose of this qualitative study is to explain the political process of agriculture in terms of the agrarian change in the context of international competition and state-led development.The political process refers the use or control of the resources related to agricultural production,such as land,water,labor,and the underlying logics.In the dimension of international competition,this study has explored the agricultural politics in Cold War,the political implication of Green Revolution,the politics in agricultural trade liberalization,and new agropolitics with the rise of global food sovereignty movement.As for the state-led development,this paper emphasized that national agricultural policies are deeply affected by international competition.The international politics shapes the external conditions for national development and further affect the process of national policies making.There is no exception for China.It is not only the guideline of the direction of agricultural development inside China,but also the response to the international agricultural politics.Founded on the text analysis of the No.1 Central Document in recent years,this study has found there is a discourse system around national agricultural policies,which mainly focuses on economic development and emphasizes integration,commodification,marketization,mechanization,and standardization.Those discourses aim to improve the competitiveness of agriculture.As it provides support to agribusiness,large-scale plantation and cooperatives,smallholders are excluded.In order to understand the real producing and living conditions of peasants,this thesis did not stop at the text analysis of policies,but straight forward to the village level to investigate the practicing of different policies.On the village level,this thesis concerned the policy-oriented land differentiation,irrigational dilemmas under collective-fading and individual-raising circumstance,embedded plum market and its influence,traditional farming and its sufferings in the process of marketization,the changing space of agriculture,and gender politics of labor division in rural families.This study has found that policy as one political authority could be carried out top-down without hinders.Local power relations can make use of or dispel the political authority of polices,while the latter could reshape or strengthen the local power relations.It is the combination of the local power relations and the international economic/political power,which has shaped the trajectory of the agrarian change inside China.Either in land distribution or irrigation organization,economy as new means of control has been introduced into the making and implementation of agricultural policies.The commodification of agricultural resources has resulted in the marginalization of peasants in profit distribution.The market-oriented plum production not only provides new livelihood but also gets peasants more involved in market.Producing for the volatile market put peasant in a dilemma.Under the pressure from cash demand due to the commodification,the peasants have to abandon the traditional way of planting wheat.On the one hand,the income for peasants form agricultural production is decreasing because of the influence from international food price.On the other hand,the cost of children education,housing and the favor pattern are encouraging more expenditure.In such a context,more and more rural families try to get more income from migrant work.Due to the dual social structure,who migrates and who left behind becomes a question inside families,while women bear more pressure and pain.In conclusion,agriculture is an economic,social as well as political sector.The agrarian change is not only promoted by the profit for peasants,but also for the demand of international competition and national benefit.