The Politics And Governance Of Food And Farming System Change In China

Food is the not only the source of nutrition for human life,but also the way to access to wealth and power for a few people.Agriculture is the origin of food production,and also the original statge of food security and food safety.This research insighting from the perspective of food and farming system paradigm change,takes food politics and its governance as the analysis framework to analyze China's food and farming system changes since the mid-20th century,especially since the reform and opening up polict era.Food safety and food security are the two main themes of China food politics and governance.There are some contradictions on these two issues.This research tries to put forward the corresponding countermeasures and suggestions on those problematic issues.Based on the case study of two cases on Bian village in Henan and Gu Village in Guangxi by qualitative methods such as participation in observation and in-depth interviews,this research combines the domestic and international macroeconomic background with the two natural endowment different villages on its micro food and farming system changes.The study founds that the food and farming system changes in the two villages from the initial traditional farming methods and self-sufficiency food system into a"Productionism" and "Life Science Integration" paradigm combination of modern food and farming model.This leads to a series of contradictions and problematic issues,especially in food safety problems.In response,in the past decade,there is a new paradigm-"Ecological Integration" emerging with the "bottom-up" food self-protection for food safety in China.At the same time,the "top-down"state governance policy and practice roots into the village-level,which formats the picture of village level of food politics.This study further found that food and farming system changes are essentially with different interests,concepts,agriculture and environmental ethics.The current reality is that the three paradigms are coexisting."Productionism" and "Life Science Integration" interegting closely,this becomes the current dominant paradigm,which makes the emerging "Ecological Integration" paradigm develop difficultly.The essence of food and farming system paradigm shift is that the essence of food politics,which revolves around the sovereign defense and interests on "food",that is,the interaction between different stakeholders and actors within the framework of food sovereignty,and the choice of agricultural ethics and environmental ethics.Practically,the theme of Chinese food public governance and contradictions is about how to protect food safety,and also deal with food security and food safety protection and find the balance between them.Moreover,currently,the food safety is the critical problematic issue in China,which requires high-level governance.This urgent need requires the integration the force of the "top-down" government administrative supervision and management and"bottom-up"social food self-protection.Based on the above foundings,this research tries to use the perspective of public management to analyze and solve the current Chinese food politics and governance issues and puts forward two countermeasures and suggestions.On one hand,China's food public governance should focus on the protection both of the "food safety" and "food security".This requires the integration of government governance and public participation on the community demands and strength.For the "top-down"government food public governance,first of all,the policy making and implementation on the food security and food safety should fully consider and respect the underlying,different subjects of the interests and concepts,and also give full consideration to different agriculture and food stakeholders,especially the small farmers,different food consumers and different levels of food security and food safety supervision and administrative organizations.Secondly,the government should strengthen the guidance and norms on the market subjects,such as agricultural enterprises and food enterprises.Thirdly,the policy-making and implementation should respect the characteristics and laws of food and farm system in different places,and support the practice of ecological agriculture under the "Ecological Integration" paradigm continueously.On the other hand,in the case of the "bottom-up" food self-protection and social participation,in order to seek the national food safety management objectives and interests of the fit point,the alternative food systems and future strategies for sustainable agriculture and eco-agriculture should be based on the establishmemt of the equal and fair networks of dialogue and different subject interests and ideas on the basis of balance.China's food public governance should be based on the localization,attempting to build up a modern governance model in the global food public governance by exploring the "China model".Firstly,take good use of China's "authoritarian" food political system,with the advantages of a "pressure system" in the implementation of the central willingness and goals,in order to mobilize the enthusiasm of the local government on the food policies'implementation.Secondly,the food public governance needs to highlight the subjective status of people.Finally,it requires respecting the modem biotechnology and ethics,and also re-understanding the traditional Chinese agricultural ethics and environmental ethics.Some potential innovations of this research are from the following aspects.Firstly,it is from the perspective of the interdisciplinary perspective of political science,sociology and public management,and also by introducing the ethical perspective,in order to get to the deep interpretation of China food politics on two issues-food securitiy and food safety.Methodoloically,by combining the international and domestic macroeconomic background with the microcosmic level of the village level food phonomennon by observation the food and agricultural policy and governance practice,and based on the background and realities on Chinese food sovereignty defense and food politics Complexity,this research seeks to deeply present the China's food politics and tries to have a dialogue and discussion with the oversea current research Food Politics-Food Sovereignty Theory.This will contribute to the research and practices on the multi-center modern food public governance.It probabaly becomes a new perspective and a new attempt for China's "localizad" of food public governance in the context of globalization.