Dynamic Mechanism Of China's Agrarian Transition

Henri Mendras once said that agricultural is one of the goals of the state to achieve public governance which was been concerned by top designers through policy.As administrative tasks in the field of agricultural governance by local government,agricultural structural adjustment is considered to be one of the central themes in the study of agrarian transition.Using expanded case study method,this dissertation mainly aims to answer the question of “the process and the dynamic mechanism of China's agrarian structure transition” with the change of agricultural structure as the main line.During the in-depth field research,the author conducts research from two aspects: firstly,taking agricultural structural adjustment policies as the starting point,this paper seeks to explore the governance behaviors of local government in the process of agricultural modernization;secondly,this article explores the action logic of peasants in the practice of agrarian structure transition based on the consideration of household interests from the perspective of households.The paper is structured as follows.First,the paper makes a combing to the historical process of China's agricultural structural transformation related to macro-level data of the national agriculture;systematically introduces the background of agricultural transformation at the medium-level about central Gansu province;taking Li village as a case,explores the dynamic mechanism of local agrarian structure transition(chapter 4).Second,the paper takes the food crop potato as an example discusses the efforts made by local government in agricultural governance,and summarizes the policy dynamic(chapter5).Third,taking the cash crop celery as an illustration,it reveals the class dynamic of small peasants in promotion the transformation of agricultural structure(chapter 6).Fourth,starting from the “multi-functional agriculture” with public value,it reflects on the development of industrialized capitalist agriculture(chapter).This is meaningful for understanding of the transformation process,dynamic mechanism and local knowledge in agrarian transition.Based on empirical findings,we conclude that:(1)the local agriculture has already undergone a breakthrough transformation and realized the capitalization transition with capital entering into agriculture,which has changed the traditional agricultural production relations;(2)based on field investigation it confirms the role of agricultural policies in driving the structure transformation of agriculture.The large-scale agriculture based on the project system in Li village can be regarded as a relatively simple phenomenon of agricultural structure transformation which is formed under the administrative intervention of local government by policies;(3)constrained by the family resources pool,there are obvious differences in the livelihood strategies adopted by peasants in the process of household accumulation,which has become an important force for the breakthrough agricultural transformation.This kind of crop boom driven by small farmers provides an important microscopic perspective to understand the capitalization transition of agrarian;(4)the paper further concludes that there are two approaches to agricultural transformation: one is a simple that characterized by scale and unification and is completed through the intervention of policy tools.The other is driven by peasants due to economic differentiation,which is based on capitalization as its essential feature,scale and specialization.This article summarizes the internal driving dual forces of the transformation of agricultural structure as the result of policy and class differentiation.The author believes that during the transformation process of agricultural modernization,as an important participant,the government is indispensable to support and guide agriculture,but its intervention should not exceed the boundaries too much.As the real bodies of agricultural activities peasants should play to their initiative and continuously cultivate the ability to adjust agricultural behaviors in order to cope with market and natural risks,finally become the main force for the prosperity of the rural economy.The consequences of the capitalization of agricultural transformation are multi-faceted.Optimistically speaking being the foundation of all production activities,the development of modern agriculture has contributed not only to the continuous growth of agricultural output,but also to the elimination of global famine,the improvement of the welfare of rural communities and peasants,and the increase of peasants' income.There are facing many problems at the same time: first of all,in terms of agricultural production itself,it is essentially a process of interaction between multiple life forms,while the large-scale planting of a single crop will gradually lose the versatility contained in traditional agriculture,and making unsustainable.A system that indulges in waste and pollution thereby destroying the public environmental earth;secondly,land is one of the sources of wealth creation,in the absence of a national welfare plan,even a small piece of land is also a vital safety net for peasant families;thirdly,with intensifying of the commercialization of the means of production and subsistence,and various business entities and capital have entered agriculture,causing small peasants to face huge living and competitive pressures;finally,being home groups inhabited by community members,traditional villages are considered to a fixed field with special cultural values,principles of reciprocity,personal relationships,or some other characteristics.Agriculture,farmland,and peasants as an interactive and symbiotic system all have various relationships depending on the geographic space of the village.In the past few decades,rural areas around the world have been changed by the process of marketization and substantial commercialization.