Abstract
Cody provides a much needed anthropological account of independent organic farmers in China with a case of an alternative food movement called “exemplary agriculture.” The chapter examines these independent organic farmers’ unique demographic profile and motivations as well as the moral mission they wrap around their agricultural project. It identifies the movement’s defining characteristics and examines what differentiates it from other sustainable farming initiatives, both in China and in other nations. “Shanghai’s independent organic farmers” contains detailed ethnographic portraits of three independent organic farmers to illustrate these arguments.
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Notes
- 1.
This is similar to what Melissa Caldwell (2007, p. 53), in her discussion of natural foods in post-Soviet Russia, calls ‘ecologically clean.’ Ecologically clean foods ‘are presumed to be healthy, full of essential minerals and nutrients and do not contain additives and preservatives.’ Shanghai’s independent organic farmers add the following dictum: ‘No chemical pesticides, no chemical fertilisers (meiyou nongyao, meiyou huafei 没有农药,没有化肥).’
- 2.
Julie Guthman (2014) found something similar in her study of the organic farming movement in California, the US. On the one hand, consumers seek organics produced by farmers informed and motivated by debates concerning the negative effects of industrial farming (soil and air pollution, dangers of genetically-modified crops, benefits of farmer and community livelihoods, and so on) yet turn a blind eye to the reality in which the majority of organic farmers are either subsidiaries of large conventional farms or are farmers who enter the industry based on profit considerations. The ethos consumers seek is largely absent.
- 3.
The one exception currently holds a county household registration, though was born with a rural one (i.e. he too has risen in hukou ‘value’).
- 4.
Although many females are involved, exemplary agriculture is largely a male affair. Amongst Shanghai’s 13 independent organic farmers, ten are male and three are female. This continues the masculine tradition of exemplary morality in China; male role models dominate both Confucian and CCP exemplarity.
- 5.
Given they live on their farms most of the time, independent organic farmers in this group are more willing to receive volunteers and visitors. As such, the three farms I spent most time on belong to this group.
- 6.
Free-range is the term used to describe the method of animal husbandry where animals roam outdoors for at least part of the day.
- 7.
See Harwood 2013 for a more detailed discussion of this policy.
- 8.
Libraries were constructed throughout the Chinese countryside as part of this policy on a quota basis. Some were more successful, and better resourced, than others.
- 9.
Called Fang Cun Di Farmers’ Market, set up in April 2014 (see Chap. 9).
- 10.
Let me share another example of the self-policing nature of exemplary agriculture. Early in my fieldwork, a vendor was expelled from a farmers’ market in Shanghai. Three farmers had joined together to offer customers the opportunity to pre-order watermelons before the season began. As a group of three, they believed they could avoid any production shortfalls a single farm might have. Unfortunately, one of the farms had a severely disappointing harvest and supplemented their shortfall with watermelons purchased elsewhere that may not have been organic. They concealed this fact. One of their volunteers, however, informed the other two farms and a crisis emerged. Customers were given full refunds, apologies were issued and a lengthy explanation was posted on the farmers’ market’s website. The farm in question was expelled indefinitely from the farmers’ market. I did not see this farm again throughout my fieldwork.
- 11.
The school is called the Wujiang Taihu International School. It is a national studies (guoxue 国学) school. In addition to standard classes, the school spends considerable time teaching Chinese classical literature, ethics, etiquette, meditation, philosophy, and Traditional Chinese Medicine to the children. Children recite classical texts until memorised. Liu Shan explains that understanding is secondary to memory: later in life, his son will grasp the meaning and significance. The philosopher Nan Huaijin (1918–2012) is the father of Chinese national studies and the founder of the International School in Suzhou. Liu Shan has the entire canon of Nan’s work in his bookshelves at Chuantong Farm and gave a set to me as a gift during my time there. Often, late in the winter evening and by the glow and warmth of the fire, we sat in Liu Shan’s lounge room and discussed Nan’s books and ideas.
- 12.
He may have maintained full or partial ownership and continued to receive income, though I was never able to verify this.
- 13.
There are numerous other details of Liu Shan’s life in the countryside that further illustrate how he interprets and practices traditional Chinese culture. Most evenings Liu Shan brews tea made with one plant or another, proclaiming their medicinal benefits. In winter, he brews purple perilla (zisu), a herb from the mint family that activates the immune system and treats the common cold. Liu Shan also became vegetarian on arrival in the countryside. Jakob Klein (2017) discusses motivations for eating vegetarian fare amongst the middle-classes in Kunming, Yunnan province. He shows that the Buddhist notion of karmic retribution as well as middle-class practices of self-cultivation—one person describes vegetarianism as ‘fashionable’—compel abstinence from meat. Liu Shan’s motivations appear similar; he became vegetarian partly because of his growing Buddhist beliefs and partly because of his strict regime of self-cultivation. Liu Shan also designed Chuantong Farm’s introduction materials in the style of a traditional stitch-bound Chinese book (xianzhuang). He collects scrap material (such as wood and metal) from wherever he can, lugs it to the farm and leaves it for Jiang Shifu to think up a use for it. He explains, ‘Peasants can do anything!’, admiring their resourcefulness and ability to make do with whatever resources are at hand.
- 14.
My own experience living and working in China confirms Shang Mei’s observations. In 2012 and beforehand, there was a widespread belief that simple rules of thumb, such as looking for wormholes in vegetable leaves, were all that was necessary to identify safe and healthy farm produce. And while this belief continues today, a small but increasing number of urban residents accept that it is not quite so simple.
- 15.
In China, alternative food (such as organic food) is generally called shengtai shipin (生态食品), which translates as ‘ecological food.’
- 16.
Organisations associated with the New Rural Reconstruction movement (discussed further in Chap. 5) assisted a number of rural communities to convert to organic farming to increase their standard of living while retaining their rural culture. NGOs have also played a particularly significant role in the promotion of organic farming across rural China with similar economic and cultural goals.
- 17.
Many people familiar with organic farming in China distinguish between the backgrounds of different farmers; thus a farmer, organic or otherwise, who comes from the city is often referred to as a ‘new farmer (xin nonghu 新农户).’ This term is confusing through, because it is also used to refer to returning rural youth. I thus avoid using the term in this book.
- 18.
Exemplary agriculture differs, however, from earlier movements in the West. The ‘back-to-the-land’ movement in the US in the early twentieth century, for example, was driven by high food prices in the city and the attraction of economic self-sufficiency in the countryside. The farmers I studied, by contrast, are middle-class urban residents who are financially secure (some of them considerably so). Furthermore, the counter-cultural movement in the US and UK in the 1960s also included a ‘back-to-the-land’ component. Sentiments of anti-establishmentarianism and anti-violence, explorations of spirituality and a desire to be self-sufficient and free from outside influence developed in city centres and many urbanites took to the countryside. However, at the time they were more interested in pursuing bohemian and hippie lifestyles and a ‘freedom from work and discipline’ rather than forging an ongoing livelihood in agriculture (Brown 2011, p. 205). Their politics was alternative but highly oppositional; they did not aim to improve or alter the status quo but to dismantle it.
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Cody, S. (2019). Shanghai’s Independent Organic Farmers. In: Exemplary Agriculture. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3795-6_4
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