Tracing the restructuring and industrialisation of upland agriculture in Southwest China, 2008 – 2019

Abstract

The upland agriculture in Southwest China is undergoing a transformation from subsistence to industrial agriculture, which is accompanied by differentiation among farmers. The industrialisation of farming is best understood as an ongoing process rather than an achieved structure, and the industrial and subsistence forms of production are combined in complex ways during transformation. The unit of analysis shifts downwards to the production unit, namely, the ‘form of production’, which is observed at the household level. This study aims to describe the dynamics of the transformation from subsistence to industrial agriculture in Southwest China and the hybridized forms of production that lie between the two extremes. Empirical observations on the transformation of farming in Southwest China, specifically the circumstances of smallholder farmers and local farming systems in the process of industrialisation and farmers’ reasons for their resistance and persistence in traditional farming, are documented and analysed. Using data collected for 2008 and 2019, this study considers the form of production observed from production methods and dynamic farming structures to explore how farmers’ motivations and structural forces clash and interact at the farm level in the commoditization of production and to understand farmers’ autonomy within relational contexts. The study measures the resilience of farmers’ decision-making in production through their space for manoeuvring, which depends on their ability and the conditions to obtain alternative solutions at various stages of production, reflecting varying degrees of autonomy from the dominant development trajectory. The study also reveals that the rapid reduction in the cultivated area of cereals is closely related to the acceleration of agricultural industrialisation. Farmers who join the industry are systematically pressured to compete with no economic cushion when vertically organized commodity chains have shaped local production. Their forms of production are interlocked through adjacent land and crops, and the widespread domino effect has reduced farmers’ room to manoeuvre, limited farmers’ choices in production, and brought vulnerability to local farming systems. Moreover, the transformation towards sustainability has been fragmented and inconsistent.