Building rural resilience through agri-food value chains and community interactions: A vegetable case study in wuhan, China

Abstract

The development of consumer-driven, agri-food value chains is considered one of the best strategies to meet the livelihood and food security needs of rural households and communities in developing countries. Despite theoretical and empirical advances, the existing research fails to consider opportunities to combine value chains with community development. In rapidly changing conditions, both value chains and the communities they source from and deliver to need resilience, rather than solely development. To advance the conceptualisation of rural resilience opportunities in the knowledge economy, this study holistically examines the interactions between value chains and rural communities in a rapidly developing city-region of Wuhan, China. Three types of vegetable value chains in two villages were selected to explore these interactions. Data were collected using key informant interviews with chain actors, village leaders, members of groups, and other stakeholders; household interviews with farmers; and focus groups. Each village had unique development dynamics associated with vegetable value chains. The communities were active agents, with specific characteristics represented by “community capitals”, that promote different levels of sustainability and resilience in the vegetable value chains. Findings of this study suggest the importance of linking rural community development with agri-food value chain development, with a view to build rural resilience alongside agri-food value chain development.