State intervention and agrarian change in China after 2006

Abstract

States play a central role in systematic studies of agrarian changes in East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia. However, due to China’s belated agrarian change, agrarian studies on China have only begun recently, and the role of the state is still relatively undiscussed. First, we review the history of state intervention on agricultural development. Then we focus on fiscal policies of the state’s intervention that have been implemented since the taxes and fees reforms, which involved a large number of state agricultural projects. Such state intervention is aimed at promoting food security and agricultural modernization and, in practice, is typically accompanied by land transfer promoted by local government. The local governments’ intervention has directly resulted in the emergence of capitalized family farms and the flow of industrial/commercial capital to the countryside, both of which constitute main aspects of China’s agrarian transition. Based on a case study of a county in Hunan Province, focusing on examples of the food security project and the agricultural vertical integration project, combining with the process of land transfer promoted by local government, we analyse the role of the state in the emergence of capitalized family farms and capital flow to the countryside, as well as connections between state interventions and capital accumulation. Then, we present the general development of capitalized family farms as well as the flow of agro-capital to the countryside based on provincial data, and interpret how agrarian transition evolves at a different pace among regions against the backdrop of state intervention. We emphasize the internal mechanism between state intervention and agrarian transformation based on the operation of specific agricultural projects and the local governments’ promotion of land transfer.