Young Farmers’ Difficulties and Adaptations in Agriculture: A Case Study from a Mountainous Town in Sichuan Province, Southwest China

Abstract

AbstractThe unprecedented rural labour migration in China has resulted in the transformation of rural areas and the entire rural society. Migrant workers returning to their hometowns are a new force that is promoting social transformation and changing the urban-rural relationship in the context of integrated development. Since the early 2000s, the modernization of agriculture and the integration of urban and rural areas has meant significant advancements in China’s modernization. The government has introduced policies to enforce agricultural supply structural reforms and support rural areas and the agricultural sector. Therefore, returning farmers, especially those who are young, have become the “generation of the entrepreneurs” in the countryside. Having facilitated urban-rural integration, these young farmers are innovating agricultural production and management and utilizing diverse practices to realize agriculture’s integration with secondary and tertiary industries as the government has been advocating. Rural youth have been growing up as the backbone of rural revitalization and agricultural development. Thus, it is of far-reaching practical significance to identify young farmers’ difficulties in market integration and organizing their production and explore young farmers’ adaptations as they enter or return to farming.