Exemplary Agriculture Independent Organic Farming in Contemporary China Sacha Cody Exemplary Agriculture Sacha Cody Exemplary Agriculture Independent Organic Farming in Contemporary China Sacha Cody The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Hong Kong, China ISBN 978-981-13-3794-9 ISBN 978-981-13-3795-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3795-6 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018967954 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub- lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu- tional affiliations. Cover image © Sacha Cody This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21- 01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore For Fran A N N ote oN Ames All the names of individuals in this book are pseudonyms, unless they occupy specific roles that are publicly known (e.g. manager of a farmers’ market, founder of a popular website, intellectual at a university, NGO or government-supported model organic farm, etc.). In naming my Chinese interlocutors, I follow the convention of surname first, followed by firstname. vii A N C t ote oN hiNese rANslAtioNs All English translations of Chinese words are from the following reference unless otherwise stated: Beijing Foreign Languages School. 1988. A Chinese-English Dictionary (Han-Ying Cidian 汉英词典). Beijing: Beijing Business Press. I use pinyin when romanising Chinese characters. I provide the Chinese characters as well when helpful. ix U C Nit oNversioNs Start of fieldwork (December 2012) 1 Chinese yuan (CNY) = 0.16 US dollar (USD) 1 Chinese yuan (CNY) = 0.15 Australian dollar (AUD) End of fieldwork (June 2014) 1 Chinese yuan (CNY) = 0.16 US dollar (USD) 1 Chinese yuan (CNY) = 0.17 Australian dollar (AUD) 1 mu (亩) = /115 hectare 1 jin (斤) = ½ kilogram xi A CkNowledgmeNts This book is the result of an intellectual journey that began in 2012 when I started a PhD project at the Australian National University. I have accu- mulated many debts along the way. When I first began this anthropologi- cal project researching organic food and farming in China, I was working at Millward Brown, a global research and consulting firm, in Shanghai. Jason Spencer, Managing Director at the time and a close friend, gave me significant time away from the office as well as support to pursue this proj- ect. Without Jason’s support this research would have been very difficult to begin at all. I was also extremely fortunate to have an excellent supervi- sory team at ANU. Andrew Kipnis, now at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, was my chief supervisor. His professionalism guided me through the program and his exceptional scholarship gave me something to aspire to (which I still do). I also benefited greatly from Assa Doron’s and Simone Dennis’s insights and advice over the years. In China, the late Nicholas Tapp, who lived next door to me in Shanghai, was extremely generous and took the time to discuss my research over coffee and donuts, introduce me to people and set up academic forums for me to present my research to Chinese scholars interested in rural reconstruction. Pan Tianshu and Zhu Jianfeng at Fudan University, where I taught in 2014 while writing parts of this book, provided me with a timely platform where I had the opportunity to articulate my research findings. Fuji Lozada at Davidson College was especially helpful. He pro- vided me with the chance to accompany him and his students on a fieldtrip to several organic farms in the countryside surrounding Shanghai and share firsthand my fieldsites, interlocutors and research program. xiii xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have also benefited greatly by presenting parts of this book at confer- ences, seminars and talks around the world, gaining much needed feed- back in the process. This includes the Australian Anthropological Society’s annual conferences, ANU’s China in the World as well as anthropology seminar series, The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Postgraduate Student Forum, East China Normal University’s anthropology seminar series, Nanjing University’s anthropology seminar series, New York University Shanghai and M on the Bund’s China Food Story Talks. I am especially grateful to Joseph Bosco, Richard Brubaker, Fan Ke, Theresa Loo, Graeme MacRae, Ryan Manuel, and Wu Xu for their help, encour- agement and feedback at these forums. Turning a dissertation into a book is not easy. I was lucky to have three examiners who not only provided detailed insights and advice on how to approach this journey, but allowed me to contact them after my PhD was awarded to ask further questions and elicit more advice. I am extremely grateful to Melissa Caldwell, Jakob Klein and James Watson for all their encouragement and insightful suggestions they gave that helped me final- ise this manuscript. Books are also the result of daily interactions and ‘asides’ that are easily overlooked. I have benefited from numerous productive discussions, con- versations and ‘asides’ with many people including Rosita Armytage, Markus Bell, Stephanie Betz, Roger Casas, Mohit Chaturvedi, Chen Liang, Tiffany Cone, Michael Griffiths, Zoe Hatten, Rebecca Kanthor, Kai Kottenstede, Sin Wen Lau, Li Geng, Yuebai Liu, Yon Jae Paik, Leo Pang, Kathy Robinson, Michael Rose, Steffanie Scott, Alan Smart, Graeme Smith, Beibei Tang, Philip Taylor, Luigi Tomba, Sharon Xie, Yoko Yonezawa, Jules Young and Jinghong Zhang. I thank ANU’s Karina Pelling, who helped make the map in Chap. 1. I am also thankful to Jacob Dreyer at Palgrave, who kept the door open for me and remained flexible as I worked through journal articles before completing this manuscript. Anushangi Weerakoon at Palgrave has also been very helpful throughout the process. Earlier versions and parts of several chapters were published in the following journals and forums. Parts of Chaps. 1, 3 (including the tables), 6 and 9 can be found in “Borrowing from the Rural to Help the Urban: Organic Farming Exemplars in Postsocialist China,” The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 19(1): 72–89. Parts of Chap. 8 as well as Figs. 8.1 and 9.3 first appeared in “Contending the Rural: Food Commodities and Regimes of Value in Contemporary China,”
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