GO TO THE FIELDS

正China finds ways and difficulties in spreading new farming techniques in rural areas At the end of 2011,Jiang Peize,a member of the Technical Task Force(TTF) in Xuanen County,central China's Hubei Province,visited Yuheping Village in the county and showed local farmers how to use straw to protect their tea seedlings from winter frosts. There are more than 300 TTF members in Xuanen.They help farmers deal with practical     

适应现代市场经济必须取消农业税——我国农村税制改革的出路思考之一

我国农村税制改革的第一步是取消农业税,认清我国农业税的性质和取消农业税的原因是一个重要理论前提.我国的农业税名义上(法定的)是收益税,形式上是资源税,本质上是对农业生产行为征税,是行为税.在当代工业化市场经济国家,免征农业税是通例,而且征收农业税违背税收公平和效率原则.为了保持我国农业部门的可持续发展和增强我国农产品的国内、国际竞争力,"支农"措施必须从取消农业税开始.     

Deepening,and repairing,the metabolic rift

This paper critically assesses the metabolic rift as a social, ecological, and historical concept describing the disruption of natural cycles and processes and ruptures in material human-nature relations under capitalism. As a social concept, the metabolic rift presumes that metabolism is understood in relation to the labour process. This conception, however, privileges the organisation of labour to the exclusion of the practice of labour, which we argue challenges its utility for analysing contemporary socio-environmental crises. As an ecological concept, the metabolic rift is based on outmoded understandings of (agro) ecosystems and inadequately describes relations and interactions between labour and ecological processes. Historically, the metabolic rift is integral to debates about the definitions and relations of capitalism, industrialism, and modernity as historical concepts. At the same time, it gives rise to an epistemic rift, insofar as the separation of the natural and social worlds comes to be expressed in social thought and critical theory, which have one-sidedly focused on the social. We argue that a reunification of the social and the ecological, in historical practice and in historical thought, is the key to repairing the metabolic rift, both conceptually and practically. The food sovereignty movement in this respect is exemplary.     

Gendered experiences of dispossession: oil palm expansion in a Dayak Hibun community in West Kalimantan

This article explores the gendered experience of monocrop oil-palm expansion in a Hibun Dayak community in Sanggau District, West Kalimantan (Indonesia). It shows how the expanding corporate plantation and contract farming system has undermined the position and livelihood of indigenous women in this already patriarchal community. The shifting of land tenure from the community to the state and the practice of the ‘family head’ system of smallholder plot registration has eroded women's rights to land, and women are becoming a class of plantation labour. At the same time, as in other cases of expansion of agrarian corporate commodity production, we can discern a familiar pattern of ambivalence between, on the one hand, the attractions of regular cash income and, on the other, the loss of resource tenure and autonomy, which helps to explain the community's gendered experience of coercion, exploitation, intimidation, consent and resistance.     

我国的农地制度与改革

新中国成立以来,农地制度变革经历了土地改革、农业合作化、"人民公社化"、农民家庭联产承包责任制四个阶段。 实践证明,现阶段的农地制度基本上是适合生产力发展的,但在土地所有制度、土地产权制度、对农地征收税赋制度、国家征收和 征用农地制度、村级自治组织制度等方面还存在不少问题亟待解决。为此必须实行农地所有权国有化;农地产权家庭化,同时,国 家应及时调整对农村的财政、征用农地和税收政策;制止村民自治组织政权化,大力精简县、乡(镇)、村的机构与人员;逐步取消城 乡隔离的各种制度。     

Re-animating a radioactive landscape: informal life politics in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster

The earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident of 11 March 2011 posed massive and continuing social challenges to communities in the affected areas. People from wide areas around the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant received vastly conflicting information about the levels of radiation released and about the likely health effects. They were left facing agonising decisions whether to remain and face possible (but uncertain) long-term health risks, or whether to move away, leaving behind homes, friends, jobs, schools and communities. Focusing on the case of the small farming community of Tōwa in Nihonmatsu City, this article examines self-help activities that have emerged in the affected areas in the wake of 3/11. The activities have included community monitoring of radiation levels and collaborative research with academic scientists to explore ways to reduce radioactive contamination in forests, farm soil and crops. The self-help activities of Tōwa residents can be seen as an example of “informal life politics” – that is, of the way in which grassroots groups respond to challenges to their livelihood or way of life by organising themselves and taking actions outside the sphere of formal governmental structures. It is argued here that the residents of Tōwa were able to respond rapidly to the challenges of the Fukushima disaster because they had already developed informal life politics practices in response to earlier challenges of local economic decline and depopulation. I also suggest that, in responding to the Fukushima disaster, the relationship between the people of Tōwa and their landscape has been profoundly changed, and that this change has implications not just for the community itself but also for the wider world.     

唐代小农经济的发展与乡村社会控制的转型

唐前期承继了北魏以来的均田制,这一保护小农经济的措施为整个社会变革提供了制度保障。在均田制下,小农经济独立性日益增强,乡村市场日趋繁荣。唐中叶商品经济的发展,导致了社会阶层出现结构性调整,由身份等级分层向贫富分层转化。富民阶层的崛起,租佃制的盛行,不仅导致了国家政策、制度的调整,而且为乡村控制的转型提供了基础,其中一个显著的变化是乡村控制方式开始由乡官制向职役制转化。     

Different farming styles behind the homogenous soy production in southern Brazil

Soy is often perceived as a typical example of a homogenous capitalist agricultural model that is responsible for ecological damage and social conflicts. But this monolithic perception of soy production can be challenged: more than 30 percent of the soy producers in Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) are family farmers. In this contribution, we study soy production, the soy producers and their institutional environment from an actor-oriented perspective. We have uncovered different farming styles behind soy production: the colonial farmer, the niche farmer and the entrepreneurial farmer. The farming styles differ from each other not only in the farming system, but also in attitudes (for example, towards the forest). We found that the institutional environment and the technology are mainly focused on the entrepreneurial farmer. However, also, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) neglect the existence of small-scale soy producers. These results have several repercussions for further analysis of this problematic crop and how it can shift towards a more sustainable agricultural production model as small-scale farmers might produce soy more sustainably.     

关于“谷贱伤农”问题及其防范——以甘肃省天水市为例

＂谷贱伤农＂作为一种特殊经济现象,在我们这样一个农业大国时有发生,形成农产品＂卖难买贵＂,造成经济资源的巨大浪费,给整个农业经济的平稳发展带来巨大危害。本文从甘肃省天水市具体实际出发,对其进行了客观、理性的分析,就＂谷贱伤农＂的防范提出了相应的对策建议。     

Rural Transformation

正Key goals for rural work set by the Central Government Adozen shipments of corn imported from the United States containing unapproved and genetically modified ingredients were denied entry by China in December 2013.Since China relies heavily on imported grain to guarantee its supplies,the