Political Economy of Chinese Ecological Agriculture: A case study of seven Chinese eco-villages

This article discusses one of the Chinese Government's initiatives for developing environmentally friendly economic activity in the Chinese countryside since the reforms, that of Chinese Ecological Agriculture (CEA). It draws on the author's research findings from seven villages and, to a lesser extent, four counties that have adopted CEA in different parts of the Chinese countryside in recent years. It concludes that while CEA may indeed provide considerable economic and environmental benefits, there are a number of important factors constraining its adoption and consequent extension throughout rural China, the most important being small-scale family farming reintroduced with the Household Responsibility System in the early 1980s. It argues that if CEA is to flourish, a more collectivised agriculture, as already practised in Village Conglomerates in some of the more affluent parts of the Chinese countryside, should be encouraged.