Dependent Farmers and Their Embedment in the Administrative System: Government Intervention and Agricultural Transformation in Suburban Shanghai (嵌入行政体系的依附农——沪郊农村的政府干预和农业转型)

Abstract

There are striking regional variations in agricultural transformation throughout China. Findings from the economically advanced areas show that government intervention in such areas likely results in the rise of “dependent farmers” 依附农 who are embedded in the existing administrative system and whose management approach and its consequences defy the conventional wisdom on agricultural capitalism. In the case of suburban Shanghai, the coming of sojourning farmers and the resultant changes in agriculture have become “problematic” under the current policies of agricultural governance, hence their removal from local agricultural production and the rise of “local farmers and family farms” in their stead. Despite the facade of modern agriculture and autonomous management, the family farm operates essentially in an “administrative” mode. The local government plays a decisive role in farmers’ choice of production and returns through its whole package of agricultural management systems, thus turning the market-oriented managerial farmers into dependents of the administrative system. The major problem with the new method in agricultural management, therefore, lies in the high cost of agricultural management and the government’s subsequent subsidies for agriculture to insure its survival, hence the formation of the dual dependence of farmland contractors and actual operators upon the agricultural administrative system and the emergence of a “profit-sharing order.” On the basis of this, the article further elaborates on problems with the farmland system in the advanced areas.中国农业的转型具有区域差异的特征,发达地区的经验表明政府干预可能形成嵌入行政体系的“依附农”,其经营方式和后果不同于通常所界定的农业资本主义。以沪郊农村为例,在农业治理要求下,沪郊外来农民及自发的农业变迁被“问题化”,随之被地方政府排除出农业生产领域,“本地农民-家庭农场”取而代之。家庭农场虽然有现代农业及自主经营的外在形式,但其内在运作机制是一套“行政化”的农业经营模式。地方政府通过一整套农业经营制度安排支配着经营者选择、生产标准和收益空间,将面向市场的自主经营者转变为面向行政体系的依附经营者。新农业经营方式的主要问题是农业经营成本被人为推高,迫使政府以农业补贴维持农业再生产,进而形成土地承包者和实际经营者共同依附农业行政体系获得丰厚收益的“分利秩序”。在这一基础上,本文还对发达地区所显示的农地制度问题进行了初步的反思。