In contrast to the ongoing academic focus on female and the elderly's participation in agriculture, children's involvement has been a relatively marginal issue despite the profound implications. Te issue of child labour was very prominent in China in the early 1900s as the manufacturing industrialization was developing alongside the entrenched poverty of ordinary people. According to a China Industrial Survey report based on a survey of 1206 enterprises in China in the 1930s, there were 115,000 child labourers in China, accounting for 14.8 per cent of the labour force (Li 2018). Labour research in this feld has been concentrated on youth employed in manufacturing. If children's participation in handicrafts and agriculture was taken into account, the ratio of child labour to adult would be signifcantly higher. Although systematic research on child labour in agriculture in the early 1900s is not available, researchers in the period did examine the relationship between agricultural production performance and child labour involvement. In northeast China, for example, when the soybean harvest was poor, rural households had to adjust their family labour division and increase children's labour input in farming to cope with the lost revenues from this major cash crop. Tis research shows that when an area of farmland that could not be harvested increased by 1 per cent, the use of child labour (generally aged 11–14) also increased by 0.04 persons (Li 2018).

#### **5 Young Farmers and the Dynamics of Agrarian Transition…**

Te situation of child labour has evolved due to rapid urbanization, improved socio-economic conditions, and the country's education system. As rural children spend more time in schools and as school locations are increasingly being shifted from villages to townships and counties, many scholars, especially educators, bemoan children's segregation from rural communities and detachment from agriculture and labour work. Close to nature and agriculture and the children's daily interactions in their neighbourhood are seen as important components of socialization and education for rural children. Underneath this general trend of gain in formal education but detachment from agriculture and the community, however, children's labour participation in some less developed areas is still common. Rural children are involved in various kinds of labour work through interwoven macro-level labour regimes and family gender labour division. In the split labour regime for migrant workers, the burden of labour reproduction (such as childrearing and elder care) is externalized and transferred to rural households. Te left-behind people have to take up the domestic and economic work in order to sustain labour regeneration. Te children who remain at home may help their grandparents in farm work and domestic work. Ye and Pan (2008) show a signifcant increase in the labour burden for left-behind children after their parents' migration. About 45.6 per cent of these youth regularly participate in farm work. Te increase in labour burden is most dramatic for children between age 6 and 14 since their older siblings (aged 15–18) usually live away from home at boarding school. Children's participation in farm work not only limits their time for play and study, but also induces complaints about the workload, increases pressure on them, and can result in conficts with grandparents (Ye and Pan 2008).

Afected by traditional gender norms and family gender labour division, left-behind children's labour work in the household is highly gendered. Research shows that young girls need to take up care work, domestic work, and farm work with very little time for recreation, while boys could keep their distance from labour work and spend more time at play. Te burden of labour reproduction induced by the split labour regime of rural migrants was frst transferred to the rural elderly and then strengthened the gender labour divisions among children (Wang 2019). Other studies illustrate the extent of children's involvement, not only in domestic and farm work but also in the household economy and in wage labour. Flexible labour employment worldwide has reconstructed social relations and in the Chinese countryside, this has meant the wide-ranging involvement of rural children in the labour process (Ren and Zhang 2015). Regardless of whether the work is waged or domestic labour, the increased responsibilities owing to their parents' or other family members' migration is negatively infuencing children's physical and mental well-being, especially that of girls who studies show carry a larger burden.

#### **Cultivating Young Farmers**

Youth is a concept that is defned diferently in terms of chronological age and has various defnitions depending on the region, culture, or life world of the person using the term. China is no exception. Te Chinese Communist Youth League is one of the national organizations working for young people. In its articles of organization, young people who are between the ages of 14 and 28 can join the League. Te upper age limit for committee members who belong to the All-China Youth Federation is 40 years old. For many awards or other committee across the country, the upper age limit for applications is age 39. For example, since 1996, the Ministry of Agriculture has selected and rewarded outstanding young farmers from across the country. Qualifed young farmers are those between 18 and 39 years old who have been working in agriculture for more than three years and have outstanding economic performance and demonstration efect to other farmers on application of new techniques or new way of farming. Te Ministry's defnition of a "young farmer" is just one of many—there is no common defnition among government departments. Tis is evident in the national agriculture censuses in 2006 and 2016. As Table 5.4 shows, agricultural labourers in family farming were divided by the age diference of 10 years in the 2006 census and there was no clear demarcation or illustration of a "young farmer." In the 2016 census (see Table 5.5), as the presentation and signifcance of young farmers was better appreciated, the age classifcation of farmers was simplifed to three groups: young farmers (below age 35), middle-aged farmers (those aged 36–54), and old farmers (aged 55 and above). In the

**Table 5.4** Age composition of agricultural labour in family farming (2006)

Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China (2008)

Note: *Data on agricultural labour by age working on commercial farms are not available*

**Table 5.5** Age composition of agricultural labour (2016)

Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China (2017)

*Medium and Long-term Youth Development Plan*, issued by the government and the State Council of China in 2017, they defne youth as individuals between age 14 and 35 (Central Government of China 2017). Tis defnition has since become the standard in policymaking and service delivery for young people, especially in policies relating to agricultural and rural development.

Tables 5.4 and 5.5 also show the signifcant positioning of young people in the agricultural labour force. Although the 2016 census data did not diferentiate young people in family farming and young people as farm workers, it did confrm the existence and contribution of young farmers in agriculture. However, the internal dynamics of this group have not been fully recognized in social discourse or scholarly research. Attention on young farmers was merely revived in recent years in the context of rapid agrarian transition. In 2012, ofcial government documents advocated "cultivating new vocational farmers" as a countermeasure for rural people's outfow of agriculture and the potential challenge of food security. Tere is no uniform defnition of "new vocational farmer," but many scholars have explored the ideal characteristics of this group. Some highlight that the new vocational farmer should difer from the traditional peasant with their access to and knowledge of modern technology and modern ideology. Others argue that new farmers are an outstanding part of the larger farmer/peasant population that can organize and mobilize the other as a model (Lu and Zhu 2006). Some anticipate that the cultivation of new farmers can halt the drain of agricultural successors, but also attract more people to the countryside to establish businesses (Shen et al. 2014). Te cultivation of this group involves systematic training, instruction, and fnancial support. Although standards for new vocational farmers and their cultivation vary between provinces, candidates and applicants should have farming experiences and meet criteria related to scales and sources of income (i.e., 80 per cent of household income from agriculture) as indicators of professional farmer. In reality, these requirements are untenable for young people who are starting out in agriculture and are often unqualifed in terms of certifcation and lack institutional support.

In 2015, in accordance with the government's national eforts to promote modern agriculture, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Afairs initiated a "Training Program for Modern Young Farmers" with a plan to involve 10,000 young farmers. In 2016, another 10,000 young farmers were included in the programme. Target groups included large holders in agriculture, operators of ofcially registered family farms, major organizers in agricultural co-ops, college students who returned to their rural hometown for business, high school graduates, and veterans. Participants needed to be under the age of 45. Te programme provided training in business operations, family farm management, e-business, quality control of agricultural products, and rural construction, among others. Each cohort received three years of part-time training.

In addition to the aforementioned programme for young farmers, the government has implemented several supporting programmes for young farmers in recent years, including the Green Certifcate Training Program, which ofers practical skills training in agricultural production and operation.

Along with the training programmes by central government on young farmers, the phenomenon of new farming people (*xin nong ren*) is emerging. Tere is no single defnition or uniformed characteristics of members of this group, but there are many expectations for those who have recently become involved in agriculture. Tose who argue it is a new phenomenon state that individuals who ft in this group: (1) are making agriculture their career, (2) are pursuing agriculture in new modes/ways of production when compared to traditional agriculture, and (3) constitute new actors in the countryside that did not previously exist (Wang 2014). When compared to young people who returned to their rural hometowns, *xin nong ren* comprise individuals who spontaneously left their urban existence and transitioned from urban to rural, white collar to farmer. Second, they have a higher level of education than traditional small-scale farmers and become involved in agricultural operation through ecological plantation. Te constitution process of *xin nong ren* is the process through which urban youth built a new way of life and new sense of belonging and identity (Li 2016). Some scholars from the Chinese Academy of Social Science summarize their composition as four sub-groups: (1) rural migrants who have a certain level of capital accumulation, have emotional attachment to land, and are determined to return to a rural setting; (2) young people who think agriculture could provide space for their talents and wish to start a career; (3) middle-aged individuals who have had a successful career and decide to engage in organic farming for their family; (4) social organizations or non-governmental organizations that are concerned with rural issues. A sample survey of *xin nong ren* shows similar demographic characteristics. Among the 155 respondents, more than 90 per cent were under age 40; 51.6 per cent were formerly white-collar workers before engaging in agriculture; about 22.6 per cent used to be researchers, teachers, media practitioners, or freelancers. *Xin nong ren* do not necessarily return to their rural hometown, and some relocate to a suburban area or another rural location. Although the concept of *xin nong ren* is still a topic of discussion among scholars, the phenomenon is now widely recognized. In February 2015, Aliresearch, the Alibaba group's research centre, issued the *Xin Nong Ren Research Report 2014*, which indicated that there were more than one million *xin nong ren* in China by 2015. Tis group is continuously growing and becoming vibrant actors in agriculture.

# **Conclusion**

Te issue of young farmers is gaining increasing political recognition, especially since the release of *Opinions of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee and the State Council on the Implementation of the Strategy for Rural Revitalization* in late 2017. As the most important comprehensive development strategy on agrarian issues in China, it aims to realize overall vitalization of the countryside by 2050 when the agriculture will be stronger and more promising, the countryside will be more pleasant for living, farmers will be afuent, and farming will be an attractive occupation. Te strategy's release immediately invoked extensive discussion among scholars, policymakers, and practitioners who began to research the pathways to realize rural revitalization and the diversifed practical innovations and experiences it includes.

It is in this context that young farmers, as the key players in this rural revitalization, have gained increased attention. Te key to rural revitalization lies in people, people who love the countryside and are committed to agricultural and rural development. On the other hand, a developed countryside and agriculture system should provide enough space for young farmers to realize their ambitions and support household reproduction. Unfortunately, due to the long-standing rural-urban imbalance and its impact on the country's development in addition to signifcant rural labour migration, young farmers have been under researched and await the social recognition that their role in China's economy deserves. Many studies have focused on their marriages, employment, and social adaption in cities as migrant labour while overlooking the dynamics and internal complexities that shape farming and agrarian transition. Tere remains a knowledge gap in terms of the diferences between young farmers in diferent regions, of diferent genders, their varying styles of farming, among others. Te diversifcation of young farmers and their role in agrarian transition is yet to be explored.

For a country like China with vast territory and prominent regional diferences, it is very difcult to provide a general picture of all young farmers in China. Rather, the following chapters are a way to present different stories of young farmers across the territorial scope. Te frst site is located in Sichuan province in China's southwest and the second is in the north of China, in Hebei province. Farmers at both sites specialize in vegetable production and smallholding family farming is the major unit of production. Our research shows that the young farmers we interviewed have diferent pathways into farming. Small plots, bad trafc conditions, and unstable agricultural revenues at the frst site, which is located in a mountainous area, have pushed many young people to migrate to urban areas in search of employment. When they returned to care duties in the village, they were to some extent trapped in a marginal situation due to the markets, bad agricultural infrastructure, and all of the other challenges faced by small-scale family farmers engaged in commodifcation. Teir story is repeated in many areas in the west of China. In contrast, young farmers at the second site live and work in an organized community, and on their return from the city, these young people are able to enter into farming more smoothly and consolidate their farming and livelihood. Trough these case studies and comparing the diferent pathways of young farmers into farming in diferent regions of China, the aim is to enrich and diversify our limited understanding of young farmers worldwide.

### **References**

<sup>———. 2016.</sup> *Te 2015 national land change survey results were released [2015niandu quanguo tudi biangeng diaocha jieguo fabu]*. http://www.gov.cn/ xinwen/2016-08/11/content\_5098857.htm.

———. 2017. *State Information Ofce held a policy briefng, Vice Minister of Agriculture Ye Zhenqin introduced the cultivation of new agricultural operating entities—accelerate the cultivation of new agricultural operating entities to promote the common development of small farmers [Guoxinban juxing zhengce chuifenghui, nongyebu fubuzhang yezhenqin jieshao xinxing nongye jingying zhuti peiyu youguan qingkuang—jiakuai peiyu xinxing nongye jingying zhuti, daidong xiaononghu gongtong fazhan]*. http://www.moa.gov.cn/xw/ zwdt/201712/t20171219\_6123309.htm.

———. 2022. *Agricultural import and export data*. http://zdscxx.moa.gov. cn:8080/nyb/pc/index.jsp.

———. 2021b. *Bulletin of the seventh National Census [Di qici quanguo renkou pucha gongbao]*. http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/tjgb/rkpcgb/qgrkpcgb/202106/ t20210628\_1818827.html.

———. 2021. *Area of land transfer [Tudi liuzhuan mianji]*. https://www.tuliu. com/data/nationalProgress.html.

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# **6**

# **Young Farmers' Diffculties and Adaptations in Agriculture: A Case Study from a Mountainous Town in Sichuan Province, Southwest China**

**Dong Liang and Lu Pan**

# **Introduction**

Te 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 signifcant advancements in China's modernization. Te government has introduced policies to enforce agricultural supply structural reforms and

D. Liang School of Philosophy and Social Development, Shandong University, Jinan, China e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
L. Pan (\*)

College of Humanities and Development Studies (COHD), China Agricultural University, Beijing, China e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
support rural areas and the agricultural sector. Terefore, 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. Tus, it is of farreaching practical signifcance to identify young farmers' difculties in market integration and organizing their production and explore young farmers' adaptations as they enter or return to farming.

Tis chapter is based on a survey and feld research in the summer of 2017 in Lin town, which is located in Sichuan province in Southwest China. Te town is located in the Zengjia Mountain as the map illustrates. Te town's agricultural specialization is cabbage, but the low proft earned from farming resulted in many young people migrating for employment. Young farmers are unusual in the village and much of the research team's time in the town was spent identifying interviewees. With the help of town ofcials and village committee cadres, the research team was able to interview 28 young farmers1 under the age of 45 in fve villages of Lin town. Residences are scattered across this mountainous area, and coupled with the rareness of young farmers, the research team had to rely on introductions from village leaders in locating interviewees. It engendered a potential risk of a biased sample in that young farmers who lived in remote areas or did not have a close relationship with village leaders may not have been contacted. Despite this reality of feldwork, the interviewees' stories refect the common situation and challenges of young farmers in the area (Map 6.1).

Among the 28 interviewees, the youngest was 19 years old while the oldest was 45 years old. Most of the farmers were over 30 years old. Te overall education level of the research subjects was not high: 19 of the interviewees fnished primary school (6 years of schooling), 6 fnished junior high school (9 years), only 1 fnished senior high school (12 years), and 2 didn't fnish primary school. In terms of gender ratio, 15

<sup>1</sup>All farmers' names and village names are pseudonyms in this chapter.

**Map 6.1** Study area. (Source: Ministry of Natural Resources Map Technical Review Center)

**Table 6.1** Basic information of interviewees

interviewees were male and 13 were female. Twenty-four were former labour migrants, many of whom had returned home in the past two years. Teir occupational experiences were quite varied: 21 interviewees worked in market-based vegetable cultivation; one served as a village director while tending his farmland in his spare time; two grew Chinese herbs that were used for traditional medicines; six of the returners were engaged in farm tourism; and one farmer was dedicated to livestock rearing—he had 60 horses and more than 30 sheep (Table 6.1).

Tis chapter divides young farmers into two categories: passive settlers and the young returnees, defned by their migration experience. Living in the countryside, these young farmers have diferent logics and actions when they confront common market risks and systematization difculties. Each adapts to the changing social environment and the relationship between urban and rural areas, acquiring resources and drawing on knowledge earned during their migration experiences. Tey draw on their close relations and social networks as they embark on a road of embedded innovation and entrepreneurship in the agricultural industry. Young farmers' adaptations have increased their incomes while helping them to cope with the issues of family separation and labour shortages in the sector. Teir involvement in agriculture and rural development has made important impacts on rural-urban integration.

## **Community Profle**

Lin is located in a mountainous area of northern Sichuan, lying at an altitude of over 1000 metres. Te town is 50 kilometres from the county seat and over 300 kilometres from the provincial capital of Chengdu. Lin is a typical mountainous agricultural town. Farmers make their living through the crop cultivation. Due to the cold climate and scattered farmland allocations in mountains that limit crop size, yield of grain plantation was low. Local farmers gradually found vegetables to be most suitable for cultivation, especially cabbage and hot peppers. In Lin town, there are also farmers who grow herbs and other plants used in Chinese herbal medicine, including *Gastrodia Elata*, horseradish, and schisandra, among others.  Vegetable cultivation began in the town in the early 1990s at the dawn of China's market economic reform. Farmers started small, growing vegetables on land that otherwise ofered low grain yields. Te quality of local vegetables is very good due to the bigger temperature diference in mountainous areas. In the 1990s, there was also considerable market demand for vegetables in the plains area of the county, and local farmers formulated a "grain-vegetable" plantation system as a stable livelihood activity. By the end of 2008, Lin town had developed a specialization in vegetable cultivation with the promotional support of its local government. Tree decades after the frst vegetable crops, farmers in the town are still focused on vegetable cultivation. Te planting area has expanded signifcantly, and it has become the backbone of the town's agricultural economy. Te mountainous terrain, however, means that the per capita land area is so small that farming alone cannot support rural families. Te dawn of market reform was also, for Lin town, the dawn of rural labour migration. Like villages and towns across rural China, a large number of rural labourers have left home over the years to work as wage labourers in urban areas. Tere are few labourers younger than age 45 who remain in the village. Te left-behind elderly have no choice but to devote themselves to vegetable cultivation as younger and more able family members are working in the city.

With the sluggish labour market in recent years, especially after the global fscal crisis in 2008, some migrants began to return home. At present, ofcials and farmers in Lin town are responding to the government's appeal for agricultural supply-side structural reform and are continuing to invest in the town's vegetable industry. In 2012, the local government proposed a new strategy of industrial integration—agrotourism. Local policies have a considerable impact on young migrants returning home. Some return to work the land and engage in market-oriented vegetable production, which comes with its own problems related to marketing and organizing production. At the same time, other young returnees have dedicated their time, energy, and experience to various agriculture-related industries, such as e-commerce and agro-products processing, and taken steps to alter the traditional peasant agriculture.

#### **Young Farmers' Pathways into Farming: Why Would They Stay or Return?**

In Lin town, but also across China's vast western countryside, the rural labour migration trend began in the 1990s. Te social mobility of the rural population, which was discussed in Chap. 5, must be taken into account as we try to better understand the relationship between agriculture, farmers, and rural development in the town. We identifed two key characteristics of young farmers in Lin town: their social mobility between the rural and the urban, keeping in mind that most of the young farmers are former labour migrants, and that this group is highly diversifed and diferentiated in their rural and farming activities. Tese two characteristics are related to the local natural environment, to commodifed vegetable production, and to the local government's current rural development policies. It is necessary to distinguish between farmers with experience as migrant workers and farmers who have remained in the village in order to understand better contemporary young farmers and the diferences in their rural lives and farming work. Although these two groups are living together in the villages, the mindset of returnees and those who have never migrated is not identical.

#### **Reasons for Staying**

In rural area, it is common that those who engage in agriculture, especially in traditional grain cultivation, live a hard life, due in part to scarce and fragmented farmland. As rural life has been gradually commodifed and monetized in the market economy, farmers face increasing pressure to meet their basic needs and earning money thus becomes the primary goal for them. In Lin town, there are very few farmers under the age of 45 engaging in agricultural production. Te town's cadres told researchers that they believe the fundamental reason for this lack of interest is that "agriculture is not attractive." Tey ofered two key reasons: First, it is difcult for young people to gain a sense of self-realization from working on land as farmers, and second, it is difcult to live a well-of life with earnings from agriculture. Tose who remain in the village often have no other option. Tey may not have enough physical strength to seek employment in the city or they may have to take care of the elders, children, or sick family members. Patriarchy and gender norms in some local areas prevent young women from leaving home. Tese young people who have never experienced migration are referred to as passive stayers or "left-behind" labourers.

#### **6 Young Farmers' Diffculties and Adaptations in Agriculture…**

Wang Yong from YL Village is 42 years old and has never migrated for work. In his production team,2 all of the young people under the age of 45 are former migrants. In the late 1990s when migration was in fashion in his village, he had to remain in the village to care for his parents. After their passing, he remained in the village to care for his own children. In taking care of these commitments, Wang missed the best time to migrate. As vegetable cultivation has steadily developed, there was also less incentive for Wang to leave. He could make a living by planting his 4 mu3 with vegetables and through his part-time job in a local park. In 2017 when we interviewed him, the vegetable market was sluggish. Wang wanted to work in the city, but it was difcult for him to get a job because he was no longer young and did not have any special skill.

In the countryside, strength is the main, if not the only, advantage that rural men have in labour market. Te period between age 20 and age 45 is the "golden age" for migrant workers. If they miss their chance to migrate for work when they are young, like in Wang's case, it becomes very difcult for them to fnd a job in urban area or they are limited to jobs with low pay and harsh working conditions. Remaining in rural areas like Lin town may have been an active choice for young people in the late 1990s or early 2000s when the price of vegetables was relatively stable and migrant workers' wages were relatively low. During this period, there was no great diference between income from agriculture and from wage work in the cities. Since 2013, along with the government's promotion of the vegetable industry and the increasing fuctuations in vegetable prices, more and more farmers are forced to seek alternative sources of income. Teir age, however, becomes a major obstacle for their migration since they are no longer "young" in terms of migrant labour.

For young women farmers, their options can be even more limited. In many cases, they are compelled to stay in countryside, weighed down by

<sup>2</sup>Production team is the basic organizational unit in administrative village for agricultural production and public afair management. It's an institutional legacy from agricultural collectivization period in the 1950s when residents of one village were divided into several production teams based on geographical adjacency to organize agricultural production collectively. Now production team is still the basic unit for villagers to organize many public afairs, such as irrigation, infrastructure construction and maintenance.

<sup>3</sup>mu is a Chinese measuring unit for farmland and 15 mu equals 1 hectare.

the gender labour division in family reproduction, family rationalism that seeks maximum material benefts, and cultural disciplines of villages and rural families (Liang and Wu 2017). Tis is especially true in western rural areas where society is relatively more conservative and traditional compared to the eastern part of China.

Guo Li from YL Village is 40 years old. Her family and her village have strong views about a woman's role in society. As a result, Guo was not aforded the opportunity to study, and since she fnished primary school, she has been working on the farm. When she was younger, women were not encouraged to leave the village for work. Rather, a young women's duty was to care for her parents and help them with vegetable cultivation. Guo is married with two sons, aged 19 and 12. After her marriage, any opportunity for migration was further thwarted as she needed to remain in the village to care for her children.

Gradually, the taboo that prevented young women from leaving home to fnd employment was broken and the number of young female migrants from Lin town grew. Here, as in villages and towns across China, the burden of care for children and the elderly remains a huge barrier for would-be young women migrants.

#### **Reasons for Returning**

Amidst urban-rural integrated modernization and with the benefts of supportive policies for public entrepreneurship and innovation, returning to the countryside for business has becomes a new phenomenon among rural youth, especially for migrants. Xia's (2017) research on returning youth entrepreneurs suggests that migrant workers' returning to their hometowns accelerates urban-rural integration as both physical resources and human resources have been syphoned from the countryside into urban areas for decades which led to enlarging gap between rural and urban. Liu et al.'s (2015) study indicates that young farmer elites are important forces in new forms of agricultural production and operation and play a central role in promoting agricultural production and leading innovation in the countryside. In contrast, some case studies also reveal that the return of young migrants is not an example of counter-urbanization, but rather a manifestation of the failure of urbanization or integration into urban life for rural migrants (Liu and Li 2017).

In Lin town, reasons for farmers to return to their home village and those of passive residents who stay in the village are similar in many ways. As explained earlier, child and elder care are the most common reasons that would-be migrants remain in the countryside. For returnees, though, there is a strong push-pull efect. Tese young people have been pushed out of the cities due to harsh labour work and stressful workplace expectations. At the same time, they fnd themselves being pulled back to their rural homes by the entrepreneurial climate in the countryside. Among the 24 interviewees who had experience of migration, 10 returned to care for family members, four because of the difculties of migrant life in the city, and six were attracted to return by rural development opportunities and entrepreneurship policies. We will focus on the latter two groups as their situations better refect the realities of this young generation.

#### *Meaningless Working Life and Lack of Dignity*

Young farmers who take up a variety of occupations in cities have little freedom to manage their own labour and sometimes even their own bodies. Unlike their parents' generation of migrants who endured difcult working conditions to earn the wages to sustain their families at home in the village, young migrants today are more aware of their social class position and more conscious of their autonomy beyond wage income. It is a sense of meaningless and deprivation as a commodifed labourer while working in cities that outweighs economic benefts of staying.

Zhao Jun is 26 and lives in MZ Village. He found employment in a factory in Hubei province, a province over 1000 kilometres away from his hometown after he fnished junior high school. He told us:

I was not accustomed to the urban life. Te fast pace of urban life gave me tremendous pressure. Although the salary in the city was high, working like a robot made me extremely depressed. After travelling to many diferent places as a migrant, I was increasingly bored with the work in the city and convinced that planting vegetables at home would also make money if the market was prosperous. I felt that farming freely and earning some income in my own hometown could also provide a sense of accomplishment for us young people.

In the spring of 2017, he returned to his hometown. He started cultivating vegetables on his 12-mu contracted land and made a trial of agroecology.

Wang Shaoyong from YL Village is the only interviewee with a high school education. After graduation, he worked in Chengdu, Beijing, and in other big cities, including Nanjing. It was during his time here that he had an experience that made him feel quite insecure about working stability and refect on the meaning of work.

One day it was raining and all workers could not work. My fellow workers were all taking a nap in the hallway when our boss suddenly came and saw them. He scolded us workers for our laziness and even sacked a man who had been working for him for six years. I was really shocked by that incident. It was not usual that a migrant worker works with one boss for such long time. If it was me, I wanted to be treated like a family or friend. However, we're still working labour for the boss no matter how hard we work.

Shaoyong's attitude changed after this incident, and he asserts that migrant workers have no dignity nor guarantees when they are in the city. He moved back to his home village shortly after this incident.

#### *Encouragement from Entrepreneurship*

With the improvement to and expansion of rural roadways and means of transport, rural people's ease of travel has increased and the urban-rural dual structure has loosened. Lin town's cool climate in the summer attracts many residents from neighbouring cities who spend their summer vacations in the area. Te combination of agriculture and tourism in Lin town has fourished since 2013. Tis boom was enhanced by governmental promotions and politices, and made even more attractive by agrotourism pioneers' healthy profts. It encouraged young farmers to return to set up their own small business in this sector.

#### **6 Young Farmers' Diffculties and Adaptations in Agriculture…**

Jing Taicheng of QJ Village is 44 years old. After he married, he was working on a building site in Beijing. "Standing on the particularly high scafold and looking down, it was the hustle and bustle of Beijing. And all these do not belong to me." Te high risk and low salary of his job gave rise to an increased willingness to return home. Te county had been expanding its place in the vegetable industry since 2008, and he decided to return to take up vegetable cultivation. As mentioned earlier, agrotourism began to take hold in 2013. In response, Jing renovated his wooden house and cleaned up eight rooms in which guests could stay. In 2014, thanks to the rural development programme by local government, the outer walls of villagers' houses have been painted and the road has been re-laid, which made the environment more attractive for tourists. "I will never go out to work anymore," Jing said.

Te demands of family reproduction, the stresses of urban life, and the appeal of entrepreneurship are the main reasons that young farmers in Lin town ofered for their return to the countryside. Regardless of the primary reason, there are always multiple factors at play and most often they involve family. One interviewee told us: "I have elderly and children in the family, and I can come back to grow vegetables." Another said: "I have made money by working outside. Now I'm satisfed to go home to open a guesthouse and stay with my wife and children." Te familyoriented ideology of rural society is a key factor in the comprehensive motivations of young farmers to return home.

#### **Young Farmers' Diffculties in Farming**

After the 2008 global fscal crisis, a large number of migrant workers in Lin town returned to their hometowns. At that time, the government and the county were promoting the industrialization of vegetable cultivation. Farmers who abandoned grain production to plant vegetable could receive a subsidy of 100 CNY4 per mu for vegetable cultivation in the frst year of cultivation in addition to the general agricultural subsidy of 90 CNY per mu. Te vegetable industry in Lin town also engaged in

<sup>4</sup> 1 CNY equals about 0.15 USD at the time of writing.

sustainable development activities, and the planting area continued to expand. Most farmers in Lin town dedicated the vast majority of their production to vegetables by 2014. At the same time, the county's agricultural bureau and the Lin town government proposed to construct a largescale vegetable plantation as an enterprise operation. Te government also established a cooperative called Shuguang as part of a modern agriculture project. Between 2008 and 2014, farmers who grew cabbages, hot peppers, and other high-yield vegetables could earn an equivalent income to migrant workers in urban areas. Moreover, the agricultural tax had just been abolished, and the nation was paying it back to farmers in the form of various agricultural subsidies. Te agricultural industrial development in Lin town has become one of the driving forces to attract young people to return, which came at a time when the migrant worker market was performing sluggishly. Twenty-one of the 31 young farmers that we interviewed are engaged in vegetable cultivation, while 6 operate rural tourism enterprises and grow vegetables for family consumption. As vegetable production grew after 2014, the town's old and small market space could not accommodate the local farmers' large-scale and centralized vegetable supply. Tese young farmers were victims of their own success, trapped by old infrastructure and thwarted by poor market integration.

### **Difculties in Market**

#### *Structural Risks of the Market: Planting Is Like Gambling*

Some scholars suggest that agricultural developments and improvement of farmers' income can only be realized through intimate involvement in the market (Gao 2003; Zhao 2005). Te market mechanism seems to provide farmers with the opportunity to live a prosperous life, but in fact it is impairing farmers' control over their labour. Te connection between farmers' labour input and their gain is weakened (Ye 2012). Te structural risk for young farmers who engage in highly commoditized and market-oriented agriculture is the increasingly fragile relationship between labour and the harvest. Peasants have their own words for this predicament: "the result of vegetable cultivation depends on your luck," "growing vegetables is a kind of gambling," and "the lucky make money while the unlucky lose money." Of the 31 young farmers that we interviewed, an overwhelming majority (28) agreed that the main issue in agricultural production was the fuctuating market prices. Farmers are unable to enhance profts by raising yield or reducing costs, and the market structure restricts farmers' independence and initiatives. Tey can no longer obtain the corresponding income by controlling their own labour input or their contribution to means of production. Teir income, instead, depends on others' production situation in other locales. Nevertheless, there are not enough non-agricultural channels to support one's family in the underdeveloped western countryside, so farmers have little choice but to stay in farming.

Peng Xing from MZ Village is 42 years old. In around 2013, he planted 10 mu of hot peppers and cabbage. In the past, only a few farmers cultivated these vegetables and Peng's profts refected this scarcity. Te price of vegetables has declined fercely since 2016. He has heard that farmers in other locales, including Liangshan in Sichuan province and Dingxi in Gansu province, have begun large-scale alpine vegetable production, which means he has to compete with farmers thousands of kilometres away for a better price:

Now more and more farmers are growing vegetables and the market becomes very competitive. Only when they (farmers elsewhere) are afected by natural disasters, our vegetables can be sold at a good price. Farming is too toilsome. We lose money in the sluggish market and break even in the prosperous market. We could only earn money for our labour expense. To be a farmer is not easy and interesting.

Peng's two brothers and sister have converted their farmland into woodland. "We planted for food and clothing in the past. We know nothing about the market. Tus, we were satisfed with grain plantation even if it only had very few yields. Now it's not the same. We need more cash income to live and feel that our input in farming should bring us more return."

Yan Wenguang from MZ Village planted 20 mu of cabbage, of which 10 mu was from neighbours who were working in the city. Yan was asked by his neighbours to take care of the land for them for free, and he would need to return the land to his neighbours' use once they returned.

Growing vegetables is a kind of gambling. Te lucky ones make money while the unlucky ones lose money. Tat's it. In the year before the last, the cabbage price was only 16 cents per kilo. I planted 10 mu of cabbages with the yield about 100,000 catty.5 I sold nothing. All the cabbages were rotten in the ground. I even could not cover the cost of hiring labour to harvest the vegetables. Some people came to buy but the price was extremely low. At that price, the more vegetables I sold, the more money I lost. I could not understand why the price was so low. However, my children are studying at school and we need a large amount of money. Whether I'm the lucky one or not, I have to farm.

### *Lack of Risk Avoidance: Te Marginalization of Farmers*

Te market is essential for highly industrialized vegetable production and structural risks are inevitable. If there are no mechanisms for market service or risk mitigation in production and marketing, the risks will be prominent in agricultural production and in young farmers' daily lives. In Lin town, crop insurance does not cover the loss when farmers encounter marketing problems as it applies only for losses caused by natural disaster. Almost every household in Lin town purchased crop insurance annually as required by local government. When the price that farmers receive for their vegetables declined in 2015, the insurance company refused to pay out any of the farmers' claims because of its terms.

Zhao Hongju from YL Village is 40 years old and planted 7 mu of cabbages in 2017. She also purchased crop insurance. Last year, she lost money due to the bad market price but received no compensation from the insurance company. She visited the company's ofce to follow up on her request, but the staf just made excuses and she left empty-handed. "When I bought the insurance, the (county) government gave us

<sup>5</sup>Catty is a Chinese measuring unit for weight and 1 catty equals 0.5 kilo.

guarantees, promising that the company would pay if we had a bad season. With the (county) government as endorser, we could not refuse to buy. Otherwise it will ofend the government."

#### *Te Last Obstacle to the Market: Lack of Bargaining Power*

Despite the great infrastructure improvements in Lin town in recent years, there are still some villages that remain relatively inaccessible. Te unfavourable trafc conditions in mountainous area greatly weaken farmers' bargaining power because they don't have vehicles to deliver their products to the market. Tese dual disadvantages of geographic location and trafc conditions are further obstacles in farmers' last mile to the market. Tus, these farmers can only passively accept the low prices that external brokers and middlemen ofer without feeling that they have the ability to bargain. Te brokers that control the market have formed a decentralized power that controls vegetable prices.

Li from QL Village is 31 years old and planted nearly 9 mu of vegetables. He perpetually worries about how his vegetables will sell. Te village has not built roads to the locations where his production team and the other two production teams are located—there are only dirt paths. "On rainy days, the paths are muddy and cars can't move. Take my production team for instance. We have fertile land but no good roads. We can only sell vegetables when external dealers drive in. Tese dealers purchase at the price of 40 cents per kilo and resell at the price of 1 yuan (100 cents). We lost much profts in this circulation process."

#### **Lack of Organization**

#### *Difculties with Cooperative Organizations*

Joining or forming a cooperative is a common way in which farmers can reduce their market risks. Cooperatives are generally considered to reduce costs and strengthen farmers' bargaining power in the processes of production and marketing. Cooperatives are also facing the organizational dilemma of having alienated the people they were organized to serve. Tey remain an efective tool for urban and commercial capital and a small number of rural elites to appropriate profts from smallholders (Feng 2014). Te risks of the infnite market have also forced some large holdings into failure, bankruptcy, or even run away from the countryside. In Lin town, the Shuguang cooperative does not function as expected and it has many practical difculties. First, for small-scale farmers, some cooperatives have become a market subject independent to or overriding the member farmers from who it extracts profts. Te large holders of land and rural elites are often the benefciaries of co-ops (Feng 2014). Ironically, the local government continues to support such agricultural organizations since supporting agricultural businesses and cooperatives is the policy orientation by the central government.

Peng in MZ Village told us that "the Shuguang cooperative has no entry barriers. You can buy production inputs such as seeds and fertilizers from the co-op with a preferential price as long as you plant and pay the annual fee to the co-op. It is 100 yuan per year." For Peng, it is like applying for a membership card. He said that the cooperative might raise the price of materials when it resells to farmers. "Te more products you buy, the more discounts you receive. It sounds like promotion. Joining in co-op doesn't really beneft farmer."

Consequently, cooperative organizations do not reduce farmers' costs signifcantly in the production process. In terms of selling one's product, the co-op did not function as it should. It could do nothing when the market for vegetables was depressed. One farmer told us: "In the frst half of this year, the price of lettuce was only two cents per kilo. Te co-op could only accept the price ofered by external middlemen. It got a high fee from the dealers. As a result, they have no willingness and abilities to bargain with dealers." Aside from prioritizing their own interests, co-op ofcials also confessed that they were unable to change the farmgate price of vegetables if the market price in general was not favourable. Te almost total lack of an organized cooperation mechanism allowed other agents in the market to squeeze farmers.

#### *Difculties in Service Organization*

Young farmers who engage in agriculture are short of agricultural services such as agricultural technique service and fnancial service. Since Lin town farmers began to cultivate vegetables in the early 1990s, they have expanded the scale of production but without consideration for the necessity of crop rotation. Farmers are swayed by the agricultural capitalization path of improved varieties of seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. Te consequences can be disastrous. Te soil accumulates a large amount of bacteria and vegetables become vulnerable to disease. If you plant cruciferous vegetables, clubroot may appear. In 2017, the disease appeared on one-third of the farms in Lin town. Under such circumstances, it is essential to have access to agricultural technology services and relevant training that can prevent or treat such diseases. Young farmers are generally aware of the difculties in obtaining agricultural technology services; the government focuses these resources on large households and enterprises rather than protecting smallholder farmers who rely on agriculture for their livelihood. After marketization, the services that had been available in the villages and the town collapsed. Individual peasants' agricultural knowledge is insufcient in a climate where imported seeds and various fertilizers and pesticides are dominant.

Peng from MZ Village told us:

Policies now support those who do nothing rather than who farm. For example, many companies for land circulation get compensation from the government. Te ordinary people get nothing … Te government spent more than 700 million yuan to prepare for the cooperative a large cold storage, which can accommodate more than 100 tons of vegetables. When the market is not good, cooperatives can collect vegetables at a low price, storing them in it. And they sell them out when the price rises again. What do the farmers gain?

Te young farmer Li from QL Village planted more than 300 walnut seedlings last year and more than 100 died. "Nobody taught you. And I don't know who I can go to ask for help. Te walnut seedlings got leaf curl virus. I sprayed pesticides, but there were still more than 100 seedlings dying."

Zhao Xin, a 19-year-old from MZ village, took a chance and planted schisandra, a herb used in Chinese medicine. Zhao had trouble locating the seedlings and his search took him online. "Baidu is the most commonly used channel. Internet is not always a helpful assistant. I bought fake seeds online and it cost more than 3000 yuan." Zhao learned this hard lesson from his own failure. His aim was to encourage villages to join him in starting a Schisandra Park, but this ambition conficted with the plans of the village committee and the town government. Te town supports vegetable cooperatives in the village because nine village cadres are shareholders, and they did not want to develop other industries outside of vegetable cultivation. As a result, the village committee compelled other farmers not to cooperate with Zhao.

With the deepening of the market economy, local governments have been gradually withdrawing from the supply of public services in agriculture such as agricultural machinery services and marketing service shifts from collectivization to levitation. Farmers with their own ideas and interests want to develop these independently. However, the individualization of peasants is also preventing them from self-organizing. Despite the changing environment, farmers retain their expectations of the local government to take a lead in service delivery. Most of the interviewees told us that they feel a strong sense of powerlessness when dealing with the ever-present market risks. Teir view is that individuals alone cannot fght this struggle and believe that the government should take responsibility for organizing farmers and providing social services in agriculture.

#### **Young Farmers' Innovations in Sustaining Rural Livelihoods**

Confronting the structural risks of agriculture and the dilemma of organizing production, it is difcult for most young farmers to shift away from traditional agricultural production and management. Te rural social stratifcation in the countryside is also an obstacle for young people in their eforts to access diverse resources such as information and fnance. In this context, some young returnees have been able to combine their non-farming and migration experiences to innovate in agricultural production in an efort to modernize and sustain their livelihoods.

#### **Broadening Agriculture-Based Multiple Job Holdings**

Local development policies oriented towards industry integration provide an important base and environment for young farmers to innovate. Te industrial integration in Lin town is focused on merging agriculture with tourism. Tere are two advantages for such industrial integration in Lin town: beautiful landscape in Lin town and the local government's eforts to push a "combination of agriculture and tourism" against a backdrop of agricultural supply-side reform. Te unique climate and natural landscape made the Zengjia Mountains in which Lin town is located one of the top ten summer destinations in China. Every year, about 50,000 tourists escape their urban homes to spend their summer vacation in the area; the most popular period is June to September. Tese visitors pay to stay with locals in their homes. Some villagers saw this as an opportunity and renovated their homes as guesthouses. To stimulate farmers' enthusiasm for engaging in agrotourism and to accelerate the tourism economy, in 2012, the government advertised tourism in Lin town through its ofcial social media account and built samples of guesthouses for farmers to follow and imitate. Guesthouses operated by farmers gradually developed in this context, with the numbers increasing from 1 guesthouse in 2012 to 102 by the summer of 2017. Most of the newly married young farmers renovated their new houses that were gifted by their parents to include neat and comfortable rooms for urban guests.

Te opening of tourism in the area also aforded young farmers the chance to adjust their agricultural production. Some young farmers deepened their "grain and vegetable" cultivation to the mode of "grain+vegetable+service." Vegetables, grains, meat, and eggs are all local food to serve tourists. Vegetables that are often worthless in the market can make good returns when they are provided to guests as "rural food." Guests pay for the meals cooked by farmers and sometimes buy fresh vegetables when they leave. Tis is not limited to cabbage—tourists are keen on all garden vegetables and grains produced locally. Tis interest has increased the value added of agro-products for these households and lessened part of their burden in terms of vegetable sales. Other young farmers have broadened their operations since 2016. When food safety became one of Chinese society's central concerns, urban residents increasingly welcomed locally produced, quality food from the countryside. Te entrepreneurial activities of Zhao Jun, a 26-year-old from YL Village, is a typical example.

Zhao only attended seven days of senior middle school before he had to abandon his studies and join the workforce. He relocated to Qingdao city in Shandong province where he trained as an apprentice, learning vehicle repair and cooking. He also ran a fast-food restaurant with his brother in Linyi county, Shandong province. After returning home fve years ago, he took a contract position as a salesman with a telecom company. Later, he registered a small company with his brother and together they engaged in business outsourcing for the telecom company. After working outside of the village for many years, Zhao was obsessed with making money and he had become profcient at seizing money-making opportunities. After this telecom outsourcing business encountered bottlenecks, Zhao took advantage of the new tourism market and returned to his home village. He invested all of his and his parents' savings to construct and decorate the family home as a guesthouse. Baiyun Guesthouse can accommodate more than 50 people at a time. Tourists arrive daily and the fee for accommodation and three meals per day is CNY 80–100 per person.

Zhao's parents planted 5 mu of land in 2017 and raised more than 100 chickens and two pigs. Even before the guesthouse opened, Zhao had over 100 followers and friends on WeChat. He took advantage of this situation and began to advertise the sale of free-range chickens and local pork via social media. During Spring Festival in 2016, he took pre-orders and then collected 12 pigs from around the village to fulfl these orders from friends around the country. Te price was CNY 20 per catty, which was higher than the families would receive if they sold the meat at the local market in Lin town. Tis successful experience of selling agroproducts via the internet gave Zhao a boost of confdence.

#### **Young Farmers' Embedded Entrepreneurship and Its Socioeconomic Impacts**

One characteristic of farmers' grassroots entrepreneurship is embeddability, which comprises three aspects. First, young farmers depend on local natural resources and their families' social capital, the latter of which is a distinctive feature of rural entrepreneurship. In Lin town, for example, the local climate, terrain, and environment directly determine the direction and progress of entrepreneurship. Family assets, such as houses and land, also play an important role. Te pioneering actions of young farmers are deeply embedded in the rural society. Second, farmers' entrepreneurial actions depend upon family support and family farming. Zhao's successful agro-product enterprise would not have been possible without his parents' farm or their family home. Farmland maintained by parents and unpaid family labour support all contribute to young farmers' livelihood innovations. Tirdly, the entrepreneurial actions of young farmers are deeply embedded in the "acquaintance society," which refers to a reliance on interpersonal relationships. In Zhao's case, he accumulated abundant social capital during his time working away from home; he developed a market in acquaintances, both friends and former customers. Most of the visitors to his family's guesthouse are referred by Zhao's friends.

Embedded entrepreneurship is most prevalent among young farmers who have recent migration experience. With their monetary savings, social networks, and new skills accumulated during migration together with their family's agricultural foundations in the village, young entrepreneurs are able to deepen and broaden small-scale family farming in order to sustain their livelihoods and those of their families. On the micro level, the primary change is the increase in farmers' incomes, which in turn encourages more young people to return home. Tis reverse migration has also reinvigorated the countryside, slowly remedying the problem of the "left-behind" family members as well as starting to fll the gaps in the agricultural labour force. Virtually all of the operators are young people. Te local government has applied strict standards to regulate food safety and service quality to protect the tourism industry, and young people have more easily adapted to this new environment than the older generation.

Tirty-eight-year-old Yang cultivates 2 mu of vegetables, but it is not enough to support her family. She and her husband left the village for three years to fnd employment. Teir youngest son, who was 12 years old at the time, was a left-behind child who remained at home to attend school. When the market for migrant workers declined, Yang and her husband followed the tourists back to their home village. Tey have registered a guesthouse business licence with the county's Industry and Commerce Bureau and are renovating their house. Yang was very happy to return. "Now I can take care of my son. He's no longer a left-behind child. He's going to enter into junior middle school. Our staying will make him more concentrated in study. All our family can stay together."

Moreover, their entrepreneurship has positive impacts on regional rural development. It refects the re-grounding of agriculture in an agroecological sense. Tese young farmers have managed to establish themselves in a new market—catering to urbanites' desire for healthy agricultural products. Te farmers began to consciously reduce their use of fertilizers and pesticides, adopting the concept of ecological farming as much as possible. Tis important conversion is also one step towards solving the aforementioned soil bacteria problems that accompanies extended monocropping. Teir entrepreneurship also facilitates urbanrural integration. As the migrant workers return to their home villages and more and more urban residents visit the countryside, the relationship between rural and urban is morphing into one that is increasingly organic. Rational communication and human interaction start and accelerate the process of urban-rural integration.

# **Conclusion**

Among the fruitful studies in Chinese academia on agrarian transition and farmers' dynamics, perspectives of young farmers and their experiences are mostly overlooked. Although some researchers have paid attention to young farmers and examined the youth perspective, their focus was on elite or special groups, such as elite young peasants in Liu (2017), landless farmers in Xu's study (2008), and young farmers related with gang in Deng's (2011) study. With regard to young farmers' entrepreneurship, existing research concentrates on young farmers' economic foundations earned from non-farming activities rather than their agricultural activities.

In this context, this chapter explored the characteristics of young farmers engaged in agriculture from a more general perspective. Trough indepth interviews with 31 young farmers engaged in industrialized vegetable cultivation in western China, this study found that there are signifcant diferences in mindsets of passive young farmers and of returning migrants. Tey should be distinguished in researchers' studies and the process of policymaking. However, when they stay together in the countryside and live by agriculture, both groups of young farmers need to confront the market's structural risks and predicaments of organizing production. Tese have negatively impacted the livelihoods and development of young farmers. With the advancement of urban-rural integration and the changes in rural society, young farmers, especially those with migration experiences, have begun to actively utilize environmental advantages and entrepreneurial resources to innovate in agricultural production and management. Tis is a breakthrough against the aforementioned risks and predicaments. Young farmers' entrepreneurship has an apparent embeddability. It provides them with a relatively stable market, minimizing risks for young farmers in the early stages of their venture. Most young farmers who return home do not expect riches but do for livelihood reasons. Teir adaptation has generated obvious economic and social impacts, providing substantive ideas for improving farming, young farmers' situations, the agricultural sector, and the problems that plague rural areas.

#### **References**

hezuoshe zhidu yihua de xiangtu luoji: yi "hezuoshe baozhuang xiaxiang ziben" wei li]. *China Rural Survey [Zhongguo nongcun guancha]* 2: 2–8.

**Open Access** Tis chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made.

Te images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

# **7**

# **Young Farmers in a "Cucumber Village": A Different Story of Family Farming in Agricultural Specialization from Hebei Province**

**Lu Pan**

# **Introduction**

Tis village came to our attention by accident. Given the rural labour migration situation in China, especially in the mid-west, it was difcult to fnd a village with many young farmers. We came across this village, which is well-known in its adjacent areas for its specialization in cucumber cultivation and marketing. When reviewing the site's agricultural development, the groups of young farmers gradually came to stand out. Huang village, which is a pseudonym, is located in Hebei province, about 430 kilometres south to Beijing and 10 kilometres from the county seat. Te research team conducted feldwork in the village in December 2017. We lodged in rural households during our feldwork. We used both

L. Pan (\*)

College of Humanities and Development Studies (COHD), China Agricultural University, Beijing, China e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
qualitative data, conducting semi-structured interviews as well as quantitative data collected via a survey. We also engaged in supplementary work in June 2018.

We sampled young farmers1 using a combination of purposive and snowball sampling methods. Our household host provided the names of our frst few interviewees and we were able to expand the sample through introductions by our interviewees. Most interviews were completed in greenhouses where cucumber farmers spend their days. We conducted the interviews while working with the farmers to gain an intimate experience of their daily lives and the hard labour required to keep the farm operating. We also interviewed village leaders, market managers, village technicians, shopkeepers of agro-inputs, and other key informants. Among the 48 interviewees under 45 years old, 27 were male and 21 were female. Most of them (39 interviewees) have only 9 years of schooling and only 7 fnished 12 years of schooling. Te average age of interviewees was 35.8 years old. Half of them were under the age of 35. Most of them started farming independently in the area in their twenties. Tey are indeed quite young compared to the general demographic situation of agricultural labourers in China. Tis chapter will reveal the atypical story of the village and its young farmers.

### **Community Profle of the "Cucumber Village"**

Huang is a small village with a total population of 1109. Among its 267 households, about 96 per cent are involved in cucumber production. Te total farmland area in the village is 1246 mu2 (about 83 ha), among which the 800 cucumber greenhouses occupy over 1100 mu, leaving the few remaining mu as farmland for corn and grain crops. Cucumber production has brought considerable profts to rural households. In 2016, the daily average trading volume of cucumbers was over 40,000 tons with an annual turnover of CNY3 400 million. Te average per capita income

<sup>1</sup>All farmers' names are pseudonyms in this chapter.

<sup>2</sup> 15mu equals 1 hectare.

<sup>3</sup> 1 CNY equals about 0.15 USD at the time of writing

in Huang village during the time of our interviews was about CNY 30,000. In 2018, the national average per capita income was CNY 39,251 for urban residents and CNY 14,617 for rural residents.

It took over 30 years for the village to develop its specialization in cucumber cultivation. Household responsibility land reform took place in 1984 in the village. Due to rapid population growth and limited farmland, land allocated to each villager was no more than 1 mu. With such a tiny plot of farmland, villagers continued to live in general poverty. Village leaders encouraged people to switch to cash crops in order to increase their incomes. Tey tried apples and apricots, among other crops, before they homed in on cucumbers. Te village's climate and environment is suitable for growing and the high demand of labour input required also matched well with the person-land ratio. In order to encourage villagers to plant cucumbers, village cadres and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members took the lead to construct the frst batch of 46 greenhouses in 1988. Tis frst generation were small and simple structures constructed with bamboo and timber with 0.6–0.8 mu of foor space. Cucumber production in the late 1980s rapidly increased producers' incomes. Tere was a saying in the village at that time that "one greenhouse and one small feld, 300 yuan one year yield." During the 1990s and early 2000s, the number of cucumber greenhouses increased from 40 to over 300 and, on average, each household kept one greenhouse. Although cucumbers generated higher profts than grain, due to the high labour demands and the low level of mechanization (it took an hour to manually roll up the greenhouse shutters), most households could only plant one greenhouse. Te annual income generated from one greenhouse in 2007 was about CNY 20,000.

In 2007, cucumber production in Huang village encountered its frst bottleneck. Te price of cucumbers had declined and the greenhouse could not sustain the same number of labourers. Many young people gave up farming and travelled to the cities to work as migrant labourers. One retired village cadre recalled that "cucumber production of our village was in danger that time and it's possible that cucumber production would fail after almost 20 years' eforts." Te newly elected village leader during that period actively sought solutions to this crisis. In 2009, Huang villagers received a technological boost with the introduction of greenhouse rollers in the county. Tis piece of machinery dramatically reduced shutter rolling time from an hour to a few minutes, increased illumination time in the greenhouse, and relieved a portion of farmers' labour burden. It was such a signifcant change that it allowed farmers to increase cultivation. In 2012, the village committee applied for support from the county government's agricultural poverty alleviation and development fund for agricultural transition. Te village planned two large vegetable plantations and applied for a subsidy for 50 additional greenhouses. Tanks to generous subsidies and an upgrade to steel frame greenhouses, there were over 100 households submitting applications to the village committee in the frst year alone. In 2017, to encourage increased production, the village committee applied for more funding from the county government to subsidize steel costs for newly built greenhouses. Te village leader also applied for CNY 2 million loan from the Rural Credit Cooperative to help villagers develop cucumber production. All of the above economic and technical support has motivated villagers to sustain cucumber production. Since 2013, more and more villagers have returned from the city to resume an agricultural livelihood. Prior to 2018, there were only about 30 young people working outside of the village as migrant workers. Most of the villagers are smallholder farmers with 1 or 2 greenhouses, several big land holders have more than 10 greenhouses, but the average is around 4 greenhouses.

### **Becoming a Young Farmer**

When compared to tens of thousands of villages in China, Huang village is unique due to the number of young farmers in one village. In the context of a hollowed-out countryside, Huang villagers can make a moderate income and be prosperous in their agriculture endeavours in their home village by virtue of their own labour, supportive policies, and favourable market conditions. Teir farming experiences refect the characteristics of young people in rural society.

#### **Entering into Farming: Gender Diferentiated Self-Choices**

Te traditional way of entering into farming in rural China can be called "natural employment" that there was no occupational qualifcation requirement for age, educational level, and so forth to be a farmer. Farming skills were usually passed to ofspring from the older generation without formal training. Young people automatically became farmers once they worked on the land. Tere was no retirement system accordingly for farmers. Te young generation becomes accustomed to farming from a very young age and is then able to take over the farm when they are older. For young farmers in Huang village, taking up farming is not natural employment. It is not completely strange to them, nor are they familiar with it. Most young farmers have certain childhood experiences from when they helped their parents with farm work. Most of them moved to the city when they fnished junior middle school and have accumulated rich migration experiences. Tey were a part of the so-called new generation of migrant workers and their involvement in farming is not a natural process.

For 32-year-old Likai, her frst experience with farming was at age 10 when she helped her parents with weeding. She is the family's eldest daughter and had to help her parents with farm work even if she was reluctant. She migrated for work at age 15 and her frst job was packaging preserved ducks in a food factory in Baoding city, Hebei province. Two years later, she moved to a spinning factory in Shouguang city in Shandong province and then to a food processing factory where she worked for several years. She returned to the village at age 22 to marry and stayed. It is very common for young women like her to remain at home after marriage.

Wang Tao, 27 years old, only has a primary school education. She did not have the opportunity to attend middle school due to her family's poor economic circumstances and her parents' rejection of her education. She frst worked in an ice cream factory in Tianjin municipality near Beijing and then at a clothing factory in Yantai city in Shandong province; her friends helped her to fnd and secure the latter job.

Tirty-year-old Hu Ting had a very similar experience to Wang Tao. Ting also migrated for work after primary school. She worked in a restaurant in Handan city in Hebei province for years before her marriage. Although she is a farmer now, she told us that her migration experience had a very important infuence on her farming career. "We interacted with many diferent people and experienced many diferent things, and have become more outward. It is also a very useful experience when we deal with other people as a farmer."

Young women farmers in Huang village are usually the returned migrants. In accordance with village conventions and parents-in-law's willingness, they quit migration post-marriage and stay in the village of their husbands to take care of children. Young women do not have contract land in the village of their husbands and sometimes assist their parents-in-law with farming responsibilities. While young women stay in the village for family care, their husbands often continue working in cities. Tis situation and these women's experiences refect the infuence of traditional gender norms on rural women's occupational development. In contrast, the reasons for young men's return are more diversifed and proactive. Family is only a minor element in their reasoning as most returned to the village to pursue farming as a result of the push-pull efect in ruralurban society, that is, being pushed away by the marginalized migrating experience in the city and pulled back home by the prospect of cucumber production in the village.

Wang Zhichao, age 38, was a migrant worker many years ago. In 2001, he worked in a machinery store in Handan city in Hebei province where he sold combines for grain harvesting. His salary was around CNY 500 per month and this work only lasted for six months. Wang is a National Basketball Association (NBA) fan, and during the fnals one year, he left work to watch the game without asking his boss' permission. When he returned to the job site, his boss scolded him and said that he would dock his salary for half a month. Wang was very angry and could not abide by such humiliation. He decided to return home to farm.

Now I've been farming for over 10 years. I will not change my job, it's very difcult. For young people in our village, we don't have special skills nor a high level of education. We can only do hard labour worker in the city and earn 3000 to 4000 yuan a month. Planting cucumbers at home is also very hard work but we can enjoy the freedom and don't need to be disciplined. One summer a few years ago, I went to a construction site for short-term work when my greenhouse fallowed. It was burning hot at noon in August, but we still need to work in the sun. It's very impressive for me. Cucumber production requires intensive work, but I can be my own boss and have a bit higher income than migration. It's more comfortable than migrant work.

When we met him, Wang was planting three cucumber greenhouses. He had various migrant labour experiences on construction sites, in the oil feld, and in diferent factories, among others. He lasted only one or two months at any one job. "No skills or knowledge, it's difcult for us to settle down in the city." Wang returned to the village to plant cucumbers after careful thought and consideration. He had three key reasons for doing so: one, an income earned from agriculture in the village is better than he could earn via migration; second, he can live with his family; and third, after decades of development, cucumber production has stabilized in the village.

Te return of young men to the village is the driving force for family farming and agrarian transition. Tis reverse migration is also a key factor in reshaping young women into vocational farmers as the joint work of couples has organizational advantages that ft well with the intensive labour demands of cucumber production. Tis is not to deny the possibility of independent young women farmers. Tere are some left-behind women who farm successfully when their husbands are working in the city. General agrarian transition in the village provides favourable conditions for farming. However, in spite of women and men's difering reasons for entering into farming, it is the joint commitment of young couples to farming that enhances the foundations of family farming and further brings about agrarian dynamics in Huang village.

**189**

#### **Household Split: Establishment of New Farming Households for Young People**

Te return of young men has accelerated household split, which occurs at the same time as the reproduction of a new farming unit. In rural society, household split indicates, on one hand, the birth of an independent son's family and, on the other hand, the distribution of household wealth and means of livelihood among sons to allow for the reproduction of each son's household. In traditional agricultural society, the means of production in agriculture were under the full control of the father, with the son obtaining his share of means of production via a household split. Along with social transformation, the one-of mode of household split prevails in rural society instead of the multiple mode of household split. Te timing of household split has also shifted to earlier in a son's life. Usually a son would split with his parents immediately after his wedding. In regions that generally produce low agricultural revenues, household split has more social and cultural implications than economic purpose. Low agricultural revenues provoke young people's migration, and regardless of any household split, it is usually the elderly who remain in the village to run the farm, hence the phenomenon of "grey agriculture." In Huang village where agricultural production is more proftable, the household split has equal cultural and economic signifcance for young people. Young couples become an independent farming unit after a household split and need to plan and organize agricultural production by themselves. Very often they can only get a few means of production from their parents. Some young farmers are unlucky and do not acquire any land from a household split.4

Te number of greenhouses in Table 7.1 for the 13 cases is from one greenhouse to nine greenhouses. Some young farmers can inherit one or two greenhouses through household split or build the greenhouses with

<sup>4</sup>Te average family size in Huang village was 4.15 in the time of investigation. According to the seventh National Census in 2020, the national average family size is 2.62, dropping from 3.1 in 2010 and showing the tendency of miniaturization. In Huang village, as in many rural regions of China, couples in their 30s and 40s usually have two children. If the frst-born was a daughter, they were allowed to have a second one in the time of birth control policy. Te nuclear family with two children is common in rural area. Married adult son may split with parents in householding but still live in one single yard.

**Table 7.1** Farming scale in some households of young farmers

parental assistance. For others, they must secure a greenhouse through their own eforts. Inherited greenhouses are usually constructed in the old style—smaller buildings with bamboo frames. In all cases, young people have managed to expand their scale of production due to their hard work; some even grew to be large holders in the village. In our research, we found that the average household land area for a young farmer is 2.76 mu. For the 21 young farmers who received land as part of a household split, the average area of inherited land is 1.09 mu. Tis land, however, may be too small and scattered to be able to construct a greenhouse. In such situations, the young farmers have to rent land. It is important to note that the intergenerational transmission of land and greenhouses constitutes a necessary foundation for young people to launch their own farming careers. However, what is more central is their labour and accumulation and acquirement of community resources.

Wang Weichun and his wife operate fve greenhouses. Tey are both 38 years old. Teir frst greenhouse was constructed in 2005. After their marriage, Wang split received 1.6 mu in farmland from his parents as part of a household split. Te young couple wanted to build a greenhouse but had no money. Te wife borrowed some money from her family and the couple built their frst greenhouse on the land that Wang's parents provided. Te second and third greenhouses were built in 2007 and 2009, respectively. For convenience, Wang rented land from his neighbours near his frst greenhouse. He can take care of the three greenhouses with minimum transport costs. Te frst three greenhouses were bamboo frame structures, which meant that the investment cost was minimal—it costs about CNY 30,000 to build a bamboo greenhouse. With two years' revenues from the frst greenhouse, Wang was able to accumulate extra capital to expand the scale of the couple's production. Te fourth and ffth greenhouses were constructed with steel frames at a cost of CNY 70,000 each. Although the investment increased, it was not difcult for the couple to build the last two greenhouses given the realized accumulation from earlier phases of production.

In our feldwork, we discovered several explanations for the limited intergenerational transmission of agricultural resources in Huang village. First, parent generations do not have abundant resource to dispose of, especially land. Tey also face production scale limits. Before the cucumber production boom in Huang village in 2013, each household had only one or two old-style greenhouses. Given the scarcity of land when compared to the population, there were limited production resources that the older generation could pass down to their children in a household split. Te second important factor is the special life cycle of the parent generation. As young farmers in Huang village are in their thirties and forties, their parents are mostly in their sixties, an age with a moderate capacity for labour and in urgent need to prepare for their later life. Rural citizens can voluntarily join the New Rural Social Pension Insurance, a policy launched nationwide in 2009 to guarantee older adults above the age of 60 a regular pension. In Huang village, the pension is about CNY 80 per month. In rural society, adult children usually do not provide economic support or living expense for their parents if the latter still have the capacity to work. Terefore, the older generation has to rely on agricultural production to maintain their livelihood and save as much as they can for later life. Te high profts from cucumber production mean that older people cannot easily give up their land and pass it on to their children. Although a parent's household and a son's household are separate independent calculation units in agriculture, it does not exclude their intergenerational reciprocity in specifc production activities, especially intergenerational support from the older generation. Production scale is often smaller in the parent's household. When they have fnished their own farm work, parents often help out with routine chores at their children's greenhouses or collect their grandchildren from the village school. Strong family cohesion and solidarity remains after a household split, which is the foundation of Chinese culture and peasant agriculture.

Yao Hui is 30 years old and has an eight-year-old daughter and a fveyear-old son. She has been living in her home village since she married. Te couple stayed with one set of parents in the frst several years after returning to the village. Tey didn't need to worry about daily expenditures but lacked economic autonomy. When Yao's daughter was three, her in-laws proposed a household split. Huihui's husband and his brother each inherited one small greenhouse from the parents and jointly share their parents' living expenses. After the split, the whole family were engaged in cucumber production. As the older brother planted three greenhouses and Yao's family only had one, her parents-in-law provided assistance to their older son. If Yao and her husband were very busy, the parents and older brother would come to help. "Although we are not in one household (with the in-laws), we still have very close interaction, just as before and our relationship is very good."

#### **Acquirement of Knowledge and Skills: Active Learning Trough Limited Ways**

From migrant worker to cucumber producer has been a huge occupational transition for young farmers in Huang village. To become a farmer requires skills, experience, and knowledge that forms the basis for their own farm work after they settle into their new household. Tere are four major paths for young people to acquire knowledge and skills in cucumber production, which also refect this group's diferent demands for technology as production evolves. Te frst channel to acquire basic knowledge in production is usually within the family. As Huang villagers have 30 years of cucumber production experience, knowledge transfer to young farmers was initially an intergenerational transmission within family. Parents, parents-in-law, and sometimes spouses were farmers' frst teachers.

Tirteen years ago, Wu Xia married into a family that lives in Huang village and began cucumber cultivation with her husband. Wu's own parents own cucumber greenhouses in an adjacent village therefore she came to the marriage with production skills. Cai Hong, on the other hand, became acquainted with cucumber production only after she married and moved to the village. She gradually learned the necessary methods and skills from her parents-in-law. Her husband also provided instruction. "It's not difcult. Almost all of the villagers are planting cucumber here, you just need to observe and follow your parents, then you know how to do it."

Secondly, young farmers can receive technical support in everyday production through communication at the community level. Although young people can learn basic production technologies from their parents, they may encounter various and changing technical problems in pest control, seedling management, and so forth in specifc production that require outside expertise. Te three decades of cucumber cultivation in the village have provided a favourable and supportive environment for young people. Many of them told us that "many villagers have rich experiences in production and they could be technicians beyond our village." After setting up their own greenhouses and as they engage in production, young farmers face new problems that they cannot resolve with internal resources or for which they need new technical inputs. For this reason, communication with other farmers and producers is very important to young farmers. Tey frequently visit neighbouring greenhouses to provide help and also learn from each other. Tere are six village technicians who are experienced producers and grassroots experts; these "cucumber doctors" provide technical support to local farmers. From neighbours and local technicians to seedling raisers and agricultural material suppliers, there are diversifed sources of technical support that young farmers can draw on at the community level.

Te third way to gain technological expertise is from public training services that the village and government provide. Te local government has given the village and its vegetable production special attention as a model of cash crop plantation. Inviting external experts to conduct training for the villagers is one form of public service. Tere is, however, a gender diference in the way in which young farmers acquire this knowledge. For a young couple, it is usually the husband who participates in public training and later shares the information with his wife.

While farmers welcome training provided by the village or local government as necessary, it cannot substantially meet farmers' technical demands. As many young people commented: "the external experts usually have more theories than practices. When it comes to farming practice, they even don't know more than us. Generalized theories are not always applicable in our regions." When compared to generalized abstract training, young farmers prefer to learn technologies and information suitable for their own needs from the internet or via smart phone apps. Most of the young farmers, including many young women, have installed various technology and marketing apps on their phones. Some listen to podcasts on technology in the greenhouse when they are working. Te internet, mobile phone, and other information and communications technology (ICT) are very common and popular among young farmers who use them to access fexible and customized information. Tis special channel in knowledge acquirement also separates young farmers from their parents in terms of farming and marketing methods.

In Yao's family, she and her husband use their mobile phones to access the internet for training and other knowledge acquisition, including a technology program accessed via WeChat.

Tis technology account has a lot of information that suits for the production condition in my family. We all plant cucumbers in the village, but each greenhouse is diferent in terms of location, soil quality, illumination, ventilation, species, etc. So we should not fetish the so-called experts and have to choose the information and knowledge that really suits us.

Dai Qiuyan is 34 years old. Her husband is a fsh wholesaler in the provincial capital and she takes care of the greenhouse at home. She is very active in increasing her knowledge about cucumber production. When watching television or reading news on her cell phone, she is constantly on the search for related news. "I have many apps on my phone. I can search for the price fuctuations on my phone for the national market. Sometimes, diferent regions have diferent marketing prices. What we got from the internet is just a guideline, you have to have your own judgement."

Previous research showed that there is signifcant gender diferentiation in the acquirement and application of agricultural technologies. Even on farms where women provide the majority of labour, they are still passive in learning new technologies and subordinated in technology extension activities. Many rural women are confned to communication with family or neighbours and reluctant to try new technologies. In Huang village, in contrast, we found that both young men and women farmers are highly motivated to gain new knowledge and modernize their operations. Unlike their parents, they are accustomed to the ease of fnding knowledge via the internet. Young farmers agreed that when compared to their parents, they are pursuing a kind of modern agriculture that requires increased adaption and pursuit of knowledge and technology.

#### **Labour Division for Young Farmers: "Man Outside and Woman Inside" in the Production Sphere**

Cucumber cultivation is very labour intensive during a season that in Huang village runs from September to June of the next year. Cucumber harvest is 50 days after planting. In autumn and winter, farmers need to pick cucumbers every other day, and in spring, they will pick the vegetables daily. In addition to harvesting, farmers need to adjust the seedlings' height and water and apply chemical fertilizers and pesticides, all of which require a lot of manual work. Te farmers told us that "every day there is work waiting for us and we're tied to the greenhouse." In winter, farmers work in the greenhouse from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. Tere is a twohour break at midday for lunch and a rest. Farmers close the greenhouse at 4:00 pm, but related farm work is often done with a head lamp after dinner. In the summer months, due to the hot weather, farmers work from 5:00 am to 11:00 am and then continue from 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm. "We don't have spare time. Even during Spring Festival we need to work in the greenhouse. On the frst day of new year, we visit family and

**Table 7.2** Daily work in the greenhouse

relatives in the morning with new dress and then in the afternoon we change to working clothes in the greenhouse. We can only rest for two days even during the new year's holiday" (Table 7.2).

During the busy production season, young couples divide their labour. Daily management of the greenhouse requires watering and mist spraying of chemicals; these tasks are labour intensive, but the latter requires certain technical expertise. Falling seedlings is the most tedious work in a cucumber greenhouse. In a 1 mu area, there are about 4000 seedlings. When they fall, the farmer needs to unlace the rope that supports the seedling, pull it down, and then retie it. Tis process takes between two and three days to fnish in one greenhouse. It is usually the women who take care of falling seedlings and apply chemicals to fowers, while men are in charge of mist spraying, watering, and other chemical applications. Harvest and pick-up are joint tasks by the couple. When the cucumbers are packaged in boxes, the husband will transport them to the village market for sale. In such scenarios, men's labour is largely technically oriented and outward focused, while women's labour is more labour intensive and inward focused. Women work longer hours in the greenhouse than men. Such labour division in cucumber production to a great extent duplicates the conventional family labour division of "men outside and women inside," which ascribes men as breadwinners and women as housekeepers. Te labour division in the production sphere echoes traditional gender roles. Most male farmers described their work in watering, mist spraying, and chemical application as "managerial work," while a woman's job is basically "labour work." For men, managerial work is key to a greenhouse's production success.

However, for many women farmers, this kind of labour division in agriculture is not a complete duplication of the "men outside women inside" model in the family sphere. On one hand, women equally contribute to production and revenue. Women's responsibilities are not unpaid work but an important role in the production chain that determines the quantity and quality of cucumbers. In Huang village, women farmers have built strong self-recognition towards their contributions in family farming. As they told us: "I'm doing my part and he (the husband) is doing his part. We have diferent tasks. It's nonsense to say who is stronger and who is more powerful in agriculture … it's not competition but cooperation. Our works are complementary, and both of our work are very important. Te production will be afected if either of us didn't work well." We should also consider that increased access to technology and relevant information needed for farming success keeps the gender labour division fexible. Women can and often do take on the roles that men typically hold.

Huihui and her husband take responsibility for one greenhouse each. Tey work in the greenhouses separately and work together when harvesting and applying chemicals. Huihui said, "I do not work less than him at all. Te only diference is that he has more experience in planting cucumbers than me. We're equal in agricultural production."

In Cui Weiying's family, she and her husband Wang Zhanling discuss important family afairs and take decisions together. Although it is Wang who usually takes on the technical work, it does not mean that Cui has to rely on him. "I can dispense the chemical as well. I can do all of the work by myself. It's not difcult. When he's busy or he's not around, I would do the technical work."

In households that manage large-scale production, women farmers' involvement is not limited to greenhouse production. Due to high labour demands, large holders need to hire labour to work in their greenhouses. It is usually women farmers who are in charge of organizing and managing hired labour. As most of the hired labourers are middle-aged women from neighbouring villages, women farmers have a gender advantage in communicating with these workers.

Haixia and her husband plant seven greenhouses. Tey cannot manage the workload by themselves and regularly hire three or four labourers to support production. In the busy season, this expands to fve or six. Finding stable and responsible workers is the biggest challenge for Haixia, especially in the busy month of March. "In our experience, the market price in March is very good. All of the farmers would like to take the chance to sell as many cucumbers as possible. We have seven greenhouses and cannot miss the timing. Sometimes I need to put aside my work in the greenhouse to search for hired labourers in the villages."

Women farmers' involvement in agriculture and the family labour division in production impacts on labour division in the domestic sphere. Due to long hours working in the greenhouse, women farmers usually do not have the time or the energy to take care of housework. Many households do not cook lunch at home. In order to have more time in the greenhouse, they buy fast food from a village convenience store. Husbands cannot ask their wives to be a traditional "housewife." Moreover, given this shared workload in production, many wives ask their husbands to share equally in the housework. In both production and reproduction spheres, the formerly rigid gender boundary has been diluted for women farmers.

Cui Weiying, for example, usually asks Wang Zhanling to help with chores around the house. He does not complain even when his wife afectionately mocks his eforts. All year round, the couple eat breakfast and dinner at home and have some bread in the greenhouse as lunch. At the end of a working day, they return home to prepare dinner together.

#### **Community-Based Agrarian Transition and Its Implications for Young Farmers**

Huang village is a very special case in terms of agrarian transition in contemporary China in that there is no space for urban capital in the community. Family farmers organize all agricultural production, although a few of them are larger in scale and hire labour. Tere is no horizontal or vertical concentration by agricultural enterprises from outside of the village. Family farming, especially young farmers, is the major (or only) form and driving force for agricultural development in the village. Tis is due in part to the nature of the village's specialization in cucumbers, which is highly capital-labour intensive and cannot be mechanized for larger-scale production. Te critical variable in this case is the role of collective community, which provides important support to young farmers to guarantee their subsistence and a space for development. Te collective community has been actively involved in resource distribution, land rent moderation, and innovation extension in cucumber production. Te patriarchal role of the collective community partly explains the tendency of repeasantization in Huang village alongside its prosperous commodifcation. Community's value and obligation to safeguard livelihood of smallholders make it possible for young people to get access to land and involve in agricultural production in a more pleasant way—work on family-controlled land with family labour for the family well-being.

#### **Land Transfer: Breaking Trough Household Limits for Young People**

Access to land is the most important pre-condition for young people to start farming. It is true for both men and women, but especially for women. Rural women face many difculties in accessing land. Te land contract system5 defnes a rural household as a unit of land contract; however, the household head is usually the male and the land rights of female members in the household are often overlooked. It is common for women's land rights to be violated due to changes in their marriage situation. Because farmland is contracted in the unit of household, when a rural woman marries and settles into a new household, she will lose use right for the land contracted by her native family. According to a national All-China Women's Federation survey in 2010, about 21 per cent of rural women did not have access to land, among which 27.7 per cent lost their land after marriage. Tis unfair situation has passive impacts on their position in both family life and agricultural production. Landless women feel deprived and marginalized in their husbands' households. Te

<sup>5</sup>Rural farmland is collectively owned by the community in China. Households get their land contracted from the community based on headcounts. Current contract period is 30 years and size of land contract cannot change during this period.

landless situation also increases livelihood pressure for poor households. In Huang village, prior to 2005, some land was set aside to meet demographic changes and to ofer to young women who married into the village. Tere was no communal farmland to redistribute at all after 2005 and this practice did not continue.

Young men in the village also face land scarcity. Land contracted from the village collective is minimal and scattered; 2 mu of contract land could be scattered over three locations. Most of the contract land runs from north to south. However, land suitable for greenhouse production should run east to west in order to maximize the availability of sunlight. In the 1990s, the limited land area meant that villagers built smaller greenhouse. Tere were limited land transfers among villagers. A larger piece of land suitable for greenhouse construction sometimes involved land rights of several households, and successful transactions meant communication and negotiation with diferent households. It was not an easy procedure for individual households, which strained the expansion of the scale of production in the village.

In 2013, the scattered small-scale household production was changed by the community-led land transfer. As farmland in the countryside belongs to a village collective, village committee in Huang village made an overall change on major plots. While keeping farmers' land use right intact, the village committee withdrew land from individual households to consolidate into larger plots for greenhouse construction. After the land has been consolidated and infrastructure (including roads, pipes, etc.) installed, villagers who would like to plant cucumbers apply to the village for a greenhouse site. If it is approved, the producer obtains land use rights for the site and pays rent to the village. For households whose whole plot consists of contract land, their land contract rights remain intact and they pay rent annually as compensation. Village committeeled land was meant to promote land transfers that sustain and enlarge cucumber production. It simultaneously accelerated production as the consolidated land is more suitable for greenhouse production in a geographic sense. In general, greenhouses with more acreage have higher yields.

Te villagers welcomed land consolidation as it reduced their transaction cost in land transfers and improved farmland infrastructure. As a resource allocator, the village committee applies related measures to ensure that land distribution is fair and efective.

interests of the original contractor, if the producer wants to terminate the contract, he can sell the greenhouse to another villager with the village committee's prior approval or return the land to the village after restoring the landscape. Tese measures aim to protect the interests of the diferent actors involved and avoid land desolation.

4. It guarantees fairness in land distribution. When the village committee consolidated the land for greenhouse construction in 2013, it was divided into 100 plots for greenhouses with an average size of 1.5 mu, and it was numbered for selection. Households who applied for a contract paid a CNY 5000 deposit for each greenhouse and drew lots to see who would receive which plot of land. Land consolidation continued in 2015 and 2016, and all of the land sites were distributed through public lottery. Te villagers recognized the value of this transparent procedure and it prevented potential conficts in the competition for good land.

In the last decade and especially since 2013, more and more villagers have been able to secure land through land transfer to start or expand their cucumber production. Since 2013, farmers have built about 400 greenhouses thanks to community-led land consolidation. Te village collective has surpassed the household as the primary allocator and moderator of land. It is an extraordinarily important process, especially for young people who do not have much inherited land.

Wu Xia and her husband operate seven greenhouses. Before she married and moved to Huang village, Wu had 1.5 mu of land in her home village, which that village's committee reclaimed after her marriage. Fortunately, she was able to secure 0.7 mu of farmland in Huang village after her arrival. Her immediate family—Xia, her husband, and two children—hold 2.6 mu in the family, by which they built their frst greenhouse. In 2013, when the village committee started to plan for more greenhouses, the couple was very excited. In that year, their two children were in kindergarten and primary school and did not need as much care. Haixia and her husband decided to put all of their eforts in cucumber production. Tey contracted fve greenhouses and later bought the seventh greenhouse from another villager.

Wang Zhanxue is 38 years old. He operates three greenhouses with his wife. His two children are in middle school. In the household split with his parents and his younger brother, Wang received only 1.5 mu of land. Te land he uses now for his three greenhouses is 8 mu—all transferred from the village. His own contracted land was transferred to other villagers. He is very content with the family's current production of scale. "Te three greenhouses are just right for me and my wife to work without using hired labour. With our own labour input, we can earn CNY 100,000 each year. It is not bad as a farmer."

Land transfer in particular provides the chance for young women to access land and pursue farming independently. For villagers, land consolidation and land transfer already blur the boundaries of land. In most cases, farmers work on land transferred from others and have their own contracted land transferred to other people as well. Whether a young man or a young woman, having his/her own share of contracted land does not matter very much in a young person's pathway to becoming a farmer. Family position for young women is not infuenced just because they don't have land in their husbands' village because they are also entitled to transfer land from the village committee. Tere are cases in which young women farmers transfer land by themselves and pursue farming independently.

Forty-year-old Wu Xin operates two greenhouses on 3 mu of land. She rented the land three years ago from villagers for CNY 1250 per mu. It was higher than the "ofcial" rent in the village because there was some greenhouse infrastructure for cucumber cultivation on the land already. Tere is another 3 mu of land in her family for maize and wheat, which is her husband's contract land. Her husband has been engaged in migrant work in the city and only returns home once or twice a year.

He (the husband) doesn't have time or eforts to take care of things in the village, transferring land and planting cucumbers is all my own idea and decision. I manage the whole procedure. I'm now very capable of cucumber production. If there is land available in the village and a subsidy policy, I'd like to build another greenhouse and make more investment. I have confdence to manage three greenhouses by myself.

#### **Agricultural Programmes on Finance and Technology**

After land, fnance and technology are the other important elements for young farmers who are engaged in developing their own cucumber production unit. For small-scale family farming, initial capital for cucumber production usually comes from family savings. With any profts, farmers are able to maintain simplifed reproduction or expand the scale step by step. Tis is the general economic logic for family farmers who have tried to minimize risks and external dependence. When the local government promotes rapid agrarian transition, young farmers face both risks and opportunities in expanding production. Financial support from the village and local government is critical to reconfgure young farmers' careers. In 2012, the village committee received a subsidy from the county ofce responsible for poverty alleviation and development in support of the construction of 50 modern greenhouses. Te subsidy's distribution was based on villagers' voluntary application. Investment for a standard modern greenhouse with an area of 1.5 mu was about CNY 80,000–100,000 at that time and the subsidy was CNY 60,000. In spite of the favourable policy, villagers were not very active in applying due to a funds shortage and the fear of associated risks. To encourage young people to expand and upgrade production, a village cadre tried to secure free loans from the county for them. With this support and inspiration, several young farmers took the lead and applied for the programme, which also established a foundation for them to later become large holders.

Wang Zhanling and his wife operate nine greenhouses and are one of the large holders in Huang village. Tey operated 11 greenhouses for some time but sold 2 greenhouses as they were too busy). Te couple did not have any greenhouses when they separated from his parents. Tey received only 2 mu of land that was too barren to plant grain. Tey started planting cucumber in 2002. Tey constructed the greenhouses one-by-one with their savings and some money that they borrowed from relatives. With profts from the previous two years, they were able to build the next greenhouse every other year. During the aforementioned 2012 subsidy programme opportunity, the couple wanted to expand their production but were afraid that there would not be sufcient land in the village in the future. Te resulting fnancial burden also caused hesitation. Tey planned to build fve greenhouses, but under the village leader's persuasion, they fnally applied for seven greenhouses. To build them all in one year, they applied for a CNY 300,000 loan for one year. As the yields and market for cucumbers in that year were good, the couple was able to repay the loan with profts from their 11 greenhouses.

In addition to the 2012 subsidy program, the village committee continued to apply for fnancial support for local villagers. In 2015, households could receive CNY 2000 subsidy for newly constructed greenhouses; in 2017, it was CNY 1000. As it is difcult for individual villagers to apply for bank loans, the village cadre applied for CNY 2 million in loans from Rural Credit Cooperatives in the name of the village cooperative to facilitate villagers' demands for fnance.

Te village committee has also been a promoter of technological innovation. Many sectors of cucumber production have been mechanized, including ploughing, shutter rolling, and chemical spraying. In 2009, the shutter roller for greenhouses was initially promoted in the county when there were only 2000–3000 such machines in the whole county. Te village committee introduced the shutter roller to the village with a CNY 1600 subsidy for each machine. Technical innovation in cucumber production has had a very positive infuence in improving labour productivity and working conditions for young people, especially since cucumber production is highly labour intensive, unlike grain production. With the promotion of the rotary tiller, shutter roller, and mist sprayer, farmers' manual work has been signifcantly relieved. It also has emancipatory implications for women farmers as they can more easily take up farm work independently with the support of machinery.

Ciu Weiying told us: "Vegetable cultivation is more laborious than grain farmers because wheat and maize cultivation is fully mechanized. It is good that the farming style has been innovated and we don't need to work as hard as before."

Wu Xin also recalled the challenges: "I remembered how hard it was without the shutter roller. I was standing on the top of the greenhouse to roll up the shutters by my hand. It almost took a whole day for me to do that. Now I only need to switch on the engine and it takes 10 minutes to do the work."

Qiuyan recounted for us: "We used manual pesticide barrels before. We carried the barrel and walked through the greenhouse. Because we don't have much strength, it usually took more than one hour to fnish the work. With the mist sprayer, I only need 10 minutes to fnish one greenhouse."

Te introduction of technology has had a positive impact on equalizing gender positions among young farmers. Women farmers can engage in most farming sectors independently or replace the role of male farmers in production. With the application of such machines, women farmers also have more positive self-recognition of their role in agricultural production. As they told us: "We can do what men usually do on the farm. It is not difcult for us women to do farming."

#### **Providing Public Goods: Development of the Local Market**

Te local cucumber market provides an important and stable outlet for young farmers' production. It has taken over 20 years for the village to develop its own marketplace. In the 1980s, due to the lack of a marketing channel, cucumber producers had to go street by street with a threewheeled bicycle to sell their product. In 1993, several small marketplaces formed at the entrance of the village and some "cucumber brokers" emerged. Farmers no longer needed to sell their product in the street. Instead, cucumber brokers would collect cucumbers from households and then sell them to wholesalers from the city. In 1996, the village built a marketplace with an area of 3 mu, which was the only cucumber transaction market in the adjacent area. Every day, farmers sent their cucumbers to the market directly from their farms. Cucumber brokers would organize and moderate the transactions in the market. In 2013, through the village committee's organization and investment, the marketplace was further expanded from 3 mu to 40 mu. Tere is not only space to accommodate trucks and lorries, but also a warehouse, refrigeration storage, and shops for production materials to serve farmers and wholesalers. Te daily transaction volume is about 200 tons, a fve to six times increase than before the expansion. Specialized production has an associated stable source of marketing. Current wholesalers come from Beijing and diferent cities in Hebei, Henan, Shandong, and other provinces. Te village market has provided a stable marketing platform for cucumber farmers and farmers from neighbouring villages who also take advantage of the market.

Te village committee not only built the market but also played the role of market manager. Te three staf members working in the market as cashier, accountant, and gauger are retired village cadres or village party members. Tey weigh the cargo, calculate the trading volume, and make payments to farmers. Te transaction is made through cucumber brokers who are local villagers with rich experience and social networks for marketing. Cucumber brokers organize individual farmers and contact diferent wholesalers to fx the price. Wholesalers need to pay 3 cents per half kilogramme to the village committee as a management cost. One per cent of this is the cucumber broker's commission, 0.1 cents is for the accountant and cashier as their salary, and the remaining 1.9 cent is for the village committee to pay land rent for the market and to maintain the infrastructure. At the initial stage of transaction, wholesalers transported the cucumbers frst and then set the price when they sold the vegetable on the urban market, which meant that farmers did not receive the money immediately. Teir payment was delayed and sometimes shrank due to changing market prices. To protect local farmers' interests, the village committee has regulated that wholesalers have to set the price at the time of transaction according to the price in Beijing and Shandong. Payment to farmers cannot be delayed to the next day. Te market now has a formal mechanism for transactions. Te market opens daily at noon. When wholesalers arrive, they prepay for the goods to the market's managerial staf. Farmers deliver their products to the market and await a price. If the price is good, they will proceed with the transaction. Farmers receive their payment from the wholesaler immediately. Te market's regular operation via the village committee is key for the farmers. Without such a convenient and stable marketing channel, young people would not have the confdence to start farming. Many young people told us that this was the reason that they decided to become involved in farming. Wang Zhanxue shared:

Te market in our own village is very convenient for us and it saved a lot of transportation cost. For farmers from other villages, when they come to the market, they have to accept the price no matter how low it was because they could not transport their cucumbers back. However, for us local people, we make transactions every day and have become very sensitive to the price. We can have information about the price anytime and gradually have grasped some rules. When the price was low, we're not in a hurry to sell. We can put cucumbers in storage for a few more days to wait for a better price. For example, when it is cloudy, cucumber production is lower; therefore the price is in an upward trend. It's also easier to store cucumbers in cloudy weather. So we can wait for several days to have a better price. Tere are uncertainties and fuctuations as well; everything is not so defnite. We need to consult the price from diferent channels and pay attention to weather changes.

Te local market is not only a platform for cucumber transactions, but also an important public space for villagers to socialize and exchange with the outside world. As cucumber production is highly commodifed, the concrete marketplace and abstract market mechanism have become central to farmers. Te local marketplace is the place almost every farmer visits every day. "Our daily activity is from home to greenhouse, from greenhouse to the market. We don't go to other places. We also don't have the time to go to other places." Terefore, the cucumber market has become an important place for villagers to socialize and interact. Trough involvement in market transactions, the busy farmers who work all day in separate greenhouses have the time to talk to each other. Tey discuss technical or management problems in the greenhouses, exchange experiences, and talk about deals in other provinces to expand their knowledge of cucumber production and marketing. With this information collected at the market, they can adjust their production or plan accordingly. Te market is an especially active space for young farmers to build and enhance their social networks. After their market transactions, young farmers often gather in a restaurant with the money that they earned that day to share dinner and continue conversations about production and rural life. Tese social interactions, however, are largely confned to male farmers. As marketing is termed as men's work in a rural household, women usually do not go to the market to sell their product unless the husband is busy or away. While the village market is open to all farmers, women farmers have yet to actively integrate into this aspect of farming life.

## **Agency and Challenges for Young Farmers**

#### **Young Farmers' Perceptions of Farming**

With the technological upgrades in Huang village in 2009, young farmers gradually became the main body of agricultural development in the village. While many older farmers are still working in the frst generation of greenhouses, young farmers are all working in modernized greenhouses, in technical and managerial terms.

Wu Zhiying said that young people are also more careful about farming. "We put a lot of efort and work into greenhouses. We pay much attention to pest control and disease prevention, and we have more sources of information to learn. Tat's the major diference between us and our parents' generation. Teir way of production is very extensive."

Wang Zhanxue told us that while they are modern farmers, they are not producing an organic product:

We're pursuing modern agriculture because our farm work is highly mechanized. Although cucumber is very unique that it cannot be totally mechanized, we have had many machines in the greenhouse. But we're not real modern agriculture because we still highly rely on pesticides and chemicals. It's not organic farming. Tat is the way of agricultural development, but currently we cannot realize it. Without chemicals, the yield won't be guaranteed.

Tis is a paradox in young farmers' perception of farming. On the one hand, they are contented with the income from agriculture and proud of their freedom and autonomy. "Freedom," "living with family," and "stable" are the words that they most often use when asked about the merits of family farming. On the other hand, those words are just another expression of their social exclusion in cities. "Stable" also means young people are bound by the hard work required to make a greenhouse successful. If they could secure decent employment in the city, some of them, especially the younger farmers, would migrate. Teir perception and assessment of their own farming is based on a compromise of imbalanced rural-urban development and their social exclusion as migrant workers. For all of the young farmers that we interviewed, they do not want their children to become farmers. Wang Zhichao does not want his son to be trapped in farming:

I don't want my son to continue farming.  To do farming is very boring. I really admire those migrant workers. Tey have another kind of freedom to try diferent things. Tey can dispose their time after work. If I have a good job in the city, I defnitely will quit farming. But now everything is settled. My life is almost fxed in this trajectory. I can't change it.