Organizer: Paul Thiers, University of Oregon
Chair and Discussant: R. William Liddle, Ohio State University
Discussant: Peter Riggs, Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Market integration is transforming the political, economic and ecological environment in rural Asia. This panel addresses issues in this transformation, in particular opportunities and constraints for farmer empowerment and ecological sustainability. Three papers consider examples of "organic" or "green management" programs in three very different political and economic contexts. After the papers are presented, there will be a general discussion of the topic including the following questions: How do transformations of traditional marketing patterns affect established political relationships? Are small farmers trading one type of dependency for another, or are there new opportunities for empowerment? To what extent do ecological imperatives shape political and economic opportunities? And, are rural democracy and environmental sustainability mutually reinforcing? The participants hope that by identifying both commonalties and differences among the three studies, analysis will improve and future research agendas will emerge.
Green Food: The Political Economy of Organic Agriculture in China
Paul Thiers, University of Oregon
Rather than a smooth transition from plan to market, rural China in the 1990s displays a unique political economy, characterized by direct market involvement by state institutions. This case study of rapidly developing programs to certify and market organic food analyzes this unique political economy and its implications for efforts to solve the environmental crisis in Chinese agriculture. Organic certification and marketing lies at the nexus of political, economic and ecological rationalities and ties together actors from the local to the international level. Drawing from ideas in the literature including local state corporatism (Oi, 1992, 1995); local developmental states (Blecher, 1991; Blecher and Shue, 1996); and fragmented authoritarianism (Liberthal and Lampton, 1992), the author proposes a model of China’s rural political economy called the fragmented entrepreneurial state. State fragments such as local governments, sub-ministerial departments and centers, research institutions, and military units use their political authority as representatives of "the state" to privilege their own economic competitiveness. State fragments maximize their autonomy from the central government while protecting their authority by maintaining association with that government. State/society distinctions become problematic as institutions slide between governmental and non-governmental identities and functions depending on the surrounding environment and task at hand. The result is a transformation of both central state policy and international regime. Thus, organic certification and marketing, which has shown itself to be a promising mechanism for promoting sustainable agriculture in other political economies, leads to very different outcomes with important implications for the rural environment in China.
"Exit" from the Conventional Rural Political Economy: Sustainable Agriculture and Peasant Empowerment in Central Java, Indonesia
Blair A. King, Ohio State University
One of the keys to political stability during the New Order regime was "rice politics" (politik beras), which was designed to ensure adequate supplies for the urban population, at the expense of the interests of rice-producing peasants, especially on Java. Government control of peasants’ economic well-being, through price controls and "green revolution" agricultural intensification techniques, was also used by the regime to serve its political interests.
Sustainable agriculture is one way for peasants to "exit" (Hirschman, 1970) this conventional rural political economy. This paper studies the efforts of one NGO (BPS) to introduce organic rice farming techniques as a method of peasant empowerment. HPS uses these techniques as an entry point to attack other aspects of the rural political economy. The paper studies six of HPS’ most successful peasant associations as examples of "new and unique ways to turn the corner" (Hirschman, 1985) of exiting from the conventional rural political economy in the provinces of Central Java and Yogyakarta. As comparison cases, the paper also examines six nearby villages which have hosted Farmer Field Schools (FFS), and six other villages which have neither HPS associations nor FFS groups. FFS is a government program which only extracts peasants from one small part of the conventional rural political economy.
The basic hypothesis is that the more successful peasants are in extracting themselves from the conventional rural political economy, the more bargaining power they have vis-a-vis political and economic powerholders. In other words, "exit" facilitates "voice."
The Alchemy of Blue Gold: Incorporating the Ecological into High-Value Shrimp Culture in Thailand
Robert Gronski, University of Missouri
The success of export-led industrialization in Southeast Asian nations created the aura of a modernization "miracle." Following the East Asian tigers, the nations of Southeast Asia adopted development strategies that drew them into regional/global markets and transnational corporate networks. For rural areas, these transformations were felt through new agro-industrial structures that promoted high-value food export commodities in place of rice and other traditional crops. Specifically for coastal areas in Southeast Asia, black tiger shrimp grown in intensively-managed ponds became a predominant commodity of this new state-promoted agriculture. Foreign markets created a year-round demand for shrimp, allowing foreign exchange earnings for debtor nations like Thailand. But while rural income levels were rising, serious environmental problems began to appear. Intensive shrimp culture, creating a "blue gold" of high-value food exports, caused severe degradation of the coastal ecosystem and led to an ecological rebuke of the political economic interests of the new agriculture. This study of Thailand’s shrimp culture industry examines the various responses—local, state, international and corporate—to these coastal environmental problems. The current discourse of sustainable development suggests that proposed corporate practices offer an appealing solution for the "green management" of natural resources while continuing to generate profits and revenues. The incorporation of environmental practices by dominant agro-food firms, however, does not resolve the main issue of the social development of local groups. Thus, a political ecology approach to agricultural changes in modernizing regions of East Asia requires a clear understanding of the emerging Pacific Rim food system and dominating interests of large corporations.