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Moving towards sustainable development: Rhetoric, policy and reality of ecological agriculture in China

Posted on: Thursday, 5 February 2004, 06:00 CST

Key words: China, ecological agriculture, rhetoric, policy, sustainable development

SUMMARY

Past decades have witnessed the rise of .sustainable agriculture movements throughout the world. In parallel with this international trend, ecological agriculture (with essential goals of food security, rural employment, poverty alleviation, natural resource management and environmental protection) has been advocated as a workable approach for the realization of sustainable agriculture in China. Two decades of ecological agricultural development have shown that it not only gained legitimacy at the senior policy level but also became a focus of scientific research in fields such as ecological economics, ecology, and agricultural and environmental sciences. However, this endeavour is hardly known in the West and little attention has been paid so far to examining the broader politico-economic and socio-cultural contexts within which it has evolved. This paper attempts to provide a general review of the emerging background, development history, policy initiatives and recent tendencies of ecological agriculture. In addition, the extant problems and potential contributions of this alternative practice to China's sustainable agricultural development are discussed. The purpose of this study is to identify the gap between the policy rhetoric and practical implementation of Chinese ecological agriculture and therefore to facilitate its moving towards sustainable development.

INTRODUCTION

Modern conventional agriculture has brought serious adverse effects to rural societies and ecosystems around the world because its practices focus on expansion, growth, dominance over nature, and largely depend on external inputs (Kotschi et al., 1989). Many critics (e.g. Norgaard, 1984; Martinez-Alier, 1987; Dragun and Tisdell, 1999) see these problems as fundamental flaws inherent in the structure, policies, and practices of conventional agriculture. During the past decades, increasing resource and environmental concerns associated with this mainstream practice have made it imperative to explore ecologically sound alternatives in agriculture. The rise of a sustainable agricultural paradigm represents not only a philosophical shift, but also a process of change in which the utilization of resources, management of the environment, orientation of technical development and institutional arrangement are all directed towards harmonizing and enhancing both current and future generations to meet their needs and aspirations (WCED, 1987; UNCED, 1992). This new perspective, which explicitly recognizes the linkages of agricultural production to the environment and society, has challenged the core values of unlimited economic growth and domination of nature in conventional agriculture (D'Souza and Gebremedhin, 1998). It is important to keep in mind that when technical and scientific solutions to agricultural sustainability do not account for the natural, political, economic and socio-cultural conditions of particular locations they are unlikely to succeed in the long run. For agriculture to be sustainable it must be biophysically possible, socio-politically acceptable, and economically feasible (Cai and Smit, 1994a). In this sense, it is increasingly necessary to place agricultural sustainability issues in a broader context of achieving food security, reducing poverty, and increasing sustainable use of natural resources. With these in mind, this paper attempts to provide an overview of the rise of ecological agriculture in China as a site-specific manifestation of the international sustainable agriculture movement.

THE RISE OF ECOLOGICAL AGRICULTURE IN CHINA

China has more than 4000 years of successful traditional agricultural practices, which in general were ecologically sound and adapted to high population densities and diverse regional conditions (Wittwer et al., 1987). Over the last 50 years, however, new forms of social, economic, and institutional relations have dramatically altered the human-environmental relations in Chinese traditional agriculture. When the Chinese Communist Party assumed power in 1949, its major economic goal was the rapid transformation of an overwhelmingly rural, peasant society to a modern, industrialized nation (Bradbury et al., 1996). The prevailing ideology emphasised economic growth and accordingly agricultural policies were developed to serve heavy industry as the first priority. As White (1993, p.96) points out, '[s] tate policies towards agriculture . . . were not designed to encourage rural development merely for its own sake, but to link agriculture and other sectors of the rural economy into an overall economic strategy which benefited industrialization.' The subordination of villages and the agricultural sector to the requirements of the urban-industrial sector resulted in a general disregard of local concerns. Consequently, traditional organic agricultural practices were steadily abandoned as chemically intensive cultivation and husbandry took over (Glaeser, 1987). The technological mastery combined with political domination had undermined traditional customs and cultures and had a destructive impact on the environment, which was particularly evident during the Great Leap Forward period (1958-60).

Chinese experience has demonstrated that the model of using large external inputs for agricultural modernisation is unrealistic and inappropriate for the country (Luo and Han, 1990). As Martinez- Alier (1987, p.235) points out, '[i]f modern agriculture means "farming with petroleum" (and natural gas), then it could be argued that it cannot be extended to the world at large, at least as a permanent solution. Hence, the argument that labour-intensive agriculture has an important role to play in feeding the world population.' From the late 1970s, many alternative agricultural ideas were introduced, which had a substantial influence on the specific Chinese articulation of sustainable agriculture. However, those alternative concepts were based mainly on the experiences and norms of Western countries and were found to be inappropriate for China. With over 22% of the world's population but less than 7% of world arable land, the potential role of Chinese agriculture has important domestic and international implications (Brown, 1995; Rozelle and Rosegrant, 1997). In the face of increasing population, environmental stress and resource depletion, the challenges are to explore alternative practices that enable agricultural production to grow whilst preserving the productivity of natural resources, and to contribute to the alleviation of poverty (Han, 1989).

Parallel with the sustainable agricultural movement in the world, China has adopted an alternative ecological approach for the development of its agriculture (Cheng et al., 1992). In theory, this emerging ecological agricultural paradigm was largely motivated by the development of Chinese ecological economics in the 1980s (Shi, 2002a,b). Chinese ecological agriculture gives priority to food security, while ensuring a balance between goals of self- sufficiency and production for markets. It also promotes rural employment and income generation to alleviate poverty, and natural resource management and environmental protection. Ecological agriculture proposes utilising resources in rural areas by implementing eco-techniques adapted to local ecological and cultural conditions. This approach promotes ecologically sound and sustainable agricultural practices that substitute renewable for non- renewable resources, link the productive processes through the use of complementary activities, and recycle by-products and residues (Leff, 1986).

Figure 1 A diagram of Chinese ecological agriculture

THE RHETORIC OF ECOLOGICAL AGRICULTURE

An ecological economic paradigm

Chinese ecological agriculture is an important area for the application of ecological economics theory in which the underlying theme is that economic development and environmental protection could be coordinated (Jiang and Shu, 1996; Simon, 2000; Shi, 2002a,b). Ma (1988) has identified four ecological economic principles (i.e. holism, harmony, recycling and regeneration) as guidelines for the construction of ecological agriculture in China. Chinese scholars (e.g. Cheng et al., 1992; Jiang and Shu, 1996; Qu et al., 1997; Li and Min, 1999; Li, 2001; Shi, 2002a,b) have characterized ecological agriculture as a comprehensive agricultural ecological-economic-social system based on a multi-tiered and multi- purposed intensive resource management and successful application of traditional agricultural practices. This system is designed and managed in accordance with ecological economic principles and systematic engineering methodology, armed with advanced science and technology (see Figure 1). Ecological agricultural development is more complex than has been assumed. It consists not only of biophysical aspects that are the fundamental bases of agricultural production, but also of socio-cultural, economic, and political dimensions that continuously influence, and are influenced by, agricultural practices.

The ecological economics approach offers a perspective on the possible harmonization of agricultural development with ecology to replace the zero-sum game perception of environment versus economic growth. It seeks to balance the lon\g-term costs of farm production against the short-term profits of goods sold at market (Ma, 1995). Ecological agriculture is designed to help people define their real goals for growth and to utilize their own available natural resources and human skills to achieve these goals. In this regard, ecological agricultural systems and techniques have been developed on a holistic basis of humans within the biosphere and awareness of the human dependency on scarce natural resources. This ecological economics approach to agriculture pursues a broader goal than just the economic one and pays more attention to cost reduction and efficiency. These insights have theoretically challenged the assumptions and instrumental rationale underlying conventional approaches to agricultural development. As a social movement, ecological agriculture represents an alternative practice by which the rhetoric of ecological economics and sustainable development can be realized at the grassroots level.

The value of traditional agricultural practices

Chinese ecological agriculture is a modern type of agriculture that combines aspects of current Western science and technologies and traditional agricultural practices followed by Chinese farmers for 40 centuries (King, 1911; Vogtmann, 1984; Cheng et al., 1992). According to the precautionary principle, successful traditional forms of resource use must be preserved until proven superior forms of resource use have been developed. Many practices of Chinese traditional agriculture were ecologically sound and sustainable, required low capital input, high labour rates and produced relatively high yields, and have proved useful in efforts to devise more sustainable agricultural alternatives. Production taking place in this way is concerned more with the long-term sustainability of the system rather than solely on maximizing yield and profit (Gliessman, 1998). Integrating indigenous knowledge with scientific advances to implement effective ecosystem management has demonstrated the potential for increasing output without environmental and social devastation (Barkin, 2001).

However, it is important to note that not all traditional agricultural practices are worthy to be incorporated into new practices. Although the expansion and further improvement of traditional agricultural practices present a real hope for sustainability, it cannot produce enough food to meet the needs of increasing population and global marketing because of its focus on meeting local and small-scale needs (Cai and Smit, 1994b; Gliessman, 1998). This situation could be explained in line with Mark Klvin's 'high level equilibrium trap', in which technical advances just managed to keep pace with population increase and resource depletion, with the result that welfare (per capita income) remained fixed (Elvin, 1973). In this regard, the emphasis of traditional agriculture on sustainability and resource management and the emphasis of conventional agriculture on productivity should be combined. Ecological agriculture utilises scientific knowledge for the development of appropriate technologies (e.g. cooking with solar collectors, producing biogas from dung) and advances traditional farming practices that are applicable in site-specific situations (Wen et al., 1992). Some traditional techniques, such as crop rotation to control pests and the use of green manure as part of a soil fertility programme, have been employed in ecological agricultural practices (Wittwer et al., 1987). This knowledge-based farming system could reduce, if not eliminate, many of the existing capital constraints on agricultural productivity while conserving the natural resource base and protecting the environment (Ikerd, 1998).

Re-establishing human-natural harmony

Ecological agriculture has been formulated as an integration of agriculture and rural development, based on current economic and technical conditions in China (Li, 2001). It focuses on reallocation of land and labour resources and changes in market engagement, aims to integrate ecological, economic and social benefits that generate higher farm household welfare and lower levels of natural resource degradation (Luo and Han, 1990; Jiang and Shu, 1996). This perspective has promoted the all-round development of farming, forestry, animal husbandry, fishery, and agroprocessing industries in harmonized relationships; applied Lu local resources for high agricultural productivity, better conversion efficiency and sound ecological functioning. Despite the full use of natural productivity in the agricultural production process, social productivity (e.g. modern science, technology and management skill) is also emphasised. Ecological agriculture seeks to optimise the management and use of on-farm resources and relies heavily on organic fertilisers and manure to maintain land productivity for long-term use. In this regard, it offers a potential mechanism for sustaining output and, at the same time, significantly reducing material input in agricultural production. Ecological agriculture attempts to redefine and design a new development pattern, which moves beyond a growth- dependent mentality towards a socially just and ecologically viable future. To some extent, it tends to produce a human-natural co- operative community that advocates the development of human potential while respecting the non-human world.

ECOLOGICAL AGRICULTURE IN PRACTICE

Since the early 1980s, ecological agriculture has been advocated as a comprehensive response to the emerging problems in rural China. In particular, it attempts to address three key concerns: (1) the need to increase absolute levels of agricultural output to ensure food security; (2) strengthening the rural economy and increasing rural income; and (3) dealing with manifest rural environmental problems (Sanders, 2000). During the last 20 years ecological agriculture has evolved from a fringe movement philosophy to a well accepted, if not widely employed, practice in China (Ma and Li, 1987; Ye, 1988; Li and Min, 1999; Shi, 2002b).

Development history and key policy initiatives

Sustainable agricultural development is a political issue in China and within existing resources the government has declared a series of national policy initiatives, which are crucial for the development of Chinese ecological agriculture. 'By government policy- led sustainable agriculture, is meant an approach to sustainability that seeks to achieve a more environmentally sound agriculture through implementing public policies that give producers strong incentives to achieve sound environmental performance' (Buttel, 1993, p. 183). In 1980, the government held the first national conference on agricultural economics in Yinchuan City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, in which the term 'ecological agriculture' was used for the first time in China (NKPA, 1991). In 1983, the government put rational utilization of natural resources, environmental protection and population control as three premises for agricultural and rural development (Hu and Yu, 2000). In 1984, the State Council advocated a more ecologically sound agriculture at the second National Conference on Environmental Protection and stressed that environmental agencies at different levels should co- operate with other governmental agencies to spread ecological agricultural technology and prevent environmental contamination and destruction in agriculture (Ross, 1988). In May 1991, He Kang, former Minister of Agriculture, called a national conference to discuss ecological agriculture issues and draft a nationwide plan to promote ecological farming practices (Cheng et al., 1992). In the same year, developing ecological agriculture was formally listed in China's Eighth Five-Year Plan (1991-95).

In 1992, ecological agriculture was incorporated as a key national policy for China's economic and social development. The central government's Document No. 1 indicated clearly that agricultural development should be focused on low-input, high- efficiency methods and be sensitive to environmental protection (Muldavin, 2000). Early in 1993, the Ministry of Agriculture first established 100 ecological agricultural demonstration districts, and the State Council approved the set up of the Leading Group for Construction of Ecological Agricultural Counties. In 1994, seven government ministries (i.e. Ministry of Agriculture, National Environmental Protection Agency, State Commission of Science and Technology, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Forestry, Ministry of Water Conservation and the State Planning Commission) combined to establish a new ecological agriculture initiative at county level: fifty-one counties1 were chosen to become exemplars of ecological agricultural development, which covers 1.28% (123 000 km^sup 2^) of China's total land area (Li and Min, 1999). In the same year, China's Agenda 21 put forward ecological agriculture as an important approach for China's achievement of sustainable agriculture. Meanwhile, mass media (e.g. television, radio and the press) and professional journals (e.g. Ecological Economy, Rural Eco- Environment, Eco-Agricultural Research, Agricultural Modernization, and Acta Ecologica Sinica) have been involved to promote the development of ecological agriculture in China (Luo and Han, 1990).

Different models expanding on different scales

Chinese ecological agriculture has been practised at different levels with different models. These models are adapted to different ecosystem types and conditions (e.g. mountains, wetlands, drylands), to various kinds of agro-industrial issues and challenges (e.g. poverty alleviation, rural employment) and to the use of different energy resources (e.g. organic fertilisers, biogas). Typical practices include intensive and meticulous farming, irrigation, use of organic fertiliser, multiple cropping, intercropping and inter- planting, biogas digestion of waste, edible mushroom productio\n using crop and animal by-products, chicken waste used as swine feed, rice field fishery, multi-layer fish culture, raising of natural enemies of pests, biological methods of erosion control, shelter forest belt building, rapid production of firewood, agroforestry techniques, biological waste-water treatment, and solar heating (Cai and Smit, 1994b). The wide presentation of a variety of ecological agricultural models and practices in China has reflected the geographic, economic, environmental and ethnic diversity of the country. Actually, it is impossible to find a uniform or easily generalised model or practice that could be applied across the whole country.

Chinese ecological agriculture is characterised by integrated farming systems that apply at different scales, from the homestead garden to the village, county and region (Li, 2001). Since the 1990s, the county (with relatively independent authority in policy- making and administrative management) has become a basic unit for implementing the strategy of sustainable development. A campaign for the development of ecological agricultural counties has emerged and scattered over all provinces and municipalities, except for Taiwan and the Tibet Autonomous Region (Chen, 1995). To spread ecological agriculture widely beyond existing localised successes, the method of exhorting the farmers to learn from a model by studying its techniques and methods, perhaps visiting it, adopting similar techniques and methods and using what inputs they have locally, remains the most commonly employed way to change rural practices in much of China (Edmonds, 1994). These pilot sites have become important bases for research as well as demonstration, diffusion and extension of ecological agriculture to vast areas (see Table 1). By using demonstration projects, farmers have been able to develop the requisite technology and strengthen the capacity at the local and community level to implement the ecological agriculture strategy. However, it is difficult to determine the extent of ecological agricultural adoption in China because of the mixed practices of conventional and ecological approaches. Sun (1993) estimates that only 5% of rural labour forces are involved in ecological agricultural practices.

Optimistic outcomes with Chinese characteristics

The development of ecological agriculture is an important means to realise the coordinated development of environment and economy (State Council, 1996). China's achievements in ecological agricultural practices have been highly praised internationally. For example, since 1984, seven ecological agricultural villages and small towns have received UNEP's Global 500 Awards (Laird, 1992). The Chinese experience has important implications for developing countries, which have a high population density, small per capita agricultural land and complex geographic conditions (Jiang and Shu, 1996). Although the underlying principles in sustainable agricultural development are similar, real practices within or between nations are different. They are only meaningful when tailored to specific ecological, economic, political and socio- cultural settings. Given the different situations between China and Western countries, China's concept and practice of sustainable agriculture have focused on realising high productivity with minimum degradation of natural resources and environment, to fulfil the needs of a growing society (Wu et al., 1989). Ecological agriculture has been developed in accordance with China's ecological, social and economic conditions. It emphasizes the inappropriateness of following Western agricultural models and the importance of reviving the essentials of traditional agriculture (Li, 2001; Shi, 2002b).

Table 1 The development of ecological agricultural pilot units in China

In 1994, the Chinese government selected 51 counties as pilot sites to practise ecological agriculture methods. These pilot areas focus on the comprehensiveness of all factors: utilization of natural resources; management of environment; and development of people. This is done by introducing total functioning technology, developing systematically responsible institutions, and cultivating ecological vivid culture (Wang and Yan, 1998). As a result, these 51 counties have had a favourable environmental improvement, e.g. forest coverage is 3.7% higher than before, and soil erosion and the expansion of deserts are under control. The gross domestic product (GDP) and the annual growth of rural residents' net incomes of these 51 counties is 2.2 percentage points and 1.5 percentage points higher than that of the national average, respectively (China Daily, 2001).

Chinese ecological agriculture gives high priority to the diversified structure of agroecosystems, the integration of different agricultural sectors and agro-processing industry at the farm and village level, the use of intensive external inputs, and the instigation and intervention by the government (van den Bergh and van der Straaten, 1997). It takes advantage of a big population to overcome the disadvantage of relatively small resources per capita, and makes up for the deficit in scientific expertise and capital with the rich experience of traditional agriculture (Laird, 1992). Initial results indicate that farmers could take full advantage of the natural productivity, reduce the resource use, avoid overuse of agrochemicals and improve production efficiency through increased recycling of nutrients and matter (see, for example, Luo and Han, 1990; Sun, 1993; Jiang and Shu, 1996). A key aim of Chinese ecological agriculture is to pose an alternative to the 'petroleum agriculture' of the West and develop new, more environmentally friendly energy sources (Sanders, 2000). During this process, biogas projects have been widely constructed to solve rural energy shortage. By the end of 1994, there were about 5.43 million rural households in China which have enjoyed the benefits of biogas technology (Zhang, 1995).

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ECOLOGICAL AGRICULTURE

The sustainability of agricultural systems does not rest merely on ecological sustairiability. As Heckt (1987, p. 5) emphasises, '[t]he results of the interplay between endogenous biological and environmental features of the agricultural field and exogenous social and economic factors, generate the particular agro-ecosystem structure.' It is important to realise that the conditions needed for ecological agricultural development are created in the socio- political sphere through policy, institutional and behavioural changes. However, little attention has been paid to analyse the specific political, economic, and social conditions necessary for the successful adoption, implementation and extension of ecological agriculture. This situation highlights the necessity to study how broad Chinese political economic structures intertwine or articulate with localities to create particular practices. It also illustrates the urgency to narrow the gap between agricultural policy rhetoric and reality in practice rather than maintain the status quo.

Targeting pressing problems

Chinese development strategies look at their relation to traditional culture and philosophy as well as material and physical conditions (Glaeser, 1987). 'Solutions that are aimed at helping the environment without helping rural economies to grow and become less poor will, in the end, neither meet environment goals nor be sustainable' (Vosti and Reardon, 1997, p. 15). As Cai and Smit (1994a, p. 301) suggest, 'for agriculture to be sustainable it must be compatible with the socio-political environment within which it operates. . . . The economic and technological environment greatly constrains the feasibility or viability of agricultural activities.' This means, no matter how technically feasible and potentially ecologically beneficial a new agricultural practice may be, it will not be adopted if it does not fit into existing political relations and promise tangible economic rewards. Under the current conditions of rural China, the first requirement for sustainability must be a promise of material advance. Although ecological agriculture represents a change of focus from producing more food to a concern for the ecological consequences of doing so, it has to adequately address the need to feed a rapidly growing population in order to prevent both human and ecological disaster. Accordingly, greater emphases are put on food security, rural industrial employment and income generation options compared to that of developed countries that stress environmental protection and health aspects (Cheng et al., 1992). Ecological agriculture can be seen as a vehicle for the transition of the rural economy from subsistence and local self- sufficiency to a more diversified and market-oriented system tied more closely to regional and national objectives.

Trade-offs in policy-making

As the evolution of an agricultural system is a socio-cultural construct as well as a biophysical phenomenon, it is necessary to analyse the policy milieu (i.e. the political, economic and social conditions which characterize the agricultural development). A comprehensive examination of the agricultural policy system has to first identify changes in political climate and associated political decisions about agriculture, the policy objectives and instruments applied, and ideological changes in the society at large. The immediate problems faced by Chinese decision-makers are mainly economic and political rather than environmental. As Vosti and Reardon (1997) point out, policy-makers in developing countries treat growth and poverty alleviation as top priorities, and relegate environmental concerns to secondary status. Ecological agriculture attempts to seek balance between the extremes. It requires a consideration of the trade-offs between sustainability and other development objectives among, as well as within, the differen\t levels of the agricultural hierarchy (Conway and Barbier, 1990). Trade-offs mean denying sustainability at a particular scale in order to achieve it at other levels. There is no system that could be sustainable at all levels (Wolf and Allen, 1995). At this stage, environmentally sound activities will only be adopted if they make economic sense to farmers. The temporary loss of production during a transition to ecological agriculture may seem less tolerable. If tradeoffs do exist between production and environment, China may be forced in the immediate term to give greater weight to achieving production than environmental goals, otherwise social instability would emerge (Cheng et al., 1992).

To maintain political and macroeconomic stability, Chinese policy- makers avoided large-scale reform experiments by experimenting on a small scale at the local level, and only after the experiment was deemed successful would a transformation policy be introduced over a broad geographic area. What decision-makers actually do in practice is to restrict themselves to one or a few objectives at a time, often initially disregarding social and environmental issues. At the early stages of development, the government offered incentives favouring maximum aggregate economic growth rather than balanced regional development. These practices imply a production-oriented local perception of agricultural sustainability. It is important to note that the current mainstream agricultural practices in China are so heavily dependent on conventional inputs that a quick move away from them would almost inevitably lead to immediate production reductions (Cheng et al., 1992). It would be impossible to feed, even at subsistence levels, 1.3 billion Chinese without large chemical inputs in agricultural production. In this sense, it would be immoral to refuse use of chemical inputs because it would undermine national food security. Since the pressing problem is to increase production for food self-sufficiency, the continued use of chemical fertilisers in ecological agriculture is justified on the grounds that the social costs (e.g. the instability resulting from reduced food production) might far outweigh the ecological benefits of non-chemical use in agriculture (Shi, 2002b).

Market orientation versus government intervention

Since 1978, the Chinese economy has realized a favourable economic performance while transforming itself towards greater reliance on market institutions. During the transition era, there has been a gradual shift from farmer-state to farmer-market relations and an increasing emphasis on market regulation of agricultural production. This change is coupled with a decline in the power of participatory collective institutions at a local level and the receding role of the central government. (Muldavin, 2000). Increasing off-farm job opportunities have offered additional cash income and economic security to households. However, this shift of control over land and resource management decisions from collectives to markets has also led to less sustainable production practices. In a market economy, farmers are forced to make decisions based on existing economic realities rather than on ecological principles. Moreover, farmers claim that today's school fees, healthcare, other necessary services and inputs to agriculture force them to generate more cash income. Consequently, more and more farmers will shift to specialty crops, oriented to elite markets, as a way to exploit economic opportunities (Altieri, 1989).

New market opportunities may lead, or force, farmers to seek short-term profits and pay less attention to keeping their agriculture in balance with the ecological conditions. Ensuing problems (e.g. over-exploitation of natural resources) have led to a major argument against reliance on market mechanisms to ensure long- term sustainability. In this regard, government has a particular responsibility to compensate for this market deficiency. As Thiers (2002, p. 357) points out, 'the success or failure of market-based policy approaches will be heavily influenced by the specific political economy in which they take place.' The advantages of socialism will show up not so much in the management of larger monocultures, but in the planned heterogeneity of an ecologically rational agriculture (Levins, 1986). Ecological agriculture is a social movement, and government support is essential because, at the initial stages, farmers do not have the resources to invest in this alternative practice. The purpose of these incentive schemes is to help farmers to eventually become self-reliant on the resources of their own and the community to practise ecological agriculture. The challenge facing policy-makers is to incorporate the value of ecosystem processes into the traditional marketplace, thereby supporting farmers to employ both economically and environmentally sustainable practices.

It has been recognized that farmers have to be persuaded to adopt ecological agriculture as a sound economic proposition rather than on environmental claims alone (Jing, 2000). The recent emergence of the niche markets for green food2 in China has increased ecological agricultural practitioners' confidence in the market's capacity to support and possibly strengthen their mode of farming. The higher price for ecolabelled products has encouraged farmers to adopt environmentally friendly production processes. This also indicates that policy initiatives for encouraging more ecological agriculture practices must include strategies that encourage consumers' preference for green products. The adoption of ecological agricultural practice is a social learning process which can be facilitated and enhanced through appropriate education programmes, institutional frameworks and policy contexts. In this process, government plays a crucial role in the policy formulation and the adoption of this sustainability enhancing production system through its political economic mechanism (Shi, 2002a). Government advocacy has the effect of drawing in more conventional farmers into ecological agricultural practice.

MAJOR OBSTACLES AND EXTANT PROBLEMS

Ideological constraints

Past experiences have proved the difficulty of translating the scientific research results into political action. Although sustainable development as a goal has legitimised Chinese leaders' rhetoric, environmental and resource constraints do not carry much weight in Chinese decision-making. According to the State Council (1994), only when the economic growth rate reaches and is sustained at a certain level can poverty be alleviated, people's livelihood improved and the necessary forces and conditions for supporting sustainable development be provided. The political appeal of the rhetoric of ecological agriculture (i.e. maintaining reasonable levels of productivity while using less environmentally damaging inputs) is evident. However, only limited changes were realised within the current Chinese political economic structure largely due to the following contradictions between:

* Existing ideological framework of Marxist orthodoxy and changing practices in the real world;

* Mandatory planning (administrative mechanisms) and market mechanisms;

* Government interference and individual initiative;

* Interest groups that have benefited from the reform and those groups that have lost some advantages; and

* Introduction of a competitive environment and people's behaviour patterns based on egalitarianism and dependency on the state (Zhu, 1990).

The ideology of the Chinese government continues to have a strong influence on agricultural and environmental policy. Currently, the state and market, instead of community and ecology, dominate the ecological agricultural development in China. Environmental protection and conservation continue to have a lower priority than political stability and economic growth, which resulted in long- term damage to the resource base, economy and society. Moreover, the neglect of environmental concerns may be justified in an 'environmental Kuznets curve' that purports to show that environments get worse at low levels of economic development and then get better as a certain average income is surpassed. This single-minded pursuit of economic development is both a cause and effect of the wide-reaching economic reforms that have been implemented in China for more than two decades (Hershkovitz, 1993).

Limits of institutional arrangements

Since 1978, the household responsibility system (HRS) has become the basic unit of production and consumption in rural China. The priority of HRS was to make profit and increase farmer income. This is fundamentally different from the ecological agriculture which makes production expansion and labour absorption capacity the priority. Consequently, this institutional arrangement has restricted the adoption of ecological agriculture due to a marked reduction in central government's investment in agriculture. Moreover, the central government's ability to finance ecological reforms is likely to be weakened by several factors: the decentralization of tax collection to local government; the profit- making orientation of government authorities; their political preference for investing in jobs rather than ecology; and the social costs of rising open unemployment (Amsden et al., 1996). Thus, rhetorically adopted sustainable agricultural development has been confined and compromised within existing macrocconomic policies and institutions that favour productivity. Institutional constraints and remaining structural rigidities have caused policies to produce unintended outcomes. Farmers operating within the HRS make decisions mainly according to market signals, and give less consideration to community values. In addition, the dispersed and small-scale land units limit the creation of a rational economic structure and the public action necessary for resource cons\ervation and ecological projects (Qu et al., 1997). The separation of ownership and use rights to land means many farmers are reluctant to make long-term investments in property.

Any government attempting to transform its traditional agriculture must recognize that in addition to adapting the farm structure to meet the demand for increased production, profound changes affecting the entire social, political, and institutional structure of rural societies will often be necessary. These changes highlight the relationship between political-economic institutions and agricultural policy and development. Imperial (1999, p.460) points out, 'most institutional change appears to be path dependent and incremental rather than totally reconstructive and destructive. It often involves a series of small steps with low initial costs. Because the process is incremental and sequential, early successes can be achieved before participants need to make large investments. This can make it easier to get political support.' In this sense, new institutional functions may emerge without making radical changes in the structure of existing institutions. Approaches that refine the HRS and strengthen rural collective and cooperative institutions may be promising.

The inadequacy of national policy initiative

China's determination to carry out sustainable agricultural development strategy was officially acknowledged in China's Agenda 27, following the Rio Conference of 1992. Experience demonstrates that it is much easier to design policies that promote sustainable development at the national level than to implement these priorities through governments' top-down development approaches. National agricultural planning and policy has usually failed to take into account diversity and serious environmental problems, mainly because of political and institutional constraints. The central and provincial governments are responsible for setting general policy guidelines and providing technical and financial support, while county governments play a supervisory and coordinative role for local management according to specific ecological and economic conditions. Although central and provincial government policy settings outline the broad steps that need to be taken to make the transition to ecological agriculture, their actual on-ground implementation is problematic. When faced with inadequate central government funding, county level officials increasingly view the farmer and local resources as the primary means of raising revenue (Muldavin, 2000). As environmental protection appears as an added cost of economic growth, it becomes secondary on local governments' agendas. This has contributed to the rhetoric of state obligation to rural areas. A political and economic setting or mechanism docs not yet exist that can continuously provide incentives to farmers to practise ecological agriculture using their own initiative. As a result, many pro-sustainability agricultural policies are strong on paper rather than on the ground. As Glaeser (1987, p. 6) points out, 'knowing the nature of the problem and the conceptual solutions makes little difference without the capacity to implement the policies in the face of conflicting interests and uncertainties, and without analyses of the results of current efforts.'

An evolutionary perspective stresses the fundamentally complementary nature of bottom-up and top-down approaches. Bottom- up relations create a permanent flow of creativity and new knowledge, while top-down relations establish control and security (van Griethuysen, 2002). Only by encouraging the peasants and indigenous groups to create their own mechanisms to overcome poverty will it be possible to move in the direction of sustainability. They must be allowed to assume responsibility for their own social organization and their local institutions must be legitimixed' (Barkin, 2001, p. 3598). The development of ecological agriculture must take into account both local and national objectives. In other words, its success depends on the analysis of each level in the agricultural hierarchy, both in its own right and in relation to the other levels above and below. Farmers' choice between using biological technologies or agrochemicals is based on their knowledge, local market orientation, and government policies. A pragmatic and realistic response to rapid economic changes and the consequent appropriate adaptation become crucial elements in agricultural sustainability.

Farmers must be involved and individually responsible for the innovations that are introduced and not simply handed down from above. It is important to note that required changes connected with a shift to ecological agricultural practices can never be lasting if they are imposed in an authoritarian way. This perspective suggests that local control over resources, local participation in decision- making and the empowerment of local people should be the top priorities in the bottom-up policy initiative. The strength of ecological agriculture relies on the participation of farmers who are the most appropriate people to develop new management practices and to experiment with changes in their farming systems (Chambers, 1993). Participation implies a process of respecting and drawing upon local communities' own understanding of, and interactions with, the natural environment. Conventional development discourse has silenced the voices and cultures of rural people, defining their knowledge, practices, and experiences as impediments to, rather than as resources for, economic development. In contrast, ecological agriculture regards local knowledge as vital to the reconstruction of an alternative agriculture and gives credence and respect to the workable practices that already exist in the traditional repertoires of many farmers (Harris et al., 1995). The proposal for bottom-up policy initiative has recognized the importance of integrating local and micro-level objectives with macro-level concerns in the development of ecological agriculture. Therefore, for informed policy decisions, it is important to evaluate different policy alternatives in a systematic fashion according to ecological, economic and social dimensions of agricultural sustainability.

POTENTIAL INFLUENCE

Increasing rural employment

In China, approximately one quarter of the total rural labour force is unemployed (Li, 2001). A particular merit of ecological agriculture is to intensify grain production systems and at the same time expand livestock and other farm-related enterprises. For example, in 1997, township enterprises produced total added value representing nearly 60% of the gross rural social product and employed 130 million people (Mu, 1999). The development of ecological agriculture offers special promise for absorbing China's growing labour force (Cheng et al., 1992). According to Sun (1993), labour absorption in pilot areas of ecological agriculture has increased by 10-20% compared with other areas. Ecological agriculture can be practised at hierarchical levels: the farm level, the ecosystem level (e.g. catchment) and at major geopolitical levels (e.g. county, province or nation), and is not necessarily confined to small-scale operations and projects (e.g. field or farm level) (Luo and Han, 1990). In order to achieve a satisfactory growth rate of rural output it is usually necessary for much economic activity to take place above the level of the individual farm household (Nolan, 1988). With relatively scarce capital and land, and surplus rural labour, China should carefully consider whether substituting capital for labour makes economic sense (Prosterman et al., 1998; Carter, 2000). The Chinese historical experience has shown that a land substituting system or nexus of technical improvements in agriculture (irrigation, better varieties, improved skills) could raise output without economies of scale of the kind that tends to drive people off the land. Agricultural improvements based un technical changes of this kind are therefore more likely to provide a base for long-term rural development in China than are those which fit into the Western model's rationalising, labour substituting technical system (Bray, 1992). An important effect of ecological agriculture is that more labour can be absorbed, provided that labour substitutes for capital in order to sustain economic development.

Complementing conventional agriculture

Contemporary Chinese agriculture is characterised by the coexistence and complementarity of conventional agriculture and ecological agriculture. Ecological agriculture has provided an opportunity to analyse how it can influence the dominant conventional agricultural practices. Compared with conventional agricultural practices, ecological agriculture is a kind of production that is likely to be smaller scale, less capital- intensive and more labour-intensive. In terms of yield, ecological agriculture at present tends to be slightly less productive than high input conventional agriculture (Cheng et al., 1992). Ecological agriculture is based on a set of ecological rational principles and is generally more environmentally benign than most petrochemical- based systems. As the natural ecological processes increasingly substitute for external inputs in agricultural production, its negative impacts on the environment might be reduced. Ecological agriculture can be viewed as a synthesis of biological-organic agriculture and chemical agriculture (Yang, 1988). To the extent that ecological agriculture is seen as a potential solution to existing problems, it will increasingly challenge, if not replace, the conventional agricultural practices

CONCLUSIONS

Based on a core of traditional agriculture and supported by advances in modern science and technology, Chinese ecological agriculture has provided a kind of integrated agricultural development pattern targeted at the goals of food security, rural e\mployment, natural resource management and environmental protection. It has been widely recognized as a site-specific approach for reconstruction of China's agriculture towards sustainable development. Sustainability has been a widely held ideal. China's experience suggests that people in each society must seek their own ways to achieve it. China does not have the luxury of practising organic agriculture as pursued by some Western farmers and agricultural environmentalists. Methods, techniques and materials used in ecological agricultural development must be tailored to specific conditions and resources available. Therefore, ecological agriculture applies to specific sites, and is a management-intensive, resource-conserving process that considers both productivity and sustainability. It values the local empirical knowledge of farmers, and the sharing and application of this knowledge to the common goal of sustainability. Sustainable agricultural development needs the active participation of local people as well as financial and technical support from higher authorities and institutions. The further development of ecological agriculture in China depends on appropriate institutional arrangements and policy settings which are consistent with the prevailing social, political, economic and cultural contexts. Needless to say, Chinese agriculture still has a long way to go in tackling the challenge of bridging the gap between the rhetoric and practice of sustainability.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank Roderic Gill, John Pigram and John Wolfenden for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Int. J. Sustain. Dev. World Ecol. 10 (2003) 195-210

1 Fifty-one ecological agricultural counties in China are Beijing (Daxing, Miyun); Tianjin (Baodi); Shanghai (Chongming); Hebei (Qianan, Guyuan); Shanxi (Hequ, Wenxi, Zhongyang); Inner Mongolia (Wengniu teqi, Helin geer, Kela qinqi); Liaoning (Dawa, Changtu); Jilin (Fuyu, Jilin suburban, Dehui); Heilongjiang (Baiquan, Mulan); Shantlong (Linzi, Wulian, Linqu); Anhui (Yixian, Quanjiao; Jiangsu (Dafeng, Jiangdu); Zhejiang (Deqing); Jiangxi (Maoyuan); Fujian (Dongwan); Guangdong (Dongwan, Chaozhou); Guangxi (Wuming, Dahua); Hunan (Cili, Changsha); Hubei (Jinshan, Honghu, Yicheng); Henan (Lankao); Shaanxi (Yan'an): Gansu (Jinehuan); Ningxia (Guyuan); Sichuan (Meishan, Hongya, Dazu); Yunnan (Simao, Lufeng); Guizhou (Sinan) Xinjiang (Shawan); Hainan (Wenchang); Qinghai (Huangyuan). Source: Eco-Agriculture Research, 1994, 2(1), 8

2 In China, green food generally refers to products that come from ecological agricultural farms (minimising the use of chemicals); organic food refers to products that come from organic agricultural farms (on which absolutely no chemicals are used in production).

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Tian Shi

Policy and Economic Research Unit, CSIRO Land and Water, Glen Osmond, Australia

Correspondence: Tian Shi, Policy and Economic Research Unit, CSIRO Land and Water, PMB 2, Glen Osmond, SA 5064, Australia.

e-mail: tian.shi@csiro.au

Copyright CRC Press Sep 2003

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