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Characterizing alternative food networks in China

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Abstract

Amid the many food safety scandals that have erupted in recent years, Chinese food activists and consumers are turning to the creation of alternative food networks (AFNs) to ensure better control over their food. These Chinese AFNs have not been documented in the growing literature on food studies. Based on in-depth interviews and case studies, this paper documents and develops a typology of AFNs in China, including community supported agriculture, farmers’ markets, buying clubs, and recreational garden plot rentals. We unpacked the four standard dimensions of alternativeness of AFNs into eight elements and used these to examine the alternativeness of AFNs in China. We argue first that the landscape of alternativeness varies among different networks but the healthfulness of food is the most prominent element. Second, there is an inconsistency in values between AFN initiators and customers, which contributes to the uneven alternativeness of Chinese AFNs. Third, Chinese AFNs are strongly consumer driven, a factor that constrains their alternativeness at present. The inclusion of “real” peasants in the construction of AFNs in China is minimal. This paper adds to the existing literature on AFNs with an analysis of recent initiatives in China that have not been well documented before. By unpacking the dimensions of alternativeness into specific elements, this paper also provides an analytical framework for examining the alternativeness of AFNs especially nascent ones that have not developed a full spectrum of alternativeness.

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Notes

  1. Green food is food quality standard in China that is lower than the organic standard (see Scott et al. 2014).

  2. We believe the “quality turn” is a useful concept in understanding the transformation of China’s food system. However, it demonstrates very different connotations in the Chinese context. We understand the “quality turn” in China as a competitive sphere dominated by consumers but also proactively shaped by a small number of food activists, who are mainly well-educated ecological food producers (typically of urban backgrounds), and organizers of consumer organizations and NGOs pushing forward public education about AFNs and about the food system.

  3. Indeed, even if there is one, the number cannot be accurate, given the rapidly changing landscape of AFNs in China. The fuzzy definition of AFNs also makes it hard to do a national count. For example, some self-proclaimed CSA farms do not have members prepay at all and are merely food delivery businesses.

  4. Interview with the founder of a CSA farm, 6 December 2012, Beijing.

  5. In late 2012, Professor Wen facilitated the establishment of China Rural Construction Institute at Southwest University in Chongqing.

  6. Interview with a CSA farmer, 6 December 2012, Beijing.

  7. Interview with a CSA farmer and farm workers, 1 April 2012, Beijing.

  8. Interview with a CSA farmer from Chongming Island, May 27 2012, Shanghai.

  9. Interview with a Beijing Country Fair farmers’ market organizer, 3 April 2012 and 6 December 2012, Beijing. We identified about 20 organic or ecological farmers’ markets across the country. The frequency, popularity, reputation, and acceptance of these markets differ greatly.

  10. Interview with one of the Beijing Country Fair Farmers’ Market organizers, 3 April 2012, Beijing.

  11. Interview with a CSA farmer, 6 December 2012, Beijing.

  12. Interview with the founder of a buying club in Beijing, 9 April 2012, Beijing.

  13. Interview with a small-scale ecological farmer, 2 June 2012, Fuzhou, Fujian province.

  14. Interview with founders of Green Heartland, 30 April 2012, Chengdu, Sichuan province.

  15. Two other prominent buying clubs in China, the Green League Mums’ Buying Club and the Shanghai Caituan, were founded by and comprised mostly of housewives.

  16. Interview with the founder of Beijing Green League Mum’s Buying Club, 9 April 2012, Beijing.

  17. We have also heard about this ‘weekend farming’ phenomenon in Japan and South Korea (Los Angeles Times 2010; Urban Plant Project Seoul 2010).

  18. Interview with a CSA farmer, 2 June 2012, Fuzhou, Fujian province. The farm tried to collect organic food waste from its shareholders in order to make compost but it got little response.

Abbreviations

AFN:

Alternative food network

CSA:

Community supported agriculture

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada that made possible the fieldwork on which this article is based. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for constructive feedback on our paper.

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  1. Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave. West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada

    Zhenzhong Si, Theresa Schumilas & Steffanie Scott

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Si, Z., Schumilas, T. & Scott, S. Characterizing alternative food networks in China. Agric Hum Values 32, 299–313 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-014-9530-6

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