Roles and Opportunities for Multifunctional Agriculture in China and South Australia
Date
2023
Authors
Song, Bingjie
Editors
Advisors
Bardsley, Douglas
Robinson, Guy
Robinson, Guy
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Abstract
Multifunctional agriculture (MFA) has been widely recognised and applied as a policy goal in several parts of the world, especially in the European Union and China. Elsewhere, notably in Australia and the United States, where there has been little direct policy support, the presence of MFA has been observed in different contexts. It has also been proposed as part of a long-term transition within world agriculture, with a move hypothesised from a dominant productivist focus to a more varied and nuanced conception of agricultural trajectories, including post-productivism, neo-productivism and MFA. Conceptualisations of MFA acknowledge that agriculture involves not only a production function, focused on output of food and fibre, but also other functions, notably socio-cultural and environmental, in the form of rural community development and the agri-environmental ecosystem. MFA can be found on individual farms but also has a cumulative influence at the landscape scale in the form of multifunctional landscapes. In terms of policy, MFA has been used as a tool to address rural development issues beyond standard farm-based production functions but interlinked with socio-cultural, environmental and service sector (e.g., tourism) aspects.
Spatial variations of MFA worldwide may reflect contrasts in policy support, e.g. between countries where agriculture is heavily regulated/supported by government and those pursuing a more market-oriented approach. Referring directly to the contrast, this study examines how MFA has been developed under the two poles of a spectrum of government intervention, using two case-studies, namely China and Australia. Chinese agriculture has been strongly influenced by government policy at all levels (from national to local government) and has explicitly developed policies in support of MFA whereas Australian agriculture exists within the context of a dominant neoliberal policy setting with no direct policy for MFA. Much of the literature on MFA has stressed that major areas for its development have been the peri-urban fringes of major cities, where opportunities for a range of on-farm enterprises and environmental initiatives may be maximised alongside the traditional production function. Therefore, this study has examined MFA in the peri-urban fringes of one city in China, Xi’an (Baqiao and Lintong districts), and one in Australia, Adelaide (the Adelaide Hills). These two study areas have also been selected because they both specialise in horticulture. Hence there is a similar agricultural production function underlying the development of MFA despite other significant differences between the study areas, notably in the farm-size distribution as the average size of Chinese farms is tiny compared with that in Australia. The focus of the research has been on farmers’ decision making and risk perceptions and how these have shaped MFA given the broader context of substantial and little policy support respectively.
Given the focus on famers’ decisions, the underpinning to the thesis is provided by structuration theory, which acknowledges the roles of both human agency and structural constraints in land management decisions. A sequential mixed methods approach has been employed in the Adelaide Hills, which combines quantitative and qualitative data to provide detailed understanding of farmers’ decision making. However, due to restrictions imposed during the first years of the Covid pandemic, it was only possible to use a questionnaire survey in the Chinese study area, as travel to conduct interviews with farmers and key informants was prohibited. Questionnaires were sent to randomly selected farmers who operated holdings in seventeen villages in the Baqiao and Lintong districts of Xi’an (n=191) and in the Adelaide Hills (Adelaide Hills and Mount Barker) (n=75). In both Australia and China, the surveys contained distinct themes, including farmer characteristics and the farm property, agricultural production and marketing, support from government and advisors, protection of cultural heritage, on-farm tourism, perceived risks, factors affecting decision making, and the future of the farm. From those farmers responding to the questionnaire survey in the Adelaide Hills, a smaller group (n = 36) were purposively selected for interview based on their survey responses. This enabled a more in-depth analysis of the decisions behind the development of MFA.
The results indicate that different groups of farmers in the peri-urban settings have contributed to MFA in its various forms. For example, hobby farmers are first-generation, well-educated migrants from the city transferring capital from urban areas to the Adelaide Hills. They have a particular emphasis on pro-environmental actions and/or keep horses, when engaging in on-farm activities. In contrast, part-time farmers often transition from full-time farming while maintaining certain on-farm activities, which can contribute up to half of their household income. Hobby farming provides amenity and environmental functions of agriculture and part-time farming retains an important role in the conventional rural economy.
The concepts of trajectories, path dependence, inertia and lock-in were applied to farms in the Adelaide Hills to investigate how MFA was distributed across different farm types. This emphasised how farmers’ decision making can be shaped by factors that enable or deter changes to a given business trajectory. Applying a two-step cluster analysis to the survey data from the Adelaide Hills, seven different sub-groups of farmers are recognised under two distinctive clusters: one of commercial, productivist enterprises and one largely comprising semi- or non-commercial smallholdings. Along with the different characteristics of the various groups, farm-based tourism, processing, amenity lifestyles, and conservation-related activities greatly contribute to MFA. ‘Lock-in’ effects are present in some farming trajectories, with some beneficial in adapting to changing external environments, but others hindering sustainability.
Factor analysis of mixed data (FAMD) and hierarchical clustering of principal components were employed to examine characteristics of Chinese MFA, through which three clusters were generated, namely traditional (part-time) farming, traditional horticulture with small-scale increases in grain production, and commercial horticulturalists with farm-based tourism. Central government’s concern over food security has encouraged some reversion to cereal growing, and this has enabled part-time farmers to engage with non-agricultural sectors to add to household income. The Covid pandemic has negatively impacted tourism, resulting in reduced tourist numbers and income. Farmers’ adaptive actions include seeking alternative income streams, which is contributing to a more diversified rural economy.
Commercial farmers in both the Adelaide Hills and Baqiao and Lintong districts recognise highly similar risks faced on the farm, namely climate change, economic downturn, and market risks, but generating both similarities and differences in risk adaptation strategies. Australian commercial farmers are expected to be independent regarding risk management under the neoliberal system. Chinese commercial farmers seem more passive in dealing with risks due to the more limited capacity of their smallholdings and their relatively limited educational level. This also reinforces the dependence on external support from government by Chinese smallholders.
Government support plays a critical role in risk management for Chinese farmers, including the less-commercial farmers. Some concerns relate to poor road infrastructure as a corridor connecting producers to sales outlets. There is an obvious contrast between farms utilising government support and those more independent in the Chinese study area. Growers in demonstration zones established by local government have benefited most from government support, while farmers operating outside these zones may find it harder to deal with risks as they receive less direct assistance. It is noted that by following the government guidelines to increase grain production, some of the Chinese farmers are avoiding or mitigating some market risks in a complex Covid-induced economic situation. This thesis investigates the roles and values of MFA in peri-urban fringes in different socio-economic environments and regimes at the individual level, hypothesising that MFA in the evolution of rural development as well as sustainability cannot be ignored. Although the development of MFA is varied and differentiated spatially, MFA makes contributions to building greater resilience for both individual farmers and across whole rural communities within varied political, socio-economic, and environmental contexts.
School/Discipline
School of Social Sciences
Dissertation Note
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, 2023
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