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The Journal of Peasant Studies

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Soil as a site of struggle: differentiated riftsunder different modes of farming in intensivecommercial agriculture in urbanizing China

Huijiao Xu & Jingzhong Ye

To cite this article: Huijiao Xu & Jingzhong Ye (2021): Soil as a site of struggle: differentiatedrifts under different modes of farming in intensive commercial agriculture in urbanizing China, TheJournal of Peasant Studies, DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2021.1907352

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2021.1907352

Published online: 06 Jul 2021.

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Soil as a site of struggle: differentiated rifts under differentmodes of farming in intensive commercial agriculture inurbanizing ChinaHuijiao Xu and Jingzhong Ye

Department of Developmemt Studies, COHD, CAU, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

ABSTRACTThe metabolic rifts resulted from the rural urban divide andagricultural commodification require remedy with syntheticfertilizers, multiple labour practices and other methods of repairin urbanizing China. The case study in North China shows thatthe metabolic rift unfolds in an uneven way in different farmergroups with differential labour patterns and livelihood strategies.Simple commodity producers have generally greater potentialthan capitalized family farmers to ameliorate soil by internalizingexternal squeeze. This implies contradictory processes and acomplex dialectic of destruction and replenishment which makessoil a site of struggle and metabolic rift an increasinglyambivalent notion. This contradiction between intensive ‘modernagriculture’ and its complex material base will ultimately limit thesustainable development of agriculture, which requires afundamental change of the productivist paradigm and a return toecological principles.

KEYWORDSmetabolic rift; metabolicrepair; soil fertility;sustainable agriculture

Introduction

In the Global South, on-going urbanization and agricultural commercialization have beengenerating metabolic rifts – gaps in nutrient cycling that impoverish soils and accumulatewastes. How to feed growing urban populations in a sustainable way has become a greatchallenge for people in the Global South. China has the world’s largest population, butpossesses only 0.10 ha of arable land per capita. This is only about half of the globalaverage (0.19 ha per capita). In urbanizing and industrializing China, an investigation ofhow the Chinese people, after perhaps 30 or even 40 centuries, have maintained theirsoils to produce sufficient food for such dense populations is imperative.

Chinese development in recent decades has stimulated the flow of nutrients from ruralto urban areas, which inevitably exacerbates the metabolic rift in contemporary China. Onthe one hand, hundreds of millions of people have been drawn out of the countryside intowage labour since the 1990s. The number of migrant workers reached 288 million in 2018,60 percent of whom worked outside of their home townships (Migrant Workers SurveyReport 2018). Therefore, there is an increasing and large-scale preponderance of town

© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

CONTACT Jingzhong Ye yejz@cau.edu.cn No.2 Yuanmingyuan West Road, Haidian District, Beijing, People’sRepublic of China

THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIEShttps://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2021.1907352

populations in China who disturb the circulation of matter betweenman and the soil, thusviolating the conditions necessary for lasting fertility of the soil and ‘provok[ing] an irre-parable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism’ (Marx 1981, 949). On theother hand, the internal nutrient cycling within a single farm tends to be severed and dis-articulated. China is undergoing a meatification process and adopting an ‘industrial meatregime’ (Schneider 2017), in which a high-protein diet has become increasingly popularand the agricultural structure has been transformed (Huang and Peng 2007). As a conse-quence, the concentration of animals enabled by ‘confined animal feeding operations’has broken down the physical connection between the animals and land, transformedthe historical ‘closed-loop agro-ecosystems’ (Bernstein 2010, 90) and thus inaugurateda ‘second break in the cycling of nutrients’ (Foster and Magdoff 2000, 51).

Von Liebig (2015 [1859], 253), in his famous letter XIII, admired Chinese agriculture,noting that ‘the fields of the Chinese cultivator have preserved their fertility unimpaired,and in continued vigour ever since the days of Abraham, and of the building of the firstPyramid in Egypt’. King (2002 [1911]), in his famous book Farmers of Forty Centuries, alsowrote a very generous assessment of Chinese farmers in the early twentieth century ashaving an unimpaired inheritance with a momentum acquired through 4000 years andefficiently maintaining soil fertility without the great movement of cargoes of feedingstuffs and mineral fertilizers. However, in urbanizing China, many farmers have simplifiedtheir farming systems and externalized their means of production, and rural land isbearing the costs of this modernist notion of development in the process of ‘agro-indus-trialization’ (Schneider 2017). How do Chinese farmers maintain soil fertility to feed urbanpeople during this new round of rural transformation (China’s agrarian transition)? Whatare the implications of the introduction of capitalized forms and relations of productioninto Chinese agriculture on the metabolic relations? This concern leads us to the concep-tual framework of the metabolic rift and brings us to probe its material realities.

This study employs the concept of the metabolic rift as a ‘generic’ feature of the rural/urban divide and the commodification of agriculture, and as a way of conceptualizing theexternalization of nature. Focusing on an agrarian context where farmers are all engagedin commercial agriculture and subjected to competitive pressures, we show the varyingways employed by specific farmer groups with different labour patterns to managesoil. This case is not about proving the metabolic rift so much as using the conceptualframework of the metabolic rift to detail the contingencies involved in managing ecologi-cal relations within a competitive market context in the changing Chinese agrariancontext. This case can situate the struggles over the tensions, and help to understandthe bottom-up efforts, distortion and problems encountered when preserving land ferti-lity, and set the stage for further bridging the gap between farmers, social and naturalscientists, as well as policymakers, for a sustainable future.

On the metabolic rift

Metabolic rift as a conceptual framework within the capitalist context

The ‘metabolic rift’ offers a lens through which to view the rupture in nutrient cyclingbetween town and country and the rupture in the metabolic relation between humanand nature. Soil fertility crisis, as typical evidence of a metabolic rift, is neither a new

2 H. XU AND J. YE

nor a territory-specific problem. It was as early as the 1820s and 1830s that pervasive con-cerns about ‘soil exhaustion’ led to a virtual panic in western countries (Foster 2000).External natural inputs, e.g. the massive guano trade from Peru and Chile (Foster 2002),and spatial fixes, e.g. the rise of Californian agriculture and American agro-industrializ-ation (Clark and Foster 2009; Moore 2017), were repeatedly adopted to tackle the soil fer-tility crisis in past centuries. This systemic tendency to reconfigure space in a way thatfacilitates the perpetual expansion of the volume, rate and distance of material flows(Napoletano, Paneque-Gálvez, and Vieyra 2015) creates a new geography of wealth andpower through a ‘cheap nature strategy’ (Moore 2017, 295). However, when almost theentire globe was subsumed by expanding capitalization, a transition from extensive colo-nial farming to intensive farming was inevitable. Liebig’s nineteenth-century research onsoil science stimulated the development of synthetic fertilizers while he argued that thesupply of one or a subset of fertilizers into the soil would speed up the depletion of theoverall stock of mineral matter due to the net loss of mineral substances taken by crops.As Marx stated,

All progress in capitalist agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the workers,but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a given time is aprogress towards ruining the more long-lasting sources of that fertility. (1977, 637–38)

Liebig was one of those who were deeply concerned with this crisis, and warned that, iffollowed persistently, ‘the inevitable result will be, at no distant date, the ruin of theirfields, and the impoverishment of their children and posterity’ (von Liebig 2015 [1859],179). To maintain soil fertility, von Liebig (2015 [1859], 177–79) argued for the system ofrestitution and compensation by giving back to the fields the conditions of their fertility,as opposed to the spoliation system of farming which alienated the crops and deprivedthe fields of the conditions for their reproduction. Liebig himself suggested that ‘all theproprietors of the soil in every great country ought to form a society for the establishmentof reservoirs where the excreta of men and animals might be collected, and convertedinto a portable form’ and returned to each farmer the portion arising from produce orig-inally supplied by him to the town (von Liebig 2015 [1859], 268). In an era of globalization,the division of labour around the world and the disconnection between production andconsumption makes his recycling scheme rather difficult if not completely unrealistic.

Following Liebig, Marx (1981, 949) revealed that capitalism has provoked an ‘irreparablerift’ just as it estranged and objectified labour, due to the antagonism between town andcountry. The crisis of soil fertility in European andNorth American agriculture and the greatadvances in soil science allowed Marx to transcend the scope of agricultural improvementto make an ecological critique of capitalist agriculture (Foster 2000). He urged that restor-ation of the rift could only be achieved outside of capitalist relations of production (e.g. viacollective and rational control over human metabolism with nature):

Associated producers govern the humanmetabolism with nature in a rational way, bringing itunder their own collective control instead of being dominated by it as a blind power; accom-plishing it with the least expenditure of energy and in conditions most worthy and appropri-ate for their human nature. (Marx 1981, 959)

In other words, Marx proposed a way to reject productivism and open up alternative, col-lectively owned production–distribution systems. Marx’s ecosocialist politics and his

THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 3

insistence on co-operation and collective action indicate that the struggle is to changesocial practices to halt the power of private property and commodity production, andto restrain relations between humans and nature to ensure ‘more sustainable socialmetabolism’ (Harriss-White 2019).

Nevertheless, when theorized as a feature of capitalism, metabolic rift could run a riskof over-simplifying the real processes and dynamics since varying practices throughwhich people labour on land might evade metabolic rupture and mediate capital’seffects on environments (Zinda and Kapoor 2019). This differentiation across capitalistcontexts is part of what motivates Schneider and McMichael’s (2010) critiques thatboth the organization of labour and the practices of labour (through which farmers main-tain, degrade or enrich soil) are to be considered in analyses of the relations betweencapitalism and nature, particularly when agriculture is the analytical lens.

A hypothesis: differentiated rifts under differentiation of farming forms

Different modes of farming might have heterogeneous effects on the trajectories of meta-bolic rift. Capitalized forms of agricultural production reveal inevitable and irreparablemetabolic rifts – which, however, could be mitigated by various approaches, techniquesand practices for maintaining and further developing soil fertility. According to our fieldresearch in California (USA) and China, ‘organic’ fertilizers made of animal wastes andother varieties of materials are widely used by entrepreneurial farmers to amelioratesoil quality.

The peasant mode of farming and petty commodity production may also restituteand compensate the land by various agroecological practices. Agroecological practiceshave the potential to rework the metabolic rift between society and nature, reconnecttown and country through the reconfiguration of local food regimes (García-Sempereet al. 2018; Wittman 2009), and re-link the social and the ecological (Schneider andMcMichael 2010). It is argued that agroecology changes the social relations of pro-duction in agriculture, seeks to regain control over the labour process and addressesthe appropriation of value by external capital groups, e.g. through re-organizing theresource base, re-patterning a range of external relations, and transforming the identi-ties of its practitioners (van der Ploeg 2020, 6). It has also been observed that agroeco-logical methods could intensify agricultural production without damaging the naturalresources (Nicholls, Altieri, and Vazquez 2016), and could be considered an appropriatestrategy to palliate the nitrogen deficit that results from organic farming (de Molina andCasado 2017). Using the case of the Northern Frisian Woodlands and its farmer-ledresearch (a cycle of animal manure–soil–feed and fodder), van der Ploeg (2020, 11–13) shows the great potential of agroecology to achieve new knowledge, improvedmanure and soil biology, higher use-efficiency of nitrogen, and a better whole-farmequilibrium. Cuba’s agriculture is another typical case for metabolic restoration, notsimply through different techniques but by a transformation of the socio-metabolicrelations of food production (Clausen 2007).

The highly sophisticated agroecological system developed by Chinese, Korean andJapanese peasants in the twentieth century was not thought highly of by manywestern scholars. King, an agronomist and former US Department of Agricultureofficial, made a voyage to China, Korea and Japan in the early 1900s, to study how the

4 H. XU AND J. YE

extremely dense populations of the Far East could produce large quantities of food tofeed themselves century after century without depleting their soils when the US hadfound it impossible to use mineral fertilizers as a means of maintaining soil fertility. Heobserved that almost every foot of land was made to contribute material for food, fuelor fabric by Chinese farmers and acknowledged the systematic efforts by Chinesefarmers to maximize their limited cultivable land through massive human labour inputsand rational utilization of ecological relationships among farm plants, animals andpeople, e.g. using manure of all kinds (human excrement, livestock manure, greenmanure) and all cultivated lands to contribute what they could towards the fertilizationof cultivated fields:

Almost every foot of land is made to contribute material for food, fuel or fabric. Everythingwhich can be made edible serves as food for man or domestic animals. Whatever cannotbe eaten or worn is used for fuel. The wastes of the body, of fuel and of fabric wornbeyond other use are taken back to the field; before doing so they are housed againstwaste from weather, compounded with intelligence and forethought and patiently laboredwith through one, three or even six months, to bring them into the most efficient form toserve as manure for the soil or as feed for the crop. It seems to be a golden rule withthese industrial classes, or if not golden, then an inviolable one, that whenever an extrahour or day of labor can promise even a little larger return then that shall be given, andneither a rainy day nor the hottest sunshine shall be permitted to cancel the obligation ordefer its execution. (King 2002 [1911], 8)

Therefore, when we consider the metabolic rift in the arena of agriculture, we shouldremove the tags we attached to the specific mode of farming and focus on both theorganization of labour and the practices of labour.

The transformation of the metabolic rift in contemporary China’s agrariantransition

The development of factor markets inaugurated the penetration of capitalization intoChinese agriculture in recent years. Forrest Zhang and Donaldson (2010) argued thatthe introduction of capitalized forms and relations of production would lead to the differ-entiation of the Chinese peasantry along two directions: maintaining the household asthe unit of production but commoditizing its reproduction, or commoditizing labourand organizing labour beyond the household into production. They identified six formsof nonpeasant agricultural production, which differ from the peasant mode of productionin one aspect: that their reproduction is fully integrated into markets and based on com-modity relations. These six nonpeasant forms of production are: commercial farmers(simple commodity producers), entrepreneurial farmers, contract farmers, semiproletarianfarm workers with Chinese characteristics, semiproletarian farm workers and proletarianfarm workers.

These types may not fully represent the heterogeneity of Chinese agriculture in its tran-sition, but they do offer us a preliminary theoretical lens to probe into the multiple waysof organizing land, labour and capital in Chinese agriculture. This article mainly focuses oncommercial farmers (simple commodity producers who maintain the household as theunit of production but commoditize its reproduction) and entrepreneurial farmers (whoorganize labour beyond the household into production), and tries to probe into howdifferentiated forms of farming affect the dynamics of the metabolic rift.

THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 5

The agroecological practices mentioned above, adopted by Chinese farmers and docu-mented by King, were to some extent disrupted by the collective period (1950s–1970s)but more or less re-emerged in the 1980s. Nonetheless, with the urbanization andmassive migration since the 1990s, the commodification of agriculture and the changinglivelihood strategies and lifestyle of farmers have gradually broken the on-farm nutrientcycling and transformed the closed-loop agro-ecosystems. Despite the persistence ofthe peasant mode of farming in some parts of China, the integrated crop and livestockfarming system has been gradually replaced in broad rural areas. External inputs are incor-porated into the farming systems, and human wastes are not recycled and applied to thefields in many places, while massive animal wastes produced by specialized livestockfarms are wasted in the rural areas (Schneider 2017).

As a result, the changing farming patterns are transforming the metabolic relations inChina’s agrarian transition. Furthermore, metabolic rift formation is quite uneven at a localscale. It is observed that varying livelihood strategies differentiate input use in an area ofsouthwest China where farming is partially commercialized (Zinda and Kapoor 2019),while peasant farms tend to build their own ecological capital, consolidate their resourcebases and strive for autonomy and sustainability (van der Ploeg, Ye, and Pan 2014). In thisstudy, we enter this stream of thought at a different point in agricultural commercializa-tion and a differentiated agrarian context, where farmers are mainly growing a single cashcrop and are subjected to competitive pressures within a regional food system but none-theless have room to manage soil in varying ways.

With a discussion of a case in North China where the local ecosystem has been sim-plified to a dominant monoculture, we endeavour to detail how different modes offarming affect the contingencies of metabolic rift and show how capital-intensive agricul-ture reproduces itself in China’s agrarian transition. Since we were unable to obtain dataon the transformation of the soil properties over time, our focus is on soil managementpractices which could have the potential to mitigate (contain, or even worsen) deterio-rated soil conditions. We suggest that the development trajectories of the metabolicrift do not just follow a binary path – either deepening or repairing it – but tend to becontingent, diversified and dynamic. As Zinda and Kapoor (2019) argued, close attentionto the differentiated practices through which people work with markets and the soil isvital to understanding how agrarian transformations unfold in China.

Site, methods and results

This study brings us to the southern corner of Hebei Province in North China. Across thisregion, farmers are increasingly engaging with markets. Huang Village,1 an administrativevillage with a population of 1109 people and 268 households, is one of the specializedgreenhouse cucumber villages located in Guantao County. We visited Huang Village inJuly (for a week) and October (for a month) 2017 and revisited in March 2019 for aweek. We interviewed middlemen who purchased cucumber from Huang Village andspent half a month visiting two other cucumber villages in Liaoning Province and Shan-dong Province (reported by middlemen as sources of cucumber supply) in November2017 to understand the market relations involved. We conducted 45 semi-structured

1This is a pseudonym.

6 H. XU AND J. YE

interviews, with 23 individuals from farmer households, two village officials, 13 middle-men and seven local market brokers.

Our case study has three parts. First, we look into the transformation of the localfarming system since the 1990s, with a special focus on the organization (land, labourand means of production) of cucumber production. Then we show evidence of a soil fer-tility crisis and another potential rift (underground water depletion). Next, we focus on thevarying responses of farmers to tackle this land fertility crisis and consider the effective-ness of those measures.

Transformation of the local farming system

Commodification of landUnder the Chinese Household Responsibility System (HRS), since the 1980s, local farmerhouseholds are allowed to contract land and manage agricultural production on theirown initiative (that is, farmers own land contract rights and use rights) while the farmlandremains in the ownership of the rural collective. Following egalitarian principles, farmlandin Huang village was distributed equally to local households in the early 1980s and redis-tributed four times by 2011. Despite support from local governments for greenhousecucumber production in the late 1980s (e.g. technology training, tax exemption, low-interest loans), only 10 peasant households joined in this new project due to the hugeinvestment required and the market risks (10 greenhouses were built, covering 0.5 mueach2). Since the 1990s, some young people had migrated to the large cities whiletheir family members stayed at home for agricultural production, and those whostayed in the village were mostly engaged with grain-based production (e.g. corn,wheat). Meanwhile, a few villagers gradually shifted to greenhouse production whenthey accumulated enough wealth for investment.

Two main factors constrained local farmers from engaging in greenhouse production.On the one hand, the fragmentation of farmland (small pieces of land located at differentlocales) led to difficulty in coordinating land for building greenhouses. On the other hand,local farmers tended to use their own savings to build greenhouses which required a hugeinvestment (a greenhouse with cultivation area of 1 mu cost around US$8000–10,000 in2011, twice or three times the annual income of a local rural household). Therefore, only afew farmers could afford it, and even those who could had to save the money incremen-tally. Over two decades, the supply of cucumber per day in the peak period increasedfrom 25,000–30,000 kg in the 1990s to 90,000 kg in the late 2000s, which also attractedmore and more middlemen from neighbouring counties and big cities in Hebei, Henan,Shandong and Shanxi provinces.

Since 2012, the state-initiated projects (in the name of ‘modern agriculture’, ‘agricul-tural modernization’ and ‘targeted poverty alleviation’) have dramatically acceleratedthe expansion of greenhouse cucumber production in Huang village and neighbouringvillages within a short period of time. The County Development Office, Bureau of Veg-etable Affairs and other county-level departments worked with the village collective totransfer land (use rights) from local farmers, then built hundreds of greenhouses on itwhich were later sold to the villagers below cost. They encountered resistance from

21 mu = 1/15 ha.

THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 7

those who were unwilling to transfer their land but finally resolved the situation throughpersuasive and administrative methods (Luo, Andreas, and Li 2016). The government alsoworked with local banks to offer loans with low interest to individual farmer households.As a result, farmers in Huang Village had much easier access to land (use rights) and theownership of the greenhouse itself once they purchased the collectively built green-houses, while the land contract rights were still held by the previous land contractholders. That is, while they have to pay rent for the greenhouse land, they can recoupthe rent of the land they transferred to the village collective at the same price. It was esti-mated by local market brokers that the supply of cucumber in the peak period reached180,000 kg per day in 2015, which was more than twice that of 2007. Until 2016 nearlyall of the arable land had been used for building greenhouses, and there was nofurther space to expand greenhouse production within the community.

Through land concentration and collective regulation, local farmland was, to someextent, commodified and redistributed among local farmers. Those who were courageous(or, more often than not, had more savings) took the loan and expanded their greenhouseproduction in a timely fashion. Migrant workers returned to the village in 2012 and pur-chased the greenhouses with their own savings (and/or loan), for they were afraid oflosing the chance of agricultural production in the future since nearly all available landhad been transferred to the village collective and used to build greenhouses. As aresult, 70 to 80 percent of local households seized this opportunity and became simplecommodity producers (commercial farmers) who cultivate no more than 3 mu of green-house land,3 and mainly use family labour for production without hiring wage labouror only hiring labour on very busy days. They have access to land and own their ownlabour, capital and products of labour. Their profit, mainly coming from self-exploitation,overlaps with both wage labour and small firms (Harriss-White 2018). They are exploitedby sources of external commercial capital that realize valorization through relations ofpartial appropriation without changing the form of the family farm, for they are unableto eliminate land and nature as the basis of rural production (Goodman and Redclift 1986).

Another 20 to 30 percent of local households grew into entrepreneurial farmers (capi-talized family farmers) who can make full use of family labour and hire long-term wagelabour simultaneously for production during the growth cycle, and who cultivate 4–10 mu of greenhouse land.4 The favourable cucumber market situation in 2012–2014stimulated this differentiation, and those who expanded the scale of their farming inthis period were fortunate enough to repay their debt quickly. Nevertheless, the cucum-ber market has experienced a dramatic decline since 2015, due to the expanding green-house production in Hebei, Shandong, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia and other provinces inNorth China, supported by the central government and the ‘corn destocking’ policythat demotivated grain producers (and thus shifted to vegetable production). Becauseof this price crash, some large greenhouse holders who missed this ‘golden period’were trapped in debt due to the diminishing returns after 2015.

3It was reported by local farmers that three government-built greenhouses (each with a cultivation area of 0.9∼1 mu)represented the maximum farming scale for family labour (without wage labour).

4There were also several entrepreneurial farmers in neighbouring villages who accumulated capital from non-agriculturalactivities and invested in greenhouse production. They rely completely on hired labour for production and integratecommodity relations into all areas of reproduction (including labour and land).

8 H. XU AND J. YE

As a result, as the first and foremost means of production for greenhouse production,land was redistributed and to some extent concentrated and became a commodifiedresource. The entitlement-based land rights provide a base for local farmers to continueindependent household production, and the commodification of land promoted by gov-ernment projects enables thedifferentiation of local peasantry along two typical directions:maintaining the household as unit of production but commoditizing its reproduction orcommoditizing labour, and organizing labour beyond the household into production.

Commodification of labourBoth the capitalized form of production and petty commodity production are enabled bya labour market constituted by left-behind elderly (especially women) over 60, most ofwhom are part-time farmers from local and neighbouring villages. With little pension(less than US$100 per month), wage labourers still grow grain crops (e.g. corn orwheat) and make full use of the slack season to earn extra income for family livelihoods.Since greenhouse-holders have contingent demands for wage labour in the cucumbergrowth cycle, their labour time varies from two to 10 hours a day (and their wages varyfrom US$0.90 to US$4.80 per day).

The development of wage labour markers enabled and accelerated the differentiationof local peasantry into simple commodity producers who take on hired labour to sup-plement family labour, and entrepreneurial farmers whose unit of production transcendsthe household boundary and increases in scale. Due to the deepening division of labourin the neighbouring regions, especially as more and more places entered specialized pro-duction with government support, the wage labour shortage became an issue for localfarmers. Faced with increasing wage costs, entrepreneurial farmers (capitalized familyfarmers) introduced less labour-intensive (meaning also, more often than not, less profi-table) products (e.g. tomato) into the farming system and downsized cucumber pro-duction. Comparatively simple commodity producers are less affected by wage labourshortages since they rely more on family labour.

Commodification of means of productionBefore the government intervention projects over the last decade, local farmers tended tohave multiple livelihood strategies, e.g. migration, multiple crop production, smallbusiness (e.g. food trade), livestock production, etc. Since greenhouse cucumber pro-duction is very labour intensive, both petty commodity producers and capitalizedfamily farmers have to remove multiple livelihood activities and simplify their farmingsystem to produce cucumbers. As Table 1 shows, the greenhouse land is intensivelyfarmed from September/October to June/July the next year, with only 2–3 months offallow and land preparation in the summer. Besides, local farmers no longer recyclehuman and animal wastes within a single farm due to the lifestyle transformation andincreasing opportunity costs of raising livestock over the recent decades.

As a result, the simplified agricultural system relies on external energy flows to replen-ish the depleting soil while transporting a large volume of nutrients, through soil as themedium, to meet the demands of the urban population. Synthetic fertilizers, livestockmanure from neighbouring counties, and pesticides are the main inputs. Overall, localcommodity production is tamed to fit industrialization, and the ways in which thesocial and the material are patterned for farming tend to be market oriented.

THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 9

Table1.

Season

alcalend

arforcucumberprod

uctio

nin

Huang

Village.

Mon

ths

Septem

ber–

Octob

erNovem

ber

Decem

ber

Janu

ary

February

March

April

May

June

July–A

ugust

Arrang

ement

Plantin

gGrowingandharvest

Pulling

outthe

plants

Fallow(killingthebacteria),and

land

preparation

Chem

icalfertilizersandlivestock

manure

(times

applied)

1

Solublechem

icalfertilizerswith

irrigation(times

applied)

03

33

55

55

0

Pesticide(times

applied)

04

44

44

43

3

Source:Field

work.

10 H. XU AND J. YE

Externalization of cucumber marketIn the late 1980s and the early 1990s, local cucumber farmers had to transport their harvestto distantmarkets. In 1996, the village collective established a local cucumbermarketplaceand later attracted middlemen from neighbouring counties and farther locations in Hebei,Shanxi, Henan and Shandong provinces and Beijing. As a result, not only has the expansionof commercial capitalization into local agriculture failed to end smallholding householdproduction, it in fact has offered opportunities for commercialized small family farms toremain viable and benefit from market growth. The rapid and massive dissemination ofInformation and Communication Technologies (ICTs) within the realm of agriculture, andthe construction of complex highway systems, have physically integrated the interior(Schwartz 2010 [1994]) and enabled cucumber middlemen to mobilize cheaper resources(land, labour and products) across time and space through bringing farmers from differentplaces into competition at regional or even national levels.

Mr Wang, a cucumber middleman from Xingtai City who has been active in the localcucumber market since the 1990s, tends to articulate resources across time and spacefor higher rates of return and controllability; for example, he buys open-field cucumbersin QZ County in Hebei Province in July and August, shifts to SX County and then to GXCounty for cucumbers cultivated in plastic arched tunnels in Shandong Province fromSeptember to November, and then moves to Huang Village, Guantao County, in HebeiProvince or LY County in Liaoning Province for greenhouse cucumbers until the end ofJune in the next year (see Table 2). Whenever there is a cheaper supply elsewhere, heshifts his focus and ‘votes with his feet’.

This strategy transfers the pressure of competition to the production side, loweringand homogenizing farmgate prices in different places under different natural and geo-graphical conditions. Just as Mr Wang said,

in the local village market, the higher price you can afford, the more stable supply of cucum-ber you have. However, when you compete in the wholesale markets, the winners are thosewho can offer the lower price to the clients. Some decades ago, neither the farmers nor themiddlemen were well informed, but today the situation of local farmers is getting muchworse, for their knowledge of market is limited to neighbouring places, while we competein the whole province.

As a result, the hierarchy and control exerted by external markets dictates local prices,concentrates the value in the centre while diffusing the price volatility risk to themargins, and thus makes commodity producers subordinate to commercial capitalization.It was found that cucumber farmers in Huang Village obtained only 33.5 percent (25percent if calculating the hired labour costs, rent of land and costs of means of pro-duction) of the value when local cucumbers were transported to supermarkets inBeijing via XFD Vegetable Wholesale Market (see Table 3). As a response to the double

Table 2. Seasonal cucumber supply calendar of one middleman in XT vegetable wholesale market.

Months October November December January–JuneJuly–August September

Origins ofsupply

SX County inShandong

GX County inShandong

Huang Village(Guantao County);GX County inShandong

Huang Village(Guantao County);LY County inLiaoning

QZ Countyin Hebei

SX County inShandong

Source: Field work.

THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 11

squeeze (market fluctuation and increasing costs of the means of production), localfarmers choose to produce (and thus appropriate nutrients from soil) as much as possibleto maximize labour income at the cost of soil degradation (deepening the metabolic rift).

Mr Yan, a 56-year-old petty commodity producer, who lost his non-agricultural livelihoodresource in the cities andwas unable to expand production in 2014, had only one greenhouseand could notmake full use of family labour. For his household, labourwage per family labour(who were involved in the greenhouse cucumber production) per day was around 52 yuan5

(US$8.4), far less than the labour wages per day of an adult worker who migrated to thecities (US$24). His labour incomewas reduced in 2015 due to the stagnation of the cucumbermarket, but improved slightly (while remaining far below thatof a youngmigrantworker) afterhe doubled his production and made better use of family labour in 2016 (see Table 4). Com-paratively,MrWu, a 40-year-old large-scale capitalized family farmer, andMrLuo, a 48-year-oldmedium-scale capitalized family farmer, had better labour income than a young migrantworker due to their appropriation of value created by wage labour, while their profitmargin was also squeezed because of the deterioration of the cucumber market since 2015.Faced with the fluctuating market prices, Mr Luo argued that ‘it is no longer wise toproduce for quality but quantity in each growth cycle which is critical for our livelihoods’.

In analogy with Marx’s theory that industrial competition leads to the improvement ofoverall productive forces and the alienation of labour, agricultural competition (here werefer mainly to specialized cash crop production) brings us the abundant supply of agri-cultural products, the alienation of land (and the deepening of the metabolic rift) and thesemi-proletarianization of labour.

Evidence of metabolic rifts from farmers’ observations

In the simplified farming system, the first and foremost challenging problem is soil degra-dation and diminishing returns despite the application of energy, minerals and organic

Table 3. Market share (gross) in the cucumber commodity chain from farm gate to supermarket (6December 2017).Participants Market share (yuan/kg) Cumulative price (yuan/kg)

Farmers 2.68 (33.5%) 2.68Brokers in the local markets 0.28 (3.5%) 2.96Transportation companies/highway 0.16 (2%) 3.12XFD Wholesale market (entrance fee etc.) 0.08 (1%) 3.20Middlemen in XFD wholesale market 0.38 (4.8%) 3.58Supermarket in the fifth ring of Beijing 4.38 (54.8%) 7.96Others 0.04 (0.5%) 8.00

Source: Field work.

Table 4. Average returns (labour income, yuan) per family labour (who are involved in the cucumbergreenhouse production) per day in Huang Village.Year Mr Wu Mr Luo Mr Yan

2014 241 194 522015 170 188 432016 146 120 71a

Source: Field work.aThis farmer built a new greenhouse in 2016 so that he and his wife could make better use of family labour.

5Yuan is the Chinese currency, 1US$=6.5 yuan (approximately, varies by time).

12 H. XU AND J. YE

materials. Urbanization and industrialization of agriculture accelerates nutrient transpor-tation to the cities and exacerbates the nutrient deficiency of the soil. Local farmersreported that the greenhouse built in 2013 produced 120,000–150,000 kg/acre of cucum-bers for the first few years, but only 90,000–120,000 kg/acre in 2017 (despite greateramounts of chemical fertilizers being used). This downward trend is documented bymost farmers and especially those who have been growing greenhouse cucumbersince the early 2000s.

Soil hardening, decreasing soil organic material and deteriorating soil structure rep-resent the metabolic tensions in intensive commodity production. Large quantities ofchemical fertilizers and frequent irrigation (with soluble fertilizers) constantly add fuelto these tensions and the appropriation of nutrients. Mr Zhai, a 41-year-old capitalizedfamily farmer, observed that the effective living soil layer in his greenhouses declinedfrom 1 m (in the early 2000s) to only 20–30 cm (in 2016), and the air permeability ofthe soil became poor.

Underground water depletion is further evidence of the metabolic rift. Local farmerswitnessed the decline of groundwater levels from 40–50 m in 2004, to 50 m in 2008,and then to 60–70 m in 2014. Nevertheless, this underground water crisis would notstop commodity production. Just as Mr Wan said,

we are certainly concerned about it, but it is useless and nothing helps, since it is the businessof nature, an issue out of human control. I don’t worry about the future in 30 or 40 years, for Icannot survive that long. Some neighbouring regions are forbidden to grow wheat to protectunderground water, we are definitely for this action, since wheat is food crop and isn’t worthmuch, but I would resist anybody who prevents us from growing cucumber.

This distortion of intergenerational justice represents their economic rationale for sustain-ing their current livelihoods.

Responses to metabolic rifts

Intensive commodity production nurtures ecological contradictions, while also inspiringmultiple responses to tackle the soil fertility crisis. The state has launched a series ofschemes and pilot projects in recent years, as part of the broad national strategy of ‘eco-logical civilization’ (Hansen, Li, and Svarverud 2018; Jiang et al. 2019), to recycle agricul-tural wastes (e.g. reintegrate livestock farms with crop farms) and to develop the industryof organic fertilizers. Meanwhile, a new business of transporting livestock manures bymanure brokers and a new industry of organic fertilizers, trace element fertilizers, and bac-terial fertilizers has emerged. As for local farmers, they make several efforts to sustain farmproduce and maximize household income, discussed in the section below.

Common methods

1) Using more chemical fertilizers, which were regarded as indispensable despite provingless and less effective in sustaining the yield. Local farmers are not aware of the under-lying processes of nutrient flows but assured of the fact that their farm produce woulddecrease by one-third without sufficient chemical fertilizers. Mr Wan, a capitalizedfamily farmer, provided a very interesting metaphor: ‘without that much fertilizer,

THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 13

how could the cucumber grow for you? Likewise, without enough food, could youhave enough energy to work?’ However, as Liebig (2015 [1859]) pointed out, theactivity of minerals is increased within a given time by application of salts ofammonia, but the soil will be more rapidly exhausted by their use unless theremoved mineral matter is restored to it somehow. That is, using more fertilizerswithout replenishing most of the trace elements at the same time will not improvesoil fertility but speed up the depletion of the soil.

2) Using livestock manures purchased from manure brokers. Since the holistic relationshipsamong crops, animals and soil had been severed since the 1990s, local farmers have topurchase livestock manure (without, most of the time, appropriate processing) frommanure brokers. This physical connection between crop farming and animal husban-dry meets the demands of both parties and initiates a new round of division of labourwithin the neighbouring counties. It is reported by local farmers that the farm producewould decrease by one-third without this livestock manure.

Among the different kinds of manure, chicken manure is regarded as the strongestin terms of fertility, and thus is the most popular. Despite this, it can exacerbate soilhardening, intensify plant diseases (e.g. due to the viruses and germs it contains),and has always released detrimental gases and killed seedlings in winter. Compara-tively, cattle manure is ‘slower’ in releasing its nutrients but could help amelioratethe soil. Since soil health became a top concern, local farmers have tended to usechicken manure and cattle manure simultaneously in the same year or alternately indifferent years. This combined use of manures addresses the contradictory goals ofmaximizing household income while at the same time protecting soil health.

3) Using corn straw, rice chaff, millet bran and other natural resources from neighbouringvillages or markets farther away. These are widely adopted by local farmers toimprove soil quality and reduce dependency on chemical inputs.

4) Using organic fertilizers,6 trace element fertilizers or bacterial fertilizers produced by enter-prises. Recommended by media and experts, these new fertilizers were applied to thefields and tested through trials by local farmers. Since the effectiveness of these newfertilizers may not be tangible, visible or measurable within a short period of time, amajority of local farmers reported that no dramatic changes occurred with their use.There were also some farmers who suffered great losses after using the organic ferti-lizer of poor quality made of unfermented chicken manure. Due to this uncertainty,some farmers reduced the amount used, or even removed this type of manure fromtheir fertilizer portfolio.

Differentiated practices of labour

Except for the above external fertilizers, there are also varying practices of labour that playa key role in protecting land from degradation and secure its continuance. Since there aretwo months for fallow in the summer (which enables seedlings strong and healthyenough to survive diseases in the winter), both simple commodity producers and capita-lized family farmers endeavour to ameliorate soil in this period by family labour (to savemoney, they do not hire labour for soil improvement).

6There are different kinds of organic fertilizers, e.g. made of agricultural wastes or industrial wastes.

14 H. XU AND J. YE

Generally speaking, large-scale capitalized family farmers have more land but less timeto preserve soil fertility and have to invest more in external energy to sustain farmproduce. Medium-scale capitalized family farmers also rely on massive external energyflows but can devote more time than large-scale capitalized family farmers to protectingsoil health and improving soil conditions.

Mr Wu, a 40-year-old large-scale capitalized family farmer, used savings to build his firstgreenhouse in 2006, and a second greenhouse in 2008. In 2013, he used savings to pur-chase three government-built greenhouses and quickly enlarged his production. In2014, he used savings (220,000 yuan) and bank loans (170,000 yuan) to buy another fivegovernment-built greenhouses, thus becoming one of the four largest capitalized familyfarmers in the area. He has witnessed the declining soil fertility over the last decade inhis greenhouse land: ‘before 2011, the yield per day per acre could reach 1800 kg in thepeak period, but declined since 2014, and no longer exceeded 1200 kg in the same period’.

He was concerned about the deteriorating soil quality; ‘three greenhouses are sufferingsoil hardening which prevents water from infiltration, another two greenhouses start toshow the sign of deteriorating soil conditions. Tomatoes are resilient to this soil conditionwhile cucumber could not’. To maintain the farm produce, he increased the application ofchemical fertilizers and livestock manures (especially chicken manures) year by year (seeTable 5). He tried organic fertilizers and other new fertilizers in 2016 which didn’t makemuch difference (and thus were removed from his fertilization practices) according tohis observation. To improve the soil quality, he used spades (which could turn up thesoil down to 40 cm) for deep tillage and then used a tractor (which could turn up thesoil down to 20 cm) to level the upper soil. However, due to the large scale of his farmand the relatively limited time, he cannot properly manage all of his land and tends toimprove degraded land in a single year. He said, ‘before 2012, I had sufficient time tocare for land, but now I can’t’. In contrast, Mr Luo, a medium-scale capitalized familyfarmer, combined most of the external fertilizers and spent more time improving soil con-ditions in all of his greenhouse land every year. Mr Luo reported that he had experienced amuch less dramatic deterioration of soil conditions and a more stable supply of farmproduce than Mr Wu.

Comparatively, simple commodity producers – the majority of local farmers – havemore labour time but less land compared with capitalized family farmers, whichenables them to improve soil health effectively and in a timely fashion. According tolocal farmers’ observation, simple commodity producers tend to have obviously highercucumber yield and better product quality than capitalized family farmers with thesame amount of external fertilizers but different labour inputs.

Mr Yan, a 56-year-old petty commodity producer, lost his job in the city and returnedhome in 2013. He bought a greenhouse (cultivation area 0.9 mu) in 2013 and built aplastic arched tunnel (1 mu) in 2014 since the investment required was much less thanfor another greenhouse. He built a new greenhouse (cultivation area 1.1 mu) to makebetter use of family labour when he could afford it in 2016. Meanwhile, he grows corn(5 mu) for food and sale. He attached great importance to land and said, ‘we rely onland for sustaining livelihoods, land is our source of life’. He believed that the soil wasrich in nitrogen and other macro elements due to massive synthetic fertilizers usedevery year, but deteriorating in terms of soil structure. Therefore, he and many otherpetty commodity producers used fewer synthetic fertilizers and livestock manures than

THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 15

Mr Wu, Mr Luo and other capitalized family farmers (see Table 6). Despite fewer externalinputs, his yield was no less than those of the latter groups. To improve the soil structurewhile sustaining farm produce, he combines chicken manures, cattle manures and cornstraw. Furthermore, he endeavours to ameliorate all of his land every year throughdeep tillage (by tractor and simple tools) which could enable the plants to survive onemore month. He also uses some hand tools to loosen the upper soil layer immediatelyafter finishing work on the fields. He reported no obvious change in his farm produceover the recent decade and better quality farm produce than that of other ‘big farmers’.

To summarize, external energy sustains intensive commercial agriculture for continu-ous appropriation of nutrients and thus a large volume of agricultural produce, whiledifferentiated practices of labour contain, more or less, the metabolic rift. Differentlabour patterns indicate contingent metabolic relations between farmer and nature(land). Notwithstanding the efforts listed above, there is a net effect of deepening meta-bolic rift epitomized by diminishing returns despite increasing application of externalenergy for most capitalized family farmers and for some simple commodity producers.

Discussion

Containing the metabolic rift for intensive commodity production: doublemovement of agroindustrialization and repeasantization

In urbanizing China, the on-farm cycling of nutrients King admired in Farmers of Forty Cen-turies has partially, if not entirely, disappeared. Greenhouse production, as a typical formof ‘modern agriculture’ to feed the expanding urban consumption of vegetable and fruits,

Table 5. Measures to contain soil fertility and improve soil quality by local farmers in Huang Village,2016.

Mr Wu (large-scalecapitalized family

farmer)

Mr Luo (medium-scalecapitalized family

farmer)

Mr Yan (small-scalepetty commodity

producer)

External fertilizers1. Chemical fertilizers √ √ √2. Livestock manure √ √ √3. Corn straw, rice chaff, millet bran andother natural (organic) resources(purchased from neighbouring villages orexternal markets)

√ √ √

4. Organic fertilizers, trace elementfertilizers, Bacterial (bio) fertilizers(produced by enterprises)

√ √

5. Human waste (processed by local sewagetreatment plant)

√ (trial)

Practices of labourDeep tillage by machine √ √ √Deep tillage by hoe/spade √ (alternately, by

year)√ √

Loosen the upper soil layer with specifichand tools

√

Fallow (killing detrimental bacterial in thehot summer)

√ √ √

Source: Field work.

16 H. XU AND J. YE

comprises highly intensified farming through massive amounts of external inputs andmultiple practices of labour, most of which were inherited from the peasant mode offarming. Both simple commodity production and capitalized forms of productionrequire remedying with external energy (e.g. human and animal wastes, synthetic andmultiple new fertilizers) to sustain the constant nutrient flows to the distant cities. Mean-while, declining soil fertility compels simple commodity producers and capitalized familyfarmers to seek methods of repair through differential degrees of ‘self-exploitation’ as asurvival mechanism. Due to partial autonomy from markets, self-exploitation enablesthem to survive despite competitive pressures from external markets.

This combined use of external energy and practices of labour represents a doublemovement to effectively appropriate nutrients (deepen the rift through agroindustrializa-tion) while protecting the land from depletion for autonomy and sustainability (repair therift through repeasantization). Here, repeasantization does not mean that commodity pro-ducers move away from a high degree of market integration and strengthen the peasantnature of the rural economy; rather, we refer to the consolidation of the peasant principle(van der Ploeg 2008) when farmers face the double squeeze from external markets andinternal social dynamics (e.g. increasing wage costs) as well as soil degradation problemsin order to construct the conditions that allow for agency. Due to the lack of concrete soildata, we might run the risk of oversimplifying if we conclude that simple commodity pro-ducers achieve better performance in restoring the metabolic rift and higher farm produceper unit of land than capitalized family farmers. However, based on local farmers’ narra-tives, we reach a hypothetical argument that simple commodity producers (and a more

Table 6. Cost–benefit analysis of multi-scale cucumber producers in Huang Village, 2014.Mr Wu (large-scalecapitalized family

farmer)Mr Luo (medium-scale

capitalized family farmer)

Mr Yan (pettycommodityproducer)

Cultivating area (mu) 9 5.1 0.9Cost (yuan/mu)Renta 2600 1250 789Seedlings 2500 2570 2500Synthetic fertilizers 5080 6055 4410Livestock manures 2600 2600 2000Organic fertilizers, trace elementfertilizers, bacterial fertilizers, cornstraw (free)

0 508 0

Pesticide 1800 1000 2000Hired labour 6200 3400 750Plastic film 1560 1460 1573Irrigation 310 290 120Ploughing 30 50 100String 30 70 50Maintenance of well 50 60 50Cost per mu 22,760 19,263 14,342Gross income per mu 42,321 47,059 45,000Net income per mu 19,561 27,796 30,658Gross profits 176,049 141,760 38,001b

Source: Field work.aBecause the greenhouse walls may cover different areas, and each household has a different amount of contracted landaccording to the family size in the last round of land distribution, we calculate the rent in the following way: [areacovered by the whole greenhouse minus contract land area] * rent (1000 yuan/mu)/real cultivation area.

bThe gross profit of farmer Yan listed here includes the net income from greenhouse cucumber production (0.9 mu), netincome from plastic-arched-tunnel cucumber production (1 mu) and net income from corn production (5 mu).

THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 17

equitable distribution of land and capital, rather than the policy of encouraging farmlandaggregation) could promote better soil management.

Multiple directions of metabolic rift: contradictory forces of deepening andrepairing the rift

With the technological development of transport and communication, local farm produceand thus soil nutrients are taken to distant urban areas, which exacerbates the metabolicrift and the inequalities between rural and urban. Chemical fertilizers and livestockmanure are the main external inputs that furnish soil nutrients and enable the continuousappropriation. However, this massive use of chemical fertilizers may exacerbate thedegradation of soil and deepen the metabolic rift, and livestock manure from specializedfarms (and various relevant manure management practices) may have opposite effects onsoil health (ADB Completion Report 2010; Yang, Gu et al. 2019; Yang, Zhang et al. 2019), atopic that deserves both scholarly and public attention and collaboration since state regu-lation of manure management is inadequate. Meanwhile, multiple labour practices reflecta differentiation of livelihood strategies and have implications for (partial) metabolic res-toration by specific groups at specific times.

As a result, there tends to be intense struggle and, thus, contradictory forces both todeepen and to repair the metabolic rift beneath the soil – the processes of which,however, are unknown to the land tillers. These multiple directions of metabolic rift res-onate with farmers’ rationality to maximize household income in the short term while pro-tecting the land to make it produce for the long-term future.

Differentiated rifts: different modes of farming and their implications formetabolic rift

Urbanization and industrialization in China usher in agrarian transition and the emer-gence of multiple modes of farming. The destructive effects of the externalization of agri-cultural production on soil health tend to be mitigated by various practices of labour. Ourempirical analysis shows that simple commodity producers tend to invest more labour inland (soil protection) based on their household endowments than do capitalized (family)farmers. Based on our field observations and farmers’ feedback, we reach the tentativeconclusion that different modes of farming indicate differentiated metabolic rifts,which requires further quantitative research.

Conclusion

This study employs the conceptual framework of a metabolic rift to detail the contingen-cies involved in managing ecological relations within a competitive market context,accounting for how farmers with different labour patterns who are subjected to competi-tive pressures and a cost–price squeeze within a regional food system manage soil invarying ways, and hence contribute to the metabolic rift to different extents. The combi-nation of commercialized inputs and practices of labour (which are often seen as back-ward by official narratives) makes soil a site of struggle through which local farmersendeavour to internalize the external squeeze and maximize labour income in the long

18 H. XU AND J. YE

term. Metabolic rift, as an increasingly ambivalent notion, involves multiple causes and‘contradictory processes’ in a complex dialectic of destruction and replenishment(Harriss-White 2019), revealing an on-going and variegated process, which requiresclose attention to and scientific studies of the nutrient flows and pathways both qualitat-ively and quantitively.

In China’s agrarian transition, differentiated modes of farming have heterogeneousimplications for the metabolic rift. The dynamics of capitalization induce a deepeningof the metabolic rift and farmers tend to compensate for (‘repair’) this through specificlabour practices while simultaneously using large volumes of external resources. Simplecommodity producers, who own their own labour and capital, tend to have more roomto improve soil health, whereas capitalized family farmers, whose labour and land useexpands outside household endowments while keeping the form of the family farm,have to rely more on external energy flows and devote less time to protecting soilhealth. Therefore, the metabolic rift unfolds in an uneven way in different farmergroups with differential labour patterns and livelihood strategies. A clearer picture ofsoil processes in the different contexts within which different groups of farmers interactwith nature are to be developed in future studies to understand the differentiated meta-bolic consequences. The diminishing returns (that occurred despite the application ofmassive external energy, minerals and organic materials) also warn us that to restorethe metabolic rift not only requires new knowledge and technology (e.g. varieties of fer-tilizers), but depends on the way farmers use them, and for what purposes.

The scheme of modern agriculture (‘high input–high output’ commercial farming)promoted by the state (Ye 2015), carried out in Hebei and other provinces in NorthChina, also requires further investigation. It is called ‘modern’ for it is highly dependenton the commodified means of production, which ‘flows through’ soil and ultimatelybecomes commodities to be sold in the shortest time at a high yield. Nevertheless, ithas degraded the foundation for sustainable development by destroying the health ofthe soil, while the practices of labour, regarded as ‘backward’, have been playing a criticalrole in ameliorating soil. In other words, modern elements from external markets and so-called ‘backward’ practices of labour are not exclusively dualistic, but are interrelated inthe development of intensive commercial agriculture. Furthermore, modern agriculturebased on land aggregation might have huge implications for soil health and thus forthe metabolic rift.

It is this contradiction between intensive ‘modern agriculture’ and its complex materialbase that will ultimately limit Chinese sustainable agricultural development. The main-stream market system and the pattern of accumulation determine the power relations,modes of wealth creation and distribution, and modes of farming. Therefore, repairingthe metabolic rift would require a fundamental change of the productivist paradigmand the market system and a return to ecological principles.

There are four aspects of our analysis which constrain us in fully addressing the impli-cations of our argument. First and foremost, our focus is on soil management practicesthat may have the potential to mitigate (or worsen) deteriorated soil conditions. A lackof data on soil conditions limits our ability to illuminate the real processes happeningin the soil layer; thus, we are unable to evaluate the impacts of varieties of fertilizationpractices and differentiate practices of labour on soil. Second, we lack historical data toreveal the evolution of the metabolic rift in this specific region. Third, our analysis

THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 19

focuses on specialized commodity producers, which are different from grain producers,agribusiness that controls large-scale territories of land, smallholders who are subjectto contract farming arrangements, etc. Much work remains to be done to understandthe multiple ways farmers in China cultivate crops and manage soil. Finally, whetherthe metabolic rift could be repaired/restored remains underexplored and unclear,7 andthere is an urgent need for collaborative research among agricultural scientists, socialscientists, farmers and local officials to understand the nutrient metabolism in the soil.

Acknowledgements

We thank Philip McMichael and John Zinda of Cornell University and Barbara Harriss-White ofOxford University for their generous and constructive suggestions on the draft. We are alsodeeply grateful to the local officials and residents in the study locales who shared their time andexperiences with us. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for constructive feed-back on our paper. The authors are solely responsible for any errors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This work was supported by the China Scholarship Council [grant number: CSC201706350152].

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Huijiao Xu is a visiting scholar at Cornell University in 2018–2020, and a PhD candidate at theCollege of Humanities and Development Studies (COHD), China Agricultural University. Her researchinterests include Chinese agrarian transition, land politics, food systems and sociology ofagriculture.

Jingzhong Ye is a professor of development studies and Dean at the College of Humanities andDevelopment Studies (COHD), China Agricultural University. His research interests include develop-ment intervention and rural transformation, rural ‘left behind’ populations, rural education, landpolitics and sociology of agriculture.

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