Scale Challenges in Ecological Transitions
Smallholders, State and Enterprises in Southeast China's Tea Sector
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3111982 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ziwei Zhang (0000-0003-4601-0645), Zhenling CUI Fusuo ZHANG (0000-0002-5928-0575, Graduate School of Design, the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Publication date | 2025-09-12 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Agrarian Change (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1471-0358 • E-ISSN: 1471-0366 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/joac.70040 |
| OpenAlex | W4414590036 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 61 |
Smallholders are commonly viewed as key supporters of ecological agriculture. Paradoxically, in a tea-producing county in Southeast China, local policies aimed at promoting ecological practices failed to engage smallholders and instead ended up favouring large producers. Using Anxi County's pesticide crisis as a case study, this paper analyses barriers to smallholder participation in ecological transitions through a scale framework examining three interrelated sectors: smallholders, agroecosystems, and governance systems. First, smallholder practices are constrained by cross-scale interactions including market forces, landholding patterns and urbanization. Second, scale mismatches between ecological processes and land institutions undermine collective management of shared ecological resources. Third, governing China's multiscale agricultural production system, with its vast number of diverse producers, poses significant challenges in balancing competing interests across different scales. Anxi's case highlights the difficulties of advancing ecological transitions in a smallholder-dominated context
Agriculture · Corporate governance · Ecological systems theory · Economies of scale · Production (economics · Scale (ratio · State (computer science · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Organic Food and Agriculture
Governing the Commons
Agroecology as a science, a movement and a practice. A review
Bringing agroecology to scale
Transforming food systems with agroecology
Land Degradation and Society
Between commons and anticommons
Bottom-up attempts at agroecological transitions in China
Politically directed accumulation in rural China
The geography of sustainability transitions
Against the odds
Why farmers continue to use pesticides despite environmental, health and sustainability costs
Betting on the Big
The Rise of Agrarian Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics
Organic Agriculture in China
Alternative agrifood systems and the economic sustainability of farmers' cooperatives
The Herbicide Revolution in Developing Countries
The concept of scale and the human dimensions of global change
Producers’ transition to alternative food practices in rural China
Pesticides are our children now’
Socio-technical regimes and sustainability transitions
The inverse relationship between farm size and productivity
Are small farms really more productive than large farms
Scaling up agriculture? The dynamics of land transfer in inland China
Effects of land fragmentation on the governance of the commons
Risky subjects
The Theories of “Differential Optimums” and “Vertical Integration” and Their Implications for China
Is There an Agrarian Question in the 21st Century
It just goes to kill Ticos
Scale Mismatches in Social-Ecological Systems
The Political Economy of Cross-Scale Networks in Resource Co-Management
Scale and Cross-Scale Dynamics
Ecological agriculture and rural revitalization
Brewing Contradictions
Is Oil Palm Expansion a Challenge to Agroecology? Smallholders Practising Industrial Farming in Mexico
Agrarian Capitalization without Capitalism? Capitalist Dynamics from Above and Below inChina
Land Transfer and the Pursuit of Agricultural Modernization inChina
The decline and transformation of smallholders in Chinese agriculture
A cog in the capitalist wheel
The debate on food sovereignty theory
Food sovereignty via the 'peasant way
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |