The new urban agricultural geography of Shanghai

Abstract

The new urban agricultural geography of Shanghai Abstract：Agricultural geography has remained largely trapped in a neoclassical economic paradigm in which farm types have been understood to be predominantly products of location and global markets. This paper attempts to subvert this approach by reflecting on the emerging culture of small scale ecological farming in Shanghai. Such farms have been growing in number since 2000, driven largely by the availability of land and an increasing demand for safe and healthy food. While being a rational productivist response to a market opportunity, however, these farms reflect a break with conventional farming, in terms of their size, location and new farmer identities, as well as their socio-cultural relationships with customers and local communities. Using a survey of 45 such farms, the paper illustrates how and where new forms of farming, and the alternative food networks that they support, are colonizing the city. While being redolent of the growth in urban farming in many western cities, farming in Shanghai is driven by private individuals with personal and family, as well as broader community, motives. This suggests that while Shanghai may be experiencing the growth of alternative forms of what might be understood as civic agriculture, those involved are not primarily interested in the civilizing mission ascribed to many such movements. Rather, the new farms are hybrid service businesses in which the sales and marketing skills of the new farmers have allowed them to transform individual customers into members of food networks who form mutual codependent trust relationships that underpin the survival of the farms. Perhaps as a result of this, and despite strong demand for organic food, these new farms face a marginal existence in which business development is constrained as much by the strength and continuity of their food networks as it is by the quality and quantity of food that they can grow.

The Urbanization And Diversification Of Farmland Namlea Village

“…The public perception of the urbanization process is the highest percentage of community structure change. The community sees the change in structure to save problems such as group interest conflicts, the reference of resources until competition between tribes when population growth conditions are higher but not followed by the addition of economic resources [25]. The urbanization process occurs in the change of community structure as well as changes in the interaction pattern where the making element makes uniformity into heterogeneous and the society is increasingly polarized in the interest group and the origin area equation.…”

Does Small-Scale Organic Farming Contribute to the Local Environment—A Case Study in Suburban Shanghai, China

“…Additionally, we used the previous interviews, recorded between August 2014 and July 2016 on these case farms, if the discussions included any unpublished issues about environmental practices. The previous interviews were part of the research into the spatial and cultural connectedness between the ecological producers and consumers published by Liu et al [23] and Ding et al [14].…”

“…One of the three case farms that agreed to interviews for this study is located on Chongming Island about 70 km east of Shanghai's city centre, whereas the two other farms are located in Qingpu District about 60 km west of the city centre. These locations, both Chongming and Qingpu, have been under strict environmental protection regulations (for wetland and biodiversity conservation and drinking water source protection, respectively) [14,55]. The origin of Chongming Island (1267 sq.km) is principally based on the accumulation of alluvial soil particles brought by the Yangtze River.…”

“…This is also a reason why recently small-scale organic farming has been growing rapidly in suburbs of Chinese megacities, not only satisfying the changing social demands for green and healthy food, but also reducing the negative environmental impacts of agriculture. [14].…”

New Farmer Identity: The Emergence of a Post‐Productivist Agricultural Regime in China

“…The food and environmental issues, as well as the new demand for healthy food, have given rise to a group of 'new farmers'. They go to the countryside to engage in new forms of organic food production, leading to changes in agricultural regimes in China (Ding et al 2018). Such new farmers have been growing in number since 2008 when 'Little Donkey Farm', the first community supported agriculture, was established in Beijing (Shi et al 2011).…”