China’s Food Security Governance from a Hydraulic Society to a Corporate Food Regime and COVID-19

Issues & Studies, Forthcoming

28 Pages Posted: 30 Dec 2021

See all articles by Scott Y. Lin

Scott Y. Lin

Graduate Institute of Development Studies

Date Written: December 2021

Abstract

Although the main purpose of food security governance in China is to increase grain yield, the traditional and contemporary methods employed to achieve food security governance differ in polemic terms. The traditional method relies on organizations such as peasant collectives to properly manage water and other natural resources on farmlands. The hydraulic society became synonymous with food security governance content in traditional China. The contemporary method, shifting from a pre-capitalism to capitalism model, is centered on a few large-scale agricultural and food (A&F) corporations and involves the capitalization of grain production resources, genetic modifications of grain seedlings through science and technology, and intensive scales of grain production. The corporate food regime has become the new vocabulary to explain contemporary China’s food security governance mechanism. This paper aims to examine the ways in which food security governance content has been reshaped by the emerging corporate food regime. An analytical result found that China’s food security governance content has transformed into the corporate food regime to increase grain yield. In this regime, the Chinese government supports the setting up of a few large-scale A&F corporations, allowing them to have an oligopoly over the domestic grain market. Internationally, China has become a major investor in the form of transnational agricultural land grabbing. The formation of new food security governance content not only affected the traditional Chinese culture of peasant collectives, but also challenged the global A&F market system. However, COVID-19 and the promulgation of the Biosecurity Law are likely to alter the development of China’s A&F corporations and its food security governance content.

Keywords: food security governance; corporate food regime; China; Biosecurity Law; COVID-19

Suggested Citation

Lin, Scott Y., China’s Food Security Governance from a Hydraulic Society to a Corporate Food Regime and COVID-19 (December 2021). Issues & Studies, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3995945 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3995945

Scott Y. Lin (Contact Author)

Graduate Institute of Development Studies ( email )

No. 64, Zhinan Road
Section 2
Taipei, 11605
Taiwan

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