From grassroots movement to state-coordinated market strategy: the transformation of organic agriculture in China

The production, certification, and marketing of organic agriculture developed slowly in the West as a nongovernmental, community-based response to concerns over food safety and the environmental impacts of chemical agriculture. The current emergence of organic agriculture in less-developed nations is following a very different trajectory owing to the presence of an established global market for organic products and the developmental goals of interventionist states. In this paper I examine the emergence of state-sponsored organic marketing and certification programs in the Peoples' Republic of China as an extreme case of developmental state intervention in organic agriculture. I find that the predominance of state and market instead of community and ecology in the Chinese organic 'movement' has profound implications for the ability of organics to promote environmentally sustainable agriculture in less-developed nations. Direct state intervention may overcome some of the public-goods and collective-action problems often associated with organic agriculture. However, conflicts of interest between the state as regulator and as producer erode the consumer trust upon which organic markets rely. The use of political authority to organize organic production allows state entrepreneurs to capture market premiums, reducing farmer innovation and long-term incentive, and exacerbating free-rider problems. The case of organic agriculture in China demonstrates the need for caution when applying universalistic economic theories about environmental problems to diverse political economies. This has important implications for international environmental regimes as well as the globalization of eco-consumerism or eco-labeling strategies.