Grapes of Wrath: Twisting Arms to Get Villagers to Cooperate with Agribusiness in China

Abstract

In recent years the Chinese Communist Party has moved to scale up, modernize, and commercialize agriculture by placing it under the direction of large commercial enterprises known as dragonheads. Although scholars have drawn attention to the rapid advance of capitalist-style farming in China, there has been little investigation into how villagers have been pressed to cooperate with this endeavor. In this article, we examine methods used by local officials to create a grape production base for a large wine company in Xinjiang, which entailed getting all the peasant households in several townships—many of which were strongly opposed—to shift from cultivating rice and raising fish to growing grapes on contract. In this aggressive campaign, Party cadres and influential citizens were mobilized to persuade and coerce villagers, using an array of incentives and disincentives, to join what ultimately proved to be a very risky venture.

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