Managing the crop, or the crop managing us? Life dominated by greenhouse vegetables

Foodthink says

During the Targeted Poverty Alleviation campaign, in an effort to rapidly increase farmers’ incomes, the government of Gong County (a pseudonym) introduced greenhouse vegetables—known for their superior market profitability—and implemented subsidy policies to integrate them into the farmers’ livelihood systems. Given that the government provided greenhouses, seedlings, and technical guidance free of charge, why did local farmers maintain a passive attitude towards greenhouse vegetables, and why did they continue to favour white lotus, which offers relatively lower returns?

In the piece published yesterday, “Why are Smallholders Unwilling to Grow Greenhouse Vegetables?”, the author Sang Kun outlined the comprehensive requirements for capital, technology, and labour associated with greenhouse farming. This article focuses on the ecological and social impacts of greenhouse vegetable cultivation under intensive resource input, as well as reflections on the development of the industry.

● Many of the greenhouses rapidly constructed in Gong County during the poverty alleviation campaign now stand idle. In 2022, Chen Village in Gong County even converted over 700 mu of these idle greenhouses into rice nurseries.

I. Monoculture

Greenhouse vegetable farming requires significant investment, and the cost of trial and error is high. Consequently, most producers “follow the crowd”, opting for large-scale monoculture of the most popular produce on the market—a practice that undoubtedly increases the risk of pests and diseases. Furthermore, market demands for standardised taste, quality, and appearance have led to an increased reliance on harmful chemicals, such as pesticides.

In a rational greenhouse layout, a certain distance should be maintained between structures. In Gong County, however, greenhouses are densely packed onto limited flat land, which hinders the overall progress of the growers. As “everyone’s temperament and habits differ”, so too do the growers’ crop arrangements and cropping sequences; in such densely packed monocultures, cross-crop infections spread with ease.

● *Chàkǒu* is a collective term referring to the sequence and order in which successive crops are planted on a piece of land. The earlier crop is known as the preceding crop (*qiánchá*), and the later one as the succeeding crop (*hòuchá*). Growers must understand the characteristics of these sequences to effectively manage crop rotation and succession. The image shows greenhouses during a crop transition period.

For instance, in Chen Village, Chen Keli and Chen Chengren both grow tomatoes in adjacent greenhouses. In June 2020, feeling that market prices were too low and faced with consecutive outbreaks of disease, Chen Keli used machinery to destroy all his crops. Chen Chengren’s tomatoes had remained healthy thanks to preventative measures; however, once Chen Keli cleared his greenhouse, the pests migrated into Chen Chengren’s, forcing him to spray pesticides once again.

Furthermore, some companies use biopesticides to easily repel pests. However, neighbouring small-scale farmers, unable to afford such costly options, find that the pests driven out of the corporate greenhouses migrate into their own, leaving them with no choice but to increase their chemical usage.

According to the experience of local farmers, “if only a few people grow a crop over a large area, pests and diseases can be kept under control.” Traditionally, crop rotation and intercropping utilised the natural balance between plants to effectively prevent pests and diseases; for example, the traditional rotation of tobacco, lotus, and rice effectively controls soil-borne diseases, while planting a small amount of beans in greenhouses can help monitor and prevent powdery mildew. Yet, in densely packed monoculture greenhouses, as planting layouts and crop structures change, this ancestral agricultural knowledge is no longer applicable.

II.“The More We Plant, the More Disease”

Beyond the spread of disease, continuous high-intensity farming has introduced new pests and soil pollution. During our team’s fieldwork in Chen Village, local farmers commonly reported that after four years of greenhouse vegetable cultivation, they discovered pests and diseases that had never before appeared in the region.

“Diseases have appeared in our fields that even the older generation doesn’t recognise; even the white lotus, rice, and tobacco leaves are affected… I think it’s because our greenhouse farming has become too intensive over the last few years, planting non-stop all year round. This leads to infections from crop residues and the depletion of certain micronutrients in the soil, giving rise to new diseases—some of which cannot be cured even with pesticides. The more we plant, the more diseases and pests we get.”

The frequent and intensive use of chemicals has had a more direct impact on the health of the producers. Lin Fuhui, a manager of a company in Chen Village, noted: “The temperature here is high year-round, and it’s even hotter inside the greenhouses. The workers are getting older, and most suffer from hypertension; those with weaker health simply cannot cope. They say that inhaling too many fumes from fertilisers and pesticides makes them feel dizzy.”

● A farmer preparing to spray pesticides inside a greenhouse, with the mixture ready.

Furthermore, some farmers believe that modern organic fertilisers are not what they once were. “The farmyard manure we used in the past didn’t contain so much salt and hormones. But now, even with the composted chicken or pig manure pellets bought from the market, there is still a vast amount of salt even after dilution with water; this is difficult to clear simply by rotating crops.”

It is evident that while greenhouse vegetables—much like a Pandora’s box—offer certain economic benefits, these do not necessarily yield equivalent social or ecological gains. Instead, they have brought negative environmental impacts to local communities, which in the long run hinders the sustainable use of land and obstructs the green development of agriculture in China.

III. An Uncertain Market

In truth, these challenges are not insurmountable for capable farmers, provided they invest the necessary time and effort. After all, annual returns of 20,000 to 30,000 yuan per mu of greenhouse vegetables make the gamble worthwhile.

However, another major obstacle for Gong County’s greenhouse vegetables lies in the market.

Market fluctuations have frequently led to losses for growers. For farmers, capturing the “market window”—the specific timing of a crop’s availability—is their only chance to secure a foothold. The common approach is to anticipate when a particular variety will become scarce or has yet to hit the market in large quantities, then timing the seedling preparation, planting, and harvesting to seize that window.

Yet, prices in the vegetable market are volatile; the price of the same variety can fluctuate within a single day. When the wide-scale promotion of a single cash crop coincides with a market crash, even the enterprises introduced by the government are not immune to being wiped out financially.

To broaden channels and mitigate market risks, the Gong County government attempted to position the local vegetable industry as a “vegetable basket” base for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, aiming to connect with consumers in major cities. However, only a few large vegetable enterprises brought in through investment promotion were actually able to meet the strict import standards for Hong Kong and Macao.

Initially, many farmers pinned their hopes on these companies, hoping they could help them sell their produce. But due to gaps in field management, cultivation techniques, and the quality of seedlings and agricultural supplies, the vegetables grown by smallholders failed to meet the entry standards for the Greater Bay Area. Even when companies tried to sell their produce as part of policy-driven support, the issue of inconsistent quality control remained unresolved. Farmers who missed the wave of the lucrative Hong Kong and Macao markets were left to find their own way.

For smallholders, one potential outlet was institutional procurement: during the poverty alleviation campaign, some town governments encouraged government offices to purchase vegetables from local farmers as a support measure. But as the campaign ended, this internal market vanished. Without established social connections, ordinary farmers found it difficult to continue selling through this channel. Consequently, most greenhouse farmers in Gong County have turned to local retail and wholesale markets.

● Farmers can, of course, command higher prices through local retail, but the volumes are low and it is labour-intensive.

However, growers soon discovered that greenhouse vegetables offered little clear advantage in the local market.

For instance, locals prefer long purple aubergines over the round varieties more popular in external markets. They favour spicy chillies over bell peppers or capsicums. Meanwhile, staples commonly used for meatballs and dumplings—such as winter melon, sweet potato, and taro—can be grown outdoors; indeed, most households grow some in their own vegetable patches, meaning they do not require a greenhouse environment to grow.

If farmers switch to varieties that suit local consumption habits, they are mostly limited to selling locally, but the local market’s limited purchasing power can only support a small number of growers. While the first farmers to occupy the market may reap the rewards, latecomers find it difficult to carve out any new space, leaving profit margins increasingly slim.

IV. A Life Dominated

The only real advantage greenhouse vegetables provide for growers is off-season cultivation. In winter, while small-scale outdoor farmers enter their slack season, greenhouse growers enter their peak cropping window—effectively turning their ‘off-season’ into their busiest time.

Zhu Zhanjie, a 38-year-old farmer from Zhu Village, says: ‘Since I started with the greenhouses, I’ve been working from dawn till dusk, almost entirely inside the tunnels all year round. I can’t look after my children. I have to rely on my parents for everything—from cooking and getting the kids to school to taking them to the hospital when they’re sick… The money is better, yes, but it’s too exhausting. It’s stripped me of a normal life; I can’t even look after my own home.’

In theory, because vegetables cannot be grown continuously in the same soil and the land needs time to recover its fertility after high-intensity farming, greenhouses should have a fallow period of three to four months each year. However, to maximise profit, companies and growers often choose to skip this rest period. If pests and diseases become too severe, they employ a system of staggered rotation to ensure a continuous harvest.

‘Once you start with greenhouses, there’s no stopping; you have to work every single day.’ This fast-paced, high-intensity labour means that producers are driven by the crops’ schedule all year round, severely restricting their time for social activities.

●Communal activities at a clan ancestral hall.

Gongxian is a gathering place for the Hakka people. Due to their long history of migration, the Hakka place immense value on clan unity and participation in social affairs; internal family matters, such as building houses or hosting weddings and funerals, involve banquets at the ancestral hall to gather the clan and strengthen internal bonds.

However, the farmers in this village who grow greenhouse vegetables often miss such opportunities: “Isn’t making money just about taking care of the family? Yet, growing vegetables in a greenhouse at home means I can’t look after the family; it’s no different from going away for work. I can’t participate in anything else. People say that since I started the greenhouses, they hardly know me anymore.”

Within Gongxian’s greenhouse vegetable industry, producers seem to hold the dominant role of control, but in reality, they are objects dominated by market competition, no longer in control of their own lives.

V. Greenhouse Vegetables as “Institutional Crops”

Returning to the original question: given the promising market prospects and policy dividends, why are smallholder farmers reluctant to grow greenhouse vegetables?

The example of the greenhouse vegetable industry in Gongxian demonstrates that, once capitalised, these crops are characterised by rapid growth, high water and fertiliser requirements, demanding technical standards, single varieties, susceptibility to pests and diseases, an inability to be intercropped or rotated, and a high degree of overlap between production and labour time. Consequently, the industry must possess a certain level of organisation, or even an institutional nature.

Institutional Crops

In his analysis of religion within Chinese society, Mr Yang Qingkun proposed the two concepts of institutional religion and diffused religion. This article posits that ‘institutional’ and ‘diffused’ possess typological and methodological implications, and can therefore be used to analyse the intrinsic compatibility between crops, industry, and social life.

The ‘institutional’ nature of crops referred to here means that, due to the strong penetration of markets and capital, every stage—from breeding, sowing, growth, and harvesting in field management to subsequent market sales—possesses independent social-institutional attributes; hence the term ‘institutional crops’. Once an operator engages with such institutional crops, their entire life must be arranged around the habits of the crop and the industry. Consequently, production becomes the subject and life becomes the object, which provides a significant reason for operators to distance themselves from such crops and industries.

The essence of the greenhouse vegetable industry mirrors the standardised, undifferentiated, and institutionalised production found in industrial manufacturing. A greenhouse is essentially a miniature processing plant: in the pursuit of maximum profit, capital creates a sealed environment within a limited space, shielding it from natural elements. This allows the cultivation process to be broken down into specific ‘processing’ stages, with inputs carefully managed to optimise economic yield.

In other words, for producers to profit amidst fierce competition, they must coordinate labour and technology to control every stage of production within the tightest possible timeframe, shortening growth cycles and timing the market windows perfectly.

When the logic of capital is injected into the growth process, crops cease to be simple agricultural produce; instead, they are transformed into vehicles for the expanded reproduction of capital. Tied to the mechanisms of the market, the greenhouse industry becomes a ‘treadmill’. Once a producer steps on, they are swept along by its relentless pace; any hesitation or reduction in investment risks throwing them off, leaving them a casualty of the competition.

● A greenhouse ‘under-utilised’. Intended for high-value fruit-vegetables, it was instead used for chives—a crop that can be grown outdoors—due to a miscalculation of the market window by the operator.

VI. ‘Diffuse Crops’: The White Lotus

While greenhouse vegetables, by virtue of their growth characteristics, are more susceptible to the heavy intervention of markets and capital—forcing the producer’s entire life to revolve around production (making them ‘institutional crops’)—the white lotus traditionally grown in Gongxian allows farmers to strike a balance between economic gain and social benefit (making them ‘diffuse crops’).

Diffuse Crops

The diffusiveness of a crop refers to its inherent growth habits and the harmonious integration of the resulting industrial characteristics with the producers. In the case of diffuse crops and their industries, while growth cycles and patterns may bear the marks of technical intervention, they are not disembedded from the producers’ social lives, but instead blend seamlessly with the rhythms of their daily existence.

Firstly, the geographical characteristics of Gongxian, with its abundance of mountains and paddy fields, are naturally suited to growing White Lotus. This removes the need for the high initial investment required for greenhouse vegetables, such as land levelling and the construction of greenhouses. If grown on one’s own land, the cost is only 1,200 yuan per mu.

Secondly, field management and processing are straightforward: the cultivation, harvesting and processing of White Lotus do not require the complex techniques associated with greenhouse vegetables. This allows for the maximum mobilisation of family labour, including children, women and the elderly. Local farmers often say, “One elderly person can manage five to six mu of White Lotus.” During our household surveys, we frequently found families where everyone, from 80-year-olds to six-year-olds, participated in the processing of fresh lotus—shelling, peeling and removing the core—turning the home into a miniature White Lotus workshop.

Furthermore, White Lotus has a long growth cycle of around 210 days, and the seed pods, seeds and lotus roots do not mature at the same time. This enables growers to maintain a balanced pace of life. Moreover, “every part of the White Lotus is a treasure”; the seeds (both fresh and dried), leaves, flowers and roots can all be sold, significantly increasing its economic value.

White Lotus provides farmers with flexible social schedules and economic benefits. In turn, the farmers and their village communities have built complex broker networks and market pricing systems based on the characteristics of the crop, integrating White Lotus as a vital part of their livelihood system.

Because of these characteristics, White Lotus does not “turn the tables” as greenhouse vegetables do, evolving into a relatively independent, institutionalised production system. Consequently, it cannot dominate the farmers’ lives; instead, it has become a natural part of them.

● Dried lotus leaves and processed lotus seeds drying at a villager’s doorstep.

● A whole family working together to shell lotus seeds.

VII. What kind of industrial revitalisation do rural communities need?

This article is not suggesting that vegetable greenhouses are unsuitable for rural society; rather, it emphasises that if institutional agricultural industries, such as greenhouse vegetable farming, are to take root in the countryside, they must consider the farmers—as the primary subjects of daily life—and their overall way of existence. They must find the most appropriate way of embedding these industries to ensure that space remains for the farmers’ production and livelihoods.

From the perspective of agricultural sociology, we cannot ignore the social dimensions of crops and industries, nor can we overlook the interconnectedness between these crops and industries and the families and village communities they affect. If we focus solely on economic benefits, believing that crops with high profitability should be aggressively developed and transplanted as industries, we will inevitably encounter resistance or rejection from the farmers and their rural societies.

In the mindset of the farmer, life and production are one and the same. The revitalisation of rural industry must rely on village social relations and family livelihood arrangements. Only by adopting a holistic perspective—viewing agriculture, the countryside, and the farmers as complementary parts of a whole—and identifying the internal social mechanisms that link these three, can the overall benefits of industrial revitalisation be realised.

〇 References:

[1] Xiong Chunwen, Sang Kun. Effectiveness Mechanisms of Crop Structure, Livelihood Systems and Industrial Poverty Alleviation: An Empirical Study Based on a County in East China [J]. Yunnan Social Sciences, 2020(03):75-85.

[2] Sang Kun. Institutional Crops and Diffuse Crops: The Crop Characteristic Mechanism Forming Differences in Agricultural Industrial Development—A Comparative Study of Two Agricultural Industries Based on a County in Central China [J]. Journal of Nanjing Agricultural University (Social Science Edition), 2023, 23(02):45-60. DOI:10.19714/j.cnki.1671-7465.2023.0024.

Foodthink Author

Sang Kun

PhD in Sociology from China Agricultural University. Research interests include agricultural sociology, social theory, urban and rural development, and cultural anthropology. Principal investigator for projects such as the National Social Science Fund of China (Youth Program) and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (General Program). Has published seven papers in CSSCI journals. Recipient of the 2022 Beijing Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Award; currently a Boya Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Researcher in the Department of Sociology at Peking University.

Editor: Ze’en