Report Published | Beyond Climate Panic: Rooting Firmly in the Countryside
Foodthink Insights
Over the past twenty years, practices by social organisations in the fields of poverty alleviation, development, rural revitalisation, ecological agriculture, disaster prevention, energy transition, care for vulnerable groups, and gender equality have provided a wealth of experience for rural areas in responding to climate change. Yet, it is not only the climate that is changing; the countryside is changing too. Large-scale and rapid urbanisation and agricultural industrialisation have profoundly altered the rural landscape and demographic structure. As smallholders are increasingly marginalised by policy and markets, and the returns from the land dwindle, the transition from farmer to migrant worker has become an inevitable, if reluctant, outcome. It is therefore unsurprising that the “389961” left-behind populations remaining in the villages have become the most vulnerable link in the face of climate risks.
Only by understanding these rural transitions can we clarify the underlying logic of climate work. So, when social organisations intervene in the intersection of rural life and climate change, how do they define the problem and how do they act? What are the successes, failures, and reflections? To answer these questions, and with the support of the Oxfam (Hong Kong) Beijing Office, Foodthink has spent the past year interviewing 29 social organisations and 11 scholars and practitioners, combined with 58 valid questionnaires (targeting organisations already conducting or planning climate work in rural areas), to complete the “Research on the Action Paths of Rural Social Organisations in Response to Climate Change” (click “Read More” to download). At a recent report launch in Beijing, Foodthink invited social organisation and foundation practitioners, scholars, and the media to discuss: what is the most effective way for social organisations to enhance rural climate resilience? And how should we understand and resolve the “frequency mismatch” between climate funding and philanthropic action, as well as the tension between policy and practice?
I. Making Matters Worse: When Rural Areas Face Climate Change
This is one example from the report. The report’s lead author, Kong Lingyu, attempts to explain the primary dilemma encountered by social organisations when implementing climate change projects in rural areas: an increasing number of organisations are entering villages with climate-focused philanthropic funding, only to discover that the root of the problem is not climate change, but long-standing local issues such as livelihoods, infrastructure, healthcare, and an ageing population.
During the report review session, Wang Xiaoyi, a researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, expressed a similar confusion: would a village consider climate change when deciding whether to build water conservancy facilities or dig a few ponds? “Probably not,” he said. Whether farmers choose to stay in the village, whether they still feel a connection to the land, and whether the government invests are far more critical factors in the decision-making process.
Another reviewer, Huang Yajun, is from the Deep Rooting Social Work Service Centre in the Conghua District of Guangzhou (hereafter referred to as “Deep Rooting”). Having been rooted in the mountains of Conghua for ten years, Deep Rooting has witnessed the transformation of the countryside first-hand: local industries have vanished, large numbers of people have migrated away, and the issue of an ageing population must be addressed. After more than four years of implementing climate change projects, Huang Yajun believes the report touches upon the real problems on the front line: “For instance, in the last two years, everyone has been carrying out climate risk assessments as if it were a passing trend, but once the assessment is done, what happens next?”
This is the first challenge social organisations face when bringing climate issues into rural settings: when climate change intertwines with inherent structural problems in the countryside, where should the “solution” be sought? This becomes a problem largely because of the restrictions placed on the definition of the problem by climate philanthropic funding.
Lu Dequan, an expert at the Lianxin Community Care Service Centre in Yunnan Province, is a veteran philanthropist and one of the earliest to encourage domestic social organisations to engage in climate change work. In 2005, he left his faculty position at Hong Kong Baptist University to join the Research and Development Centre established by Oxfam (Hong Kong) in Beijing, where he helped fund collaborations between domestic grassroots organisations and international bodies to write the “Climate Change and Chinese Civil Standpoints/Actions” report series (2007–2010). Even then, these reports keenly pointed out the complex relationship between climate change and the inequality of development rights. Yet, Lu Dequan laments that research into climate justice is still far too scarce: how to help smallholders develop diversified livelihoods, how to prepare for disasters, and which populations will face the greatest risks and pressures from climate change?
II. Mitigation or Adaptation?
Climate philanthropic funding often focuses first on mitigation—reducing climate change by cutting greenhouse gas emissions. For example, as the issue of methane reduction has gained traction, some social organisations serving rural areas have used this opportunity to launch projects such as climate-friendly rice. (Editor’s note: This involves reducing methane emissions by controlling the drainage and irrigation of paddy fields to shorten the time plants are submerged, thereby reducing anaerobic fermentation.)
In this research report, Foodthink also found that social organisations working in rural areas are generally plagued by the question of priority between mitigation and adaptation. Firstly, social organisations encountered specific technical hurdles in carbon accounting. Among the organisations interviewed by Foodthink, as many as 72.5% (42 organisations) replied that they were unclear about or had not conducted emission reduction accounting for their projects. Only the Yunnan Sili Ecological Alternative Technology Centre (“Sili”) and Deep Rooting had attempted accounting, but both faced setbacks: from 2021, Deep Rooting focused on mitigation by reducing the use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers; however, the technical experts’ accounting tables required statistics on nitrogen fertiliser use, whereas villagers were using organic fertilisers, which could not be converted. Furthermore, pesticide data could not be collected. Additionally, carbon accounting is not suited to the diversified planting scenarios of smallholders.
Yet, funders who prioritise mitigation actions expect social organisations to provide carbon emission data to prove project effectiveness. Beyond methodological obstacles, the areas where social organisations operate are often impoverished villages. What is the significance of demanding emission reductions in such villages—reducing “survival emissions”—and does this effectively become a way of “robbing the poor to aid the rich”? Kong Lingyu asked.
Having explored the path of emission reduction accounting, Sili discovered that a route based on “primarily adaptation, with concurrent mitigation benefits” is the best choice. As drought in Yunnan continues to intensify, farmers want to plant water-saving and drought-resistant rice regardless of methane reduction, simply because the water has run out. Climate change has created a market for climate-friendly rice cultivation—a mitigation project that the Sili Centre once struggled to implement.
At the policy level, China has transitioned from prioritising mitigation to giving equal weight to both mitigation and adaptation. Xu Yinlong, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and a member of the UNEP Scientific Advisory Committee on Climate Change Adaptation, noted while reviewing the report that the 2017 National Climate Change Plan had already stated that climate mitigation and climate adaptation should be “given equal weight”. By 2022, when China released the *National Strategy for Adapting to Climate Change 2035*, Xu recalls that experts loudly proclaimed once more: adaptation must be strengthened; adaptation is more important than mitigation.
Furthermore, Xu believes that climate adaptation requires a workload several, or even dozens of times, greater than that of mitigation. Rural climate adaptation requires a “sustained, long-term commitment”.
III. Foundations also exploring the way for rural responses to climate change
In a roundtable discussion titled “Are social organisations and funders on the same wavelength?”, Liu Yiwei of the Xianfeng Foundation recalled her team’s process of scanning rural issues. She reflected on the difficulty of finding a starting point for rural work, noting that even after six months, they still needed more time to “see clearly”. Rural work involves village infrastructure, population migration between urban and rural areas, employment issues, and more… there are too many social trajectories closely linked to policy and reality that need to be untangled. This is why the team did not rush into funding decisions after their half-year study and often felt a sense of disconnect, as if they were “not speaking the same language” as those on the ground.
The Fujian Zhengrong Charity Foundation cares about the wellbeing of villages and communities and has begun to engage with climate issues in recent years. Project officer Liu Yiyue stated that when selecting partners, the primary consideration is whether the partner’s work is based on genuine social problems and whether the organisation is deeply rooted in the field over the long term. They also evaluate the partner’s influence both locally and among others working on similar issues nationally.
Xiao Kaiteng, a consultant for the Ginkgo Foundation, explained that Ginkgo’s funding in the climate field began in 2023 and has continued for three years, with projects in agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fisheries accounting for 30%. She explained the reason for focusing on climate issues: “Ginkgo is not a dedicated climate funder, but seeing the sensitivity of our partners to social problems and their need for experimentation, we hope to provide companionship and cover the costs of trial and error. The complexity of climate issues happens to align with their diversity, and this is where we will focus our efforts moving forward.” Xiao believes that for specific organisations, the priority should be to shift from “Climate +” to “Me + Climate”, and to consider what that “Me” actually is. Focusing on climate issues does not mean organisations should change their entire track, but rather that they should incorporate the impact of climate change on their service recipients into their considerations.
Oxfam began focusing on domestic climate change issues as early as 2007, and its poverty alleviation and rural development projects in China have a history of over 20 years. Hu Wei, a project officer at the Oxfam (Hong Kong) Beijing office, said that on one hand, the impact of climate change naturally became more prominent through their rural work. On the other hand, Oxfam proposed an initiative to combat climate poverty and promote climate justice at the 2007 UN Climate Change Conference, hoping to bring more attention to the impact of climate change on vulnerable countries and communities. Based on the principle of justice, Oxfam’s work follows two main strategies. First, it helps vulnerable communities reduce the threats of climate change and enhance the resilience of rural communities, advocating for a farmer-centric approach to rural development in China. For example, since 2019, it has supported the establishment of rural self-organisations in Wangjinzhuang, Shexian, Hebei, preserving traditional local varieties and breeding new adaptive, drought-resistant varieties within dry-land terrace systems. Second, it focuses on the implementation of climate loss and damage funding, advocating for developed countries to fulfil their climate finance commitments and monitoring the implementation of climate adaptation funding in Asia.
Facing a situation where most funders focus on climate mitigation rather than adaptation, a participant from an international foundation noted that while international foundations do support adaptation work, they currently support mitigation in China primarily through policy advocacy. In this context, providing service-based climate adaptation work is not their primary focus. Meanwhile, most local foundations have not developed long-term strategies for climate change, making it even harder to discuss cross-sectoral cooperation between “ecosystems”, such as rural development strategies integrated with climate change. This explains why frontline social organisations find it difficult to get on the same wavelength as their funders.
She further commented that whether foundations and social organisations are “on the same wavelength” or not requires there to be a “wavelength” to begin with. This requires foundations to have a cognitive understanding of rural development work set against the backdrop of climate change and to have a long-term development strategy; only then can the discussion move to whether they are “in sync”.
He Jinhao from the People and Nature Walk Foundation believes that being “out of sync” between funders and social organisations is also important: “Being on the same wavelength can lead to assimilation, and organisations might lose their understanding of the uniqueness of a problem.”
IV. Overtaking on the bend in the “last mile” of the countryside
Yet, the issue of providing for the rural elderly is precisely what researcher Chen Jingjing has focused on in recent years.
Chen Jingjing firmly believes that the work of social organisations should serve the concrete lives of people rather than debates over issues, and that modernisation should not be viewed as the end goal. Whether discussing agricultural and rural modernisation, rural revitalisation, or climate change, one must answer this question: during these decades viewed as a period of transitional development, what kind of life should and can people living in, or striving away from, the countryside have?
Pastoral areas are similarly undergoing processes of urbanisation and “hollowing out”. Shi Xiangying, Executive Director of the Mountains & Rivers Nature Conservation Centre, has observed that under the combined influence of climate change, livestock industry development, property rights systems, and grassland policies, simply mobilising and persuading herders to reduce their livestock numbers is an insufficient response to the complex issue of grassland degradation. In such cases, the positioning of the government and the community itself becomes crucial. For instance, is the priority to drive ecological protection through fiscal transfer payments, or to safeguard livelihoods by developing animal husbandry and tourism? As traditional pastoral culture fades, social organisations must also consider how to intervene from a community-centred perspective.
Zuo Zhi, Director of the Yunnan Sili Ecological Substitution Technology Centre, strongly agrees: “The further we go into the grassroots, the more we must focus on fundamental issues.” They maintain close cooperation with county and township agricultural technology service centres. As the grassroots core of the agricultural technology service system, these centres are often concerned with concrete issues that directly affect farmers’ needs: how to guarantee rice harvests during abnormal weather? How to respond to pest outbreaks? Or, for example, how to ensure that organic fertilisers, bio-pesticides, and soil conditioners provided by the government are used correctly and efficiently through effective training—”these are precisely the areas where social organisations can actively participate and make a difference.”
Zuo Zhi distinguishes between policy-making departments and policy-executing bodies. For example, agricultural technology extension stations at the municipal and county levels, and agricultural technology centres at the township level, primarily play the latter role. They are open to sitting down with social organisations to discuss execution; “they (the agricultural technology departments) are actually doing their best within the constraints of limited resources.”
Chen Jingjing notes that in recent years, total central government investment in agriculture, rural areas, and farmers has reached the scale of 1.5 to 1.7 trillion yuan, with projects spanning numerous fields and involving various stakeholders. For instance, in a high-standard basic farmland project, it is considered an ideal scenario if 50 to 60 per cent of the funds actually reach the village.
Xiao Yunsheng, head of the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market, has also found that applying for agricultural project funding is not particularly friendly to smallholder farmers. One ecological farmer in Yunnan enthusiastically applied for a 30,000 yuan subsidy, but the costs of printing and visiting various departments eventually nearly equalled the subsidy amount. The government prefers to fund larger-scale farmers.
A village and town documentary director and Bilibili creator, “Yu Zhen Ji Shi”, felt this subsidy bias during field visits: “the more you plant, the more you are subsidised”. A smallholder’s annual rice subsidy is typically around 100 yuan per mu, but local reports and villagers suggest that large households or agricultural companies can receive subsidies of 200 to 300 yuan per mu*. Boosted by these subsidies, some growers have even abandoned the nursery stage altogether, opting for direct seeding** to save on transplanting costs and the roughly thirty-day nursery period.
In pastoral areas, Shi Xiangying has also seen many artificial seeding subsidy projects designed to combat grassland degradation and sandstorms. Most of these projects are outsourced to third-party companies through a bidding process. Sometimes, seeds are planted and die within a year, allowing them to be planted again and the subsidy to be claimed once more. She found that from the government’s perspective, the more urgent issue is how to spend such a large sum of money efficiently. In this context, communicating one-on-one with hundreds of farmers is unrealistic. However, social organisations can fill this gap by encouraging community residents to get involved and facilitating cooperation between village collectives, grassland stations, and agricultural technology stations. Shi Xiangying believes that this is the significance of social organisations’ participation in rural grassroots governance—completing the “last mile”.
Huang Yajun also believes that, despite the many confusions, the issue of climate change may be an opportunity for social organisations to rediscover their value. Starting with climate change, social organisations can choose to be “narrow” and solve specific disasters and risks, but they can and should also choose to be “wide” and more integrated, linking together the chains of grassroots governance, villager mobilisation, and industrial development. For example, their deep involvement in elderly care in Conghua, Guangdong, earned the recognition and respect of the local civil affairs system, which in turn opened the possibility of collaborating with the town’s emergency prevention and control office on climate change issues.
From the perspective of Li Dajun, Industry Support Project Director at the Beijing He Yi Green Public Welfare Foundation, this integrated or holistic viewpoint is precisely the advantage of rural social organisations compared to those in other specialised public welfare fields; they are not “detached”, as their staff and methods are rooted in the countryside, and they possess strong systemic thinking, making them better equipped to solve specific problems.
Being rooted in rural reality while maintaining a macro perspective on issues like climate change—this capacity to bridge the gap between the top and the bottom is the foundation for the long-term development of social organisations. Chang Tianle, Founding Editor of Foodthink, used the metaphor of “overtaking on the bend”—Chinese civil organisations once raised many forward-looking voices on issues such as environmental protection, food and agriculture, and women’s rights, only to be smoothed over during the past decade. Now, will the issue of climate change provide a new opportunity, whether for us to re-understand rural development or for social organisations to lead the social agenda?
**While dry direct seeding is a climate-friendly rice cultivation method that reduces methane emissions and conserves water, the participants here use the term to highlight the lack of care and diligence in the planting practices of conventional agricultural producers.
Edited by: Ling Yu