“Thank You, Climate Change, for Getting Everyone to Pay Attention to Rural Areas”
Foodthink Says
In May, with the support of the Beijing office of Oxfam (Hong Kong), Foodthink held a “When Heaven’s Timing Fails, People Unite” Workshop on Rural Social Organisations Responding to Climate Change. At the front line of climate change, on this land ravaged by heat and drought, we hoped to find answers to these questions:
How can we identify the gaps in rural climate vulnerability, harness the strengths of social organisations, and help farmers face climate change with preparedness and support?
How can agriculture and rural areas do more than merely escape climate disasters—how can they become part of the solution to the climate crisis?
Over two days, we visited well-known ecological farms in the area and drew inspiration from their diversified business models spanning the primary, secondary and tertiary industries; through lively discussions among social organisations, researchers and fellow farmers, we identified problems, built consensus and opened up new avenues for thinking. Below is a highlight review of the workshop.
I. Farmers Have Solutions
Mid-May is a critical growth period for wheat, yet since the start of spring the Guanzhong Plain has received little effective rainfall, and some parts of Shaanxi have seen meteorological drought intensify to severe drought or even extreme drought. Lü Wo Farm primarily grows wheat and has been less affected by the drought thanks to the ample irrigation water supplied by the Jinghui Canal (the ancient Zhengguo Canal).
The farm benefits from both favourable ground conditions and an active approach to adapting to the seasons. Da Hei has been practising Australian Biodynamic farming since 2014: sowing green manure and using conservation tillage machinery to improve soil structure, growing local varieties with better adaptability such as Abo wheat, and building sprinkler irrigation systems and reservoirs for water conservation and drought resilience. Processing wheat into flour and biscuits to add value is another strategy for spreading climate risk.
Beyond farmers’ own efforts to cope with climate risk, what external support can they access?
The second stop on the workshop tour—Woye Qingqing Zheng Lixing, head of the ecological farm, said that for cash crops such as tomatoes and strawberries, the farm had received insurance payouts after disasters, but these amounted to a mere drop in the ocean compared with the losses or costs incurred. He believes that while premiums must be paid—they are, after all, the last safety net—farmers cannot rely on insurance to make good their losses and must actively contend with extreme weather.
Woye Qingqing was co-founded by three young people who returned to their hometown and is now a well-known ecological farm in the area. Its livestream selling is booming, boosting the income of older hired workers and attracting many young locals into employment, especially young couples who stay in the village to look after their children.
Only when villages have people, vitality and ideas can we begin to talk about tackling climate change.
II. Can Smallholder Farmers Adapt to Climate Change?
An expert researching agricultural adaptation to climate change introduced the interplay between agriculture and climate. First, agriculture is a key source of greenhouse gas emissions, including methane and nitrous oxide, and its contribution to warming is second only to the production and distribution of fossil fuels. As climate change intensifies, meteorological disasters become more frequent and extreme-heat thresholds rise, which in turn places an additional burden on the agri-food system, through reduced grain yields and the loss of nutritional value in produce.
Looking internationally, “Climate-Smart Agriculture” is helping farmers adapt to climate change. Here in China, the expert added, beyond technological innovation, climate adaptation should also take socioeconomic factors into account and strive to broaden its research perspectives.
When people discuss climate change in the Northwest, many first think of the “silver lining” of a warming-wetting trend.
But Liu Jie, a climate economist and associate professor at the School of International Business, Shaanxi Normal University, pointed out that although rising temperatures and increased rainfall are the overall trend in the Northwest, climate trends vary considerably from one smaller geographical unit to the next—for example, the warming-drying trend in the northern Ningxia irrigation district, or the drought in the Guanzhong Plain of Shaanxi, unprecedented in sixty years. Moreover, extreme weather events such as heatwaves and torrential rains are also growing in frequency and intensity.
Facing the complex impacts of climate change, agricultural production must both guard against harm—for example, apple farmers in the Guanzhong Plain commonly use smoking, anti-freeze sprays and fruit bagging to “guard against harm” (earning over 600 yuan per mu in additional income, making it cost-effective)—and seize opportunities—for instance, the wine grape industry in Ningxia has expanded its consumer base by obtaining climate-ecology certifications such as the “Golden Climate Zone”, attracting buyers willing to pay a premium.
On top of the macro picture sketched by the meteorologist and the economist, Shang Lan, a master’s student at the College of Humanities and Development, China Agricultural University, adds a micro-level sociological case from Liu Village (pseudonym) in North China, and poses a searching question: Can smallholder farmers truly adapt to climate change? Whether the answer is yes or no, what conditions shape their capacity to do so?
Liu Village lies in the Taihang Mountains and experienced the 202331 July extraordinary rainstorm, yet in recent years it has also been facing an increasingly dry climate trend.
Shang Lan found that, to cope with drought, farmers had abandoned wheat and switched to more labour-saving drought-tolerant crops; at the same time, to save time (so as to work in town), they had stopped saving their own seed, only to find themselves repeatedly stung by poor-quality, overpriced commercial seed. Such adaptation measures bind farmers more deeply to the market and erode their autonomy.
She argues that under the dominance of this “modernised climate adaptation model”, shifts in the economic system, local culture and the political power relations inside and outside the village have in fact deepened smallholder farmers’ climate vulnerability.
III. The Best is What Fits: What Climate-Friendly Technologies Do Farmers Need?
Dr Li Ying, a regenerative agriculture expert, introduced the environmental catastrophe of the 1930s in the American Midwest, caused by unsustainable agricultural development—the Dust Bowl (the Dust Bowl). Bare soil not only becomes a source of windblown sand but also reduces the efficiency of irrigation water use and the insulating and moisture-retaining properties of farmland, further amplifying the impact of extreme weather. Yuan Yong, an advisor to Chengdu Jiayuan Action, added that soil compaction and degradation are also a severe challenge facing agriculture in China.
So how can soil-protecting agricultural technologies be promoted at the right time and in the right place? What motivates farmers to adopt them? Addressing their different target audiences, the three guest speakers each offered a key word—health, cost and market.
Yuan Yong introduced the no-till rice technology that Jiayuan Action has been promoting in the rice–rapeseed rotation areas of Sichuan. Thirty years rooted in the countryside had given Yuan Yong an insight: most elderly left-behind farmers care most about the physical and mental well-being of themselves and their families, and no-till farming without any chemical inputs allowed them to eat ecologically produced food, answering precisely this need.
Moreover, management practices such as no-till ridge planting, crop residue mulching and grass retention are well suited to small-scale plots of just a few mu per capita. If operations scale up too much and come to depend on agricultural machinery, production costs rise and so do carbon emissions. Yuan Yong therefore drew attendees’ special attention to the point that climate change must not be met with short-sighted actions that exacerbate it.
Dr Li Ying, who works extensively with large-scale farms, believes that for these farmers, the yield-stabilising and cost-reducing benefits of conservation tillage are more appealing than boosting output and income. For example, in the Huang-Huai-Hai region, one-pass operations for wheat sowing, fertilisation and other tasks under maize straw or stubble mulching effectively reduce mechanical disturbance of the soil while saving on the energy and labour required for rotary tillage and ploughing.
Among these, the ecologically produced tea from Liugou Village, Hanzhong, Shaanxi, is a particular highlight. However, Liu Zhiqiang noted that the ecological value of these agricultural products has not yet gained sufficient market recognition, and that complete supply chains need to be built to win greater support for farmers’ low-carbon practices, driving the revitalisation of rural ecological industries and household income growth.
IV. Social Organisations in Rural Areas: Climate Action between Aspiration and Reality
However, when these scientific and policy discourses try to take root, they encounter “one-sided enthusiasm”: ordinary members of the public struggle to connect specific facts with climate change, while social organisations working on climate issues find themselves without clear direction.
Foodthink, too, has in the past several months of field research found that, although domestic social organisations have been exploring climate work for twenty years, very few rural social organisations have incorporated climate response into their strategies, and a considerable proportion undertake climate projects primarily driven by funding.
Where does the problem lie? How can social organisations engage with climate work, and what can they actually do?
Liu Junyan observed that many social organisations participate in climate work through risk assessment, communications and advocacy, and disaster response, but encounter a mismatch between their ambitions and their actual capabilities. For example, is the “hazard–vulnerability–exposure” framework for climate risk assessment applicable at the community scale? How can complex climate change science be communicated effectively? Why is there a stampede during disaster response yet scarce resources committed to post-disaster reconstruction?
She therefore suggested that local social organisations should view climate change as a consequence of problems that already exist rather than as an isolated issue, and, drawing on their areas of expertise, find their own pathway for climate action.
Oxfam is already supporting social organisations in exploring such pathways. Hu Wei, a programme officer at Oxfam, told us that over a decade ago most of the project villages where Oxfam supported relief work in the mountainous areas of southern Shaanxi were in moderately severe disaster zones and received relatively limited resources. Through emergency material donations and post-disaster reconstruction, Oxfam helped establish disaster-preparedness mechanisms, provide facilities and training, and gradually strengthened community capacity to cope with climate disasters.
Hu Wei also noted that, compared with urban areas, rural communities are more visibly affected by climate change, and the impact on agricultural production has attracted widespread attention, but “rural areas are not only about agricultural production—there is also farmers’ daily life and rural infrastructure.” There is therefore still much room for social organisations to explore climate work in rural communities.
Many rural social organisations are also social work agencies. How can they contribute their expertise to climate work? Zhan Yuping from Guizhou Normal University reminded everyone that social work emphasises the “person-in-environment” perspective—the environment encompasses not only the social environment but also the natural ecological environment.
He urged social work agencies to reconnect with nature and environmental issues and to articulate a clear institutional vision. Building on this, agencies can conduct community research, facilitate dialogue among stakeholders, and promote community disaster-preparedness capacity, and those with the means can undertake action research to challenge the knowledge hegemony of the current mainstream climate discourse.
Kong Lingyu of Foodthink believes that social organisations must maintain sensitivity not only to climate change but also to the political and social “climate” of agriculture and rural areas, since the solutions to agricultural climate resilience often lie in the latter.
Beyond exploring concrete possibilities, we also raised further questions about the meaning of “climate philanthropy”:
Climate impacts are ubiquitous, making the climate agenda seem to encompass everything—how should social organisations find an entry point, and whom do they serve?
Do projects that, without the “climate” label, nonetheless deliver mitigation and adaptation outcomes, count as climate philanthropy?
Some social organisations are “pouring new wine into old bottles”—fundraising under the banner of climate change to address more pressing community needs. Does this not reflect a deteriorating funding environment and insufficient funder capacity? ……
V. Facing the Challenge, Seeking Solutions
As more and more words appeared on the screen—rural hollowing-out, fragmentation, no supply chain, a lack of small individual actions……the fog of uncertainty gradually lifted. Their antonyms, in essence, hold the key to climate action and point to social organisations’ next steps.
Zhou Dianfan, a professional in agricultural philanthropy, believes that cognitive limitations are the greatest challenge to rural climate response. The key to advancing climate work lies in influencing people: all stakeholders must first know about and acknowledge the facts and impacts of climate change before they can act.
In Qingyang, Gansu, young returnee Wu Longlong gave an answer that was brief and struck at the heart of the matter: rural communities lack a sense of collectivity and cohesion.
Foodthink’s Kong Lingyu pointed to the reality of smallholder disempowerment. Whether it is the macro-level urban–rural dual system or the marginalisation of smallholders by agricultural machinery services, subsidy policies and the like, all these factors amplify the negative impacts of climate change. Institutional inequality makes rural communities more vulnerable to climate change.
As one partner who has served rural areas for many years summed up with humour and bitterness: “Thank you, climate change, for finally getting everyone to pay attention to rural areas!”
Unless otherwise noted, all images are provided by Foodthink and workshop participants.
Compiled by Ze’en
Edited by Lingyu
Filming and editing: Wang Qian