Using global organic markets to pay for ecologically based agricultural development in China

The traditional command and control approach and the more recent free market have proven inadequate for promoting ecological agricultural development in China. Organic certification represents a regulated market mechanism with the potential to stimulate ecologically based agricultural research, extension, and investment. Recent linkages between the global organic food industry and local agricultural development in China provide an opportunity to test this potential. The article examines Chinas two largest organic certification systems for their potential to promote the adoption of integrated pest management (IPM) as a key component of ecological agriculture. Organic certification is providing a format for research, extension, and implementation of IPM principles and practices, and has the potential to do much more. However, possible contradictions between ecological and market rationality, inherent in organic certification and marketing systems, may be exacerbated by the authoritarian political economy of rural China.Paul Thiersis an assistant professor of Political Science at Washington State University Vancouver where he teaches comparative politics, political economy, and environmental policy in the Program in Public Affairs. His research focuses on the environmental, social, and political dynamics of globalization in rural China, with a particular emphasis on Chinas integration into global food trade and food standards.