Small holder incomes, food safety and producing, and marketing China's fruit.

摘要

This paper examines whether the recent changes in China's food economy have exacerbated or contributed to an improvement in poverty reduction (or betterment of small farmers) and/or food safety. To do so, it draws on a dataset collected in 2007 from representative apple and grape farmers in Shandong province. In total, 279 households in the sample are apple-producing households and 59 are non-apple-producing households. In the case of grapes, 329 households were interviewed. Of this total, 232 are grape-producing households and 97 are non-grape-producing households. Using the survey data, the paper describes the emergence of the production and marketing structures of the sample. Next, it examines whether it is small or large farmers (or rich or poor ones) that are entering the horticultural economy through different types of marketing channels. Finally, the paper examines several indicators of producer-trader behaviour that will help in understanding whether or not China's horticultural marketing channels are able to guarantee that the consumer is purchasing a safe, traceable product. According to the results, when compared to larger, better off households, it is equally likely that small, poor apple- and grape-growing farmers in Shandong participate in producing and marketing fruit. However, this small- and poor-farmer friendly horticultural economy producing enormous amounts of fruit and vegetables at lower prices is vulnerable to food safety problems.