Cash Crops and Climate Shocks: Flexible Livelihoods in Southeast Yunnan, China

CASH CROPS AND CLIMATE SHOCKS: FLEXIBLE LIVELIHOODS IN SOUTHEAST YUNNAN, CHINA

Clara CHAMPALLE Department of Geography McGill University, Montreal

Submitted December 2012

A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts

ABSTRACT The rural landscape of the People’s Republic of China has changed dramatically from land collectivization in the 1950s to the decollectivization reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1979. By the mid-1980s each rural household had again become responsible for its own agricultural production, and food security began to improve, even within the most remote areas. To further this agrarian transition, in the late 1990s the central state devised the Western Development Strategy to advance its ‘less developed’ western regions, within which provincial governments subsidized cash crops. The aim of this thesis is first to examine the importance of cash crops and related subsidies for Han and minority nationality farmer households in Honghe Hani-Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan, China; second, to assess how extreme weather events affect these farmers’ livelihoods and to investigate the coping mechanisms they employ. To answer this aim I draw on a conceptual framework that incorporates key elements from sustainable livelihoods, food security, and vulnerability and resilience to climate variability literatures. Focusing on four townships in Honghe Prefecture, southeast Yunnan, I completed statistical analyses of quantitative data regarding recent extreme weather events in the region and ethnographic fieldwork, including conversational interviews with farmers and semi-structured interviews with local officials completed in summer 2011. I find that state-sponsored cash crops do not always bring higher financial capital rewards and that cash crop farmers have been increasingly exposed to extreme precipitation and temperatures since the year 2000, which constrain their access to livelihood capitals, essential for (re)investing in cash cropping. In turn, farmers cope with and/or adapt to climate shocks according to their initial livelihood decision-making and the specifics of the event, while also being influenced by their location and ethnicity. In sum, I argue that farmers’ vulnerability is rooted in social, temporal and spatial variables, many of which are not being considered by state officials.

RÉSUMÉ Le paysage rural de la République Populaire de Chine s’est considérablement transformé depuis la collectivisation dans les années 50 jusqu’aux réformes de dé-collectivisation instauré par Deng Xiaoping en 1979. Au milieu des années 80, chaque ménage rural est redevenu responsable de sa propre production agricole et la sécurité alimentaire semble s’être améliorée, même dans les régions les plus reculées. Pour intensifier la transition agraire et le développement rural, l’état a commencé à la fin des années 90 à subventionner les cultures commerciales au niveau provincial, à travers sa « Stratégie de développement de l’ouest du pays ». L’objectif de ce mémoire est premièrement d’examiner l’importance des cultures commerciales subventionnées par l’état pour les agriculteurs, particulièrement issus des minorités ethniques (Yi, Hmong, Yao, et Zhuang) et de la majorité Han dans la Préfecture de Honghe, Yunnan; et deuxièmement d’évaluer les effets des phénomènes climatiques extrêmes sur leurs moyens d’existence et d’étudier les mécanismes de survie auxquels ils ont recours. Pour remplir cet objectif, j’utilise un cadre théorique incorporant les éléments clés des littératures sur les moyens d’existence durables, la sécurité alimentaire, ainsi que la vulnérabilité et la résilience à la variabilité du climat. Mes méthodes comprennent une analyse statistique des données quantitatives des récents phénomènes climatiques extrêmes dans la région et un travail ethnographique dans quatre cantons de la Préfecture de Honghe, notamment des entrevues non structurées avec les agriculteurs et semi-structurées avec les cadres locaux au cours de l’été 2011. Je constate que les cultures commerciales subventionnées par l’état ne s’accompagnent pas toujours d’une amélioration du capital financier des agriculteurs et que ces cultures sont de plus en plus exposées à de fortes précipitations et d’extrêmes températures, qui réduisent l’accès aux capitaux de subsistance, nécessaire au réinvestissement dans les cultures commerciales. Par conséquent, les agriculteurs développent des stratégies de survie et/ou d’adaptation selon leurs moyens d’existence choisis et le type de phénomènes climatiques, mais sont également affectés par leur emplacement et leur ethnicité. En somme, je remarque que l’accès des agriculteurs aux ressources est essentiellement fonction de trois variables : sociale, temporelle et spatiale ; celles-ci souvent ignorées par les cadres gouvernementaux.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research would not have been possible without the help of many individuals, whom I wish to acknowledge here. First and foremost, I want to thank my supervisor, Professor Sarah Turner. I am forever grateful for her continuous support, guidance and thorough encouragement from the first to the very last draft of this thesis. I would also like to thank the second member of my supervisory committee, Professor Navin Ramankutty who supported me in my quantitative endeavours and for his insightful comments along the way. I would also like to thank the support of all members of the Southeast Asian Research Lab and the constructive criticism on my work through our meetings in Thomson House. I would like to extend thanks to official proofreaders Jonathan Gerber, Sarah Delisle, Noelani Eidse, and Jean-Francois Rousseau who have helped polish my English through numerous drafts and have given me great advice. These past two years of studying would have been much harder without the support from my friends and family who have put up with my stress, doubts and other questions and have given me hope and courage to accomplish this. To name a few: my parents, sister and brothers, as well as Soph, Oly, the DDF, Chloé, JB, Pablo, Fabien, Magalie, Eva, for their moral support and time for the countless occasions at which we debated on the meaning of all this. I also want to acknowledge the support of Pablo Arroyo and Corey Lesk with their respective help and patience on ArcGIS and climate data analysis. Many thanks to my Chinese research assistant in the field, Dingxiang, as well as my research collaborators in Kunming, who have facilitated my field season in Yunnan Province. My thanks also go to the financial support that I received from Sarah Turner, Mr. Roger Warren, the Geography Department and McGill University as well as my family, who made this two-year research possible. I also wish to send my regards to McGill’s Geography Department’s administration and their support in all administrative papers. Last but not least, many thanks to all the Yi, Hmong, Yao, Zhuang and Han interviewees for their curiosity, enthusiasm and patience.

iii Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION 1 1.1. Thesis Aim and Research Objectives 3 1.2. Thesis Outline 5 CHAPTER 2 – CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 7 2.1. Sustainable Livelihoods 7 2.1.1. Defining Livelihoods and Access 8 2.1.2. Sustainability and Long-Term Flexibility 10 2.1.3. Propelling Forces to Rural Diversification 12 2.1.4. Diversifying Livelihood Strategies to Diminish Vulnerability 14 2.1.5. Key Points from the Sustainable Livelihoods Literature 15 2.2. Vulnerability and Resilience to Climate Variability 15 2.2.1. Defining Climate Variability, Vulnerability and Resilience 16 2.2.2. The Concepts of Vulnerability and Resilience to Climate Variability 19 2.2.3. A Holistic Approach 20 2.2.4. Key Points from the Vulnerability and Resilience to Climate Variability Literature 21 2.3. Food Security 22 2.3.1. Defining Food Security 22 2.3.2. Food Security: Four Dimensions Over Time 23 2.3.3. Food System Concept 24 2.3.4. Key Points from the Food Security Literature 26 2.4. Chapter Conclusion 26 CHAPTER 3 – CONTEXT 28 3.1. Environmental Context and Related Policies 28 3.1.1. Land Resources Related Institutional and Policy Changes Since 1949 29 3.1.2. Water Management Related Policies Since 1988 30 3.1.3. Regulations Resulting From Land and Water Resources Degradation 31 3.2. Political and Socio-Economic Context 32 3.2.1. East Versus West: 1978 to late 1990s 32 3.2.2. Go West Campaign and Western Development Strategy: late 90s-early 2000 33 3.3. Politics Behind the Minority Nationality ‘Label’ 36 3.4. Landscape and Multi-Ethnicity in Yunnan and Honghe Prefecture 38 3.4.1. Topography, Hydrology and Demography of Yunnan Province 38 3.4.2. Minority Nationalities’ Historical and Current Livelihoods in Honghe Prefecture 39 3.5. Four Townships in Mengzi and Hekou 41 3.6. Chapter Conclusion 44 CHAPTER 4 – METHODOLOGY 45 4.1. Field Sites 46 4.2. Quantitative Methods 46 4.2.1. Climate Data Analysis – Mengzi County Weather Station 46 4.2.2. Secondary Data Analysis 49 4.3. Qualitative Methods 50 4.3.1. Participant Sampling 50 4.3.2. Participant Observation 51 4.3.3. Unstructured / Conversational Interviews with Farmers 52 4.3.4 Semi-Structured Interviews with Government Officials 52 4.3.5. Teaming Up With an Assistant: Practicalities, Advantages and Cross-Cultural Dilemmas 53 4.4. Data Analysis 55

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4.5. Researching in China 55 4.6. Positionality, Power Relations And Ethical Dilemmas 58 4.7. Chapter Conclusion 60 CHAPTER 5 – STATE INCENTIVES FOR AGRARIAN CHANGE AND IMPACTS ON LIVELIHOOD 61 5.1. From Subsistence To Cash Cropping: Agrarian Change 61 5.1.1. The Contemporary Agrarian Situation in Honghe County 61 5.1.2. Agricultural Change in Mengzi and Hekou Counties 63 5.2. State Incentives Pertaining to Cash Crops in Mengzi and Hekou Counties 65 5.2.1. Flue-Cured Tobacco – Mengzi County 65 5.2.2. Sericulture: Mulberry Silk – Mengzi County 68 5.2.3. Apple Trees – Mengzi County 70 5.2.4. Walnut Trees – Mengzi County 70 5.2.5. Sugarcane – Mengzi County 71 5.2.6. Bananas – Hekou County 72 5.2.7 Rubber – Hekou County 73 5.2.8. Watermelons – Hekou County 74 5.2.9. Other State-Sponsored Cash Crops 75 5.2.10. State Incentives Conclusion 76 5.3. Impacts of Cash Crop Development at the Household and Village Levels 77 5.3.1. Impacts on Natural Capital 77 5.3.2. Impacts on Physical Capital 79 5.3.3. Impacts on Financial Capital 80 5.3.4. Impacts on Human Capital 82 5.3.5. Changes in the Role of Social Capital in Accessing Resources 83 5.3.6. Conclusions on Impacts of Cash Crops on Access and Role of Five Livelihood Capitals 84 5.4. Case Studies Illustrating Impacts of Cash Crop farming 85 5.4.1. Case Study 1: Mr. Hu’s Household, Han: Sericulture, Lily Flower Cultivation 85 5.4.2. Case Study 2: Mr. Ma’s Household, Yi: Tobacco Cultivation 85 5.4.3. Case Study 3: Mr. He’s household, Yao: Bananas and Other Non State-sponsored cash crops 87 5.4.4. Case Study 4: Mr. Jiang’s household, Hmong: Bananas and Other Non State-sponsored cash crops 87 5.4.5. Case Studies Conclusion 88 5.5. Chapter Conclusions 89 CHAPTER 6 – CLIMATE DATA ANALYSIS AND IMPACTS ON LIVELIHOODS 91 6.1. The Importance of Extreme Weather Events in Mengzi 91 6.1.1. Precipitation and Temperature Extremes in Mengzi County Since 1973: Yearly and Monthly Resolution Climate Data Analyses 91 6.1.2. Triangulating Sources: Farmers’ Accounts and Secondary Data 97 6.1.2.1. Prolonged Drought in 2009-2010 98 6.1.2.2. Cold Spell Of Winter 2010-2011 101 6.1.3. Conclusion on the Importance of Extreme Weather Events in Mengzi Since 1973 105 6.2. Impacts of Extreme Weather Events on Han and Minority Nationality Livelihoods in Honghe Prefecture 105 6.2.1. Drought Impacts 106 6.2.2. Cold Spell Impacts 109 6.2.3. Floods Impacts 111 6.3. Chapter Conclusions 114 CHAPTER 7 – GOVERNMENT AID AND FARMER COPING AND ADAPTING STRATEGIES 116

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7.1. Government Relief Operations 116 7.1.1. Hierarchy and Organization of Aid in Times of Disaster and Post Disaster 116 7.1.2. Disaster Relief Operations During and After Recent Disasters in Honghe Prefecture 118 7.2. Livelihood Coping and Adapting Strategies 122 7.2.1. Coping Strategies 122 7.2.2. Adapting Strategies 128 7.2.3. Sufficiency of the Governmental Aid and Relief in Question 130 7.3. Chapter Conclusions 131 CHAPTER 8 – DISCUSSION AND THESIS CONCLUSION 133 8.1. Spatial, Social and Temporal Variables Influencing Farmers’ Livelihoods 133 8.1.1. Spatial and Social Variables Influencing Non-Crisis Time Vulnerability 134 8.1.2. Spatial, Social and Temporal Variables Affecting Crisis and Post-Crisis Resilience 136 8.1.3. Spatial, Social and Temporal Variables Among the Four Case Studies 137 8.2. Livelihood Diversification and Environmental Conservation 138 8.3. Thesis Conclusion 139 Appendices 143 Appendix 1: Ethics Certificate 143 Appendix 2: List of Participants: Farmers and Government Officials 144 Appendix 3: Methodology for valuing the household asset base 145 REFERENCE LIST 146

List of Figures Figure 1.1: Yunnan Province highlighted within China 2 Figure 1.2: Honghe Prefecture within Yunnan province 2 Figure 1.3: Interviewing a Han farmer in Lengquan Township with my assistant 6 Figure 2.1: Conceptual framework guiding my research 7 Figure 2.2: Sustainable livelihood framework 12 Figure 2.3: A holistic approach to vulnerability and resilience to climate variability 21 Figure 2.4: Components of a food system 25 Figure 2.5: Food system vulnerability and resilience as a function of the environmental change, exposure, and adaptive capacity 26 Figure 2.6: Conceptual framework guiding my research 27 Figure 3.1: Political context and corresponding land reforms from 1949 to early 2000s 30 Figure 3.2: Topography (left) and hydrology (right) of Yunnan province, China 38 Figure 3.3: Yi farmers working in the fields, Xibeile Township 40 Figure 3.4: The four townships where fieldwork was undertaken, Honghe Prefecture 42 Figure 4.1: Triangulation of sources in my quantitative and qualitative methods 45 Figure 4.2: Five steps to gain access to the field: from government officials to farmers 56 Figure 5.1: Tobacco barn in Xibeile Township 66 Figure 5.2: Beds for silkworm rearing in an open shed, Lengquan Township 69 Figure 5.3: Drip irrigation for watermelon under greenhouse 75 Figure 5.4: Asset pentagon of Mr. Hu before and after 2003, when he switched to cash cropping 85 Figure 5.5: Asset pentagon of Mr. Ma before and after 2007, when he switched to cash cropping 86 Figure 5.6: Asset pentagon of Mr. He before and after 1999, when he switched to cash cropping 87 Figure 5.7: Asset pentagon of Mr. Yu before and after 1995, when he switched to cash cropping 88 Figure 6.1: Annual total precipitation over the 1973-2011 period 92 Figure 6.2: Yearly average deviation from long-term average temperature in Mengzi City over the 1973-2011 period 92 Figure 6.3: Anomalous wet and dry months per decade over 1973-2011 in Mengzi County 94 Figure 6.4: Anomalous, warm and cold months over 1973-2011 in Mengzi County 95

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Figure 6.5: Monthly long-term average precipitation and temperature and their respective standard deviations (+/-) over the 1973-2011 in Mengzi County 96 Figure 6.6: Days per year recording drought conditions over April, May and June from 2000 to 2011 in Mengzi County 99 Figure 6.7: Average number of days per year recording drought conditions over April, May and June from 2000 to 2011 in Mengzi County 100 Figure 6.8: Days recording cold temperature by winter season from 2000 to 2011 in Mengzi 103 Figure 6.9: Days with one standard deviation below the average temperature during winter in Mengzi County (2000-2011) 103 Figure 6.10: Direct and subsequent impacts from drought in Honghe Prefecture 106 Figure 6.11: Direct and subsequent impacts of a cold spell in Honghe Prefecture 109 Figure 6.12: Dead rubber trees between Yaoshan and Nanxi 110 Figure 6.13: Direct and subsequent impacts from floods in Honghe Prefecture 112 Figure 6.14: Flooded fields in Lengquan after a mild mountainous torrent 112 Figure 7.1: Disaster Relief Operations in Honghe Prefecture 118 Figure 7.2: Water reservoir outside a Hmong farmer’s house 124 Figure 7.3: Farmers’ Coping and Adapting Strategies When Faced by Drought, Floods and Cold Spell 127

List of Tables Table 2.1: Actions and possible diversification strategies according to types of extreme weather events 15 Table 4.1: Participants, locations, interviews and gender distribution 51 Table 5.1: Categories of livelihood options among the 63 households representatives interviewed in Mengzi and Hekou counties 63 Table 5.2: Changes in agricultural practices over the past 20 years in Honghe Prefecture 64 Table 6.1: Distribution of monthly anomalous occurrences and variable months over the 40-year period, from 1973 to 2011 in Mengzi County 97 Table 6.2: Rainless days and hot days highlighted for the months of April, May and June in the year 2010 in Mengzi 100 Table 6.3: Days with temperature falling one and two standard deviations below the average. Winter 2010-2011 in Mengzi 104

vii Thesis Introduction Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION

In the Autonomous Prefecture of Honghe, in Yunnan Province, southwest China, agricultural farmers have increasingly moved from subsistence food crops to cash crops. As part of the broader agrarian transition, these cash crops were mostly introduced by local governments following the 1979 ‘open door’ strategy, but more importantly, after the 2000 “Western Development Strategy” with the objective of developing Yunnan’s economy and agriculture. The goal of the Central government was to address three major agricultural concerns known as the “san nong” or the ‘three rural’: rural economy, rural community and rural residents (Lai 2002, He 2005). Since the mid-1990s, many Han and ethnic minority subsistence-oriented households cultivating food crops in rural Honghe Hani-Yi Prefecture have thus changed to become semi-subsistence or cash crop farmers. Simultaneously over the past five years, since the mid-2000s, these farming households have increasingly been hit by various, ever more severe, climate events, including lingering droughts, cold spells and floods. As such, this research focuses on the recently emerging threats of climate variability to Han and minority nationalities Yi, Hmong, Yao and Zhuang farming households, and their ability to create sustainable livelihoods, and uphold household resilience and food security in Mengzi and Hekou counties in the face of both new cash crop opportunities and extreme weather events. Yunnan Province, located in southwest China (Figure 1.1), is a landlocked province sharing international borders with Burma, Laos and Vietnam. As a Socialist State, China’s hierarchical administrative units are present from the central to the provincial level, to the prefecture, county/city, township and village committee levels, and all contain both rural and urban areas (Lingohr-Wolf 2011). Yunnan Province includes 16 prefectures among which eight are prefecture-level cities and eight are autonomous prefectures.1 As one of the 16 prefectures, Honghe Prefecture includes 13 counties/cities, among which two were my field sites, namely Mengzi City (shi 市) and Hekou County (xian 县) (highlighted orange and red respectively in Figure 1.2). To avoid confusion between rural and urban areas, I hereafter refer to Mengzi City’s administrative zone as Mengzi County, because Mengzi is both the capital city of Honghe Prefecture and one of Honghe Prefecture’s counties/cities, thus including both rural and urban areas (see Figure 3.4 – Chapter 3).

1 The prefecture level cities are: Kunming, Qujing, Yuxi, Baoshan, Zhaotong, Lijiang, Pu’er and Lincang. The autonomous prefectures are: Dehong, Nujiang, Deqen, Dali, Chuxiong, Honghe, Wenshan and Xishuangbanna (Autonomous prefectures are ‘ethnic autonomous’ regions; explained in Chapter 3, Section 3.3.2)

1 Thesis Introduction Chapter 1

Figure 1.1: Yunnan Province highlighted within China (Author 2011)

Figure 1.2: Honghe Prefecture within Yunnan province (Author 2011)

2 Thesis Introduction Chapter 1

Honghe Prefecture’s population is composed of a wide range of minority nationalities, including Yi, Hani, Hmong, Zhuang, Yao and Nung. This research examines the livelihoods of Han farmers as well as farmers from Yi, Hmong, Yao and Zhuang minority nationalities which, in 2000, accounted for 33.4 per cent of Honghe’s 4.4 million people (China Data Online 2000). While the Han and Zhuang I encountered live in the lowlands of Honghe Prefecture, the Yi, Hmong and Yao are located in the highlands of the prefecture. Lowlanders are known to have migrated from the coastal provinces over the past centuries, attracted by the abundant natural resources of western provinces. On the other hand, highlanders came from northern parts of China several centuries ago to settle in Yunnan’s highlands, far away from the oppressing majority (Michaud 2006). In the past two decades these farmers have experienced livelihood changes carried out in the forms of agricultural intensification, market integration, strengthening of regulation and urbanisation coupled with industrialization and more commonly identified as the agrarian transition (Bernstein and Byres 2001, Spoor 2007, Lohmar 2009). These closely related transformations have had social and political impacts on rural livelihoods, which in the past, solely consisted of subsistence farming (Chatsea 2009). In this research, I address the impacts of this recent agrarian change and how farmers get by with their rural livelihoods.

1.1. THESIS AIM AND RESEARCH OBJECTIVES The aim of this research is twofold. First to examine the importance of cash crops and related subsidies for Han and minority nationality farmer households in Honghe Hani-Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan, China; second, to assess how extreme weather events affect these farmers’ livelihoods and to investigate the coping mechanisms they employ. My aim is expanded upon by the following four research objectives: 1) Local ways of experiencing agrarian change As rural populations in Yunnan Province experience an agrarian transition, my first research objective is to examine the importance of cash crops and related subsidies in Honghe Prefecture and their impacts on Han and minority nationality livelihoods? 2) Climate data analyses and impacts of extreme weather events My second research objective is to assess how extreme weather events affect these farmers’ livelihoods. This research objective has three sub-parts: A) To analyse how climate has changed over the past 40 years in Mengzi County according to climate data, specifically regarding increased frequency of extreme weather events and variability. B) To evaluate how empirical data from the field and other sources corroborate climate data. C) To examine the impacts of drought, floods and frost on Han and ethnic minority livelihoods and on the environment in rural Honghe Prefecture.

3 Thesis Introduction Chapter 1

3) Government aid/relief and farmers’ livelihood coping and adapting strategies My third research objective is to investigate government disaster relief organization and the coping mechanisms Han and minority farmers employ in the face of climate shocks. 4) Vulnerability of livelihoods My fourth and final research objective is to identify and analyse the ‘variables’ with the greatest influence on farmer livelihoods, specifically regarding access to assets and resources, household resilience and food security, among Han and minority nationality farmers who have adopted cash-crop agricultural approaches and who must concurrently cope with and adapt to extreme weather events. To meet these four research objectives, ethnographic fieldwork was undertaken in Summer 2011 (Figure 1.3). In order to ground this research’s results in conceptual debates, I draw from three bodies of literature to build a conceptual framework, namely sustainable livelihoods literature, vulnerability and resilience to climate variability and food security.

As mentioned, in this research, I examine climate variability through the occurrence of three extreme weather events, namely droughts, cold spells and floods. Defining a drought is a difficult task as it is measured and interpreted differently in each region of the world, usually depending on the region’s type of climate. A drought is therefore generally referred to as a “period of less than average or normal precipitation over a certain period of time sufficiently prolonged to cause a serious hydrological imbalance resulting in biological losses and/or economic losses.” (Nevada, Division and WaterPlanning 2000: online). Academic literature distinguishes three different categories of drought, from the least to the most severe: meteorological drought, agricultural drought and hydrological drought (Nevada et al. 2000, Pandey et al. 2007a). The types of drought that I focus on in this thesis are meteorological and agricultural droughts. The former occurs “when annual rainfall (or precipitation) is less than the long-term average (LTA) annual rainfall” and the latter “when soil moisture availability to agricultural crops is reduced to a level causing adverse effects on grain yield and consequently, the agricultural production of a region” (ibid: 94).2,3 The severity depends on the duration of a drought and the extent to which annual precipitation reduces and/or temperature increases,

2 The quantitative climate data analysis conducted for this research takes into account temperature and precipitation data, thus can only refer to meteorological drought results through the rainfall analysis. Even though I do not analyse actual and potential evapotranspiration, I refer to agricultural drought, as combined temperature and rainfall analysis can show soil moisture deficit and as I am able to account for the crop production losses from drought through farmers’ qualitative and quantitative accounts of impacts. In my results, I thus refer to a drought as encompassing both meteorological and agricultural droughts. 3 The third category of drought is defined as “the onset of a hydrological drought is signified by the occurrence and/or persistence of meteorological drought causing shortage of surface water in streams, lakes, reservoirs and/or groundwater supplies” (Nevada et al., 2000:94)

4 Thesis Introduction Chapter 1 which in turn cause the soil to be water deficient and generate water stress for plants and decrease crop yield (ibid). As the second type of extreme weather event analysed for this research, cold spell is usually characterised by: A rapid fall in temperature within 24 hours to temperatures requiring substantially increased protection to agriculture, industry, commerce, and social activities. Therefore, the criterion for a cold spell is twofold: the rate of temperature fall, and the minimum to which it falls. The latter depends upon region and time of year. (AMS and Society 2000: online) According to China Meteorological Bureau (2010a), a cold spell is declared when temperatures drop by 8°C or more within 48 hours and fall below 4°C and when the wind speed reaches Level 5. Finally, a flood is defined as “an overflow of water onto lands that are used or usable by man and not normally covered by water. Floods have two essential characteristics: the inundation of land is temporary; and the land is adjacent to and inundated by overflow from a river, stream, lake, or ocean” (Nevada et al. 2000:122). A flooding event does not have the same impact on agriculture as a drought event as the impacts of a flood vary according to the type of land affected. Climate variability translates into events such as long lasting droughts, cold spells, or floods, each of which will have a different rate of onset. Slow rates of onset (a drought for example) put pressure on a system for a long period, while fast rates of onset (cold spells, floods, hurricanes, earthquake) result in immediate disaster and intervention. In addition to the rate of onset, other characteristics of natural disasters, such as the frequency, duration, intensity and magnitude, should be taken into account when analysing climate variability (Cutter et al. 2008), see Chapter 2).

1.2. THESIS OUTLINE In the next chapter, I present the conceptual framework underpinning this study, which guides both my fieldwork and data analysis. I introduce and critique the sustainable livelihoods approaches of the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (2002), conceptual approaches to vulnerability and resilience to climate variability and the literature on food security. I critique each in turn and from these bodies of literature pull out core ‘building blocks’ that form my conceptual framework and underlie my data collection and analysis. In Chapter 3, I place my research into context by introducing the environmental, political, economic and social context of Honghe Prefecture. I then introduce the landscape and the individuals inhabiting rural Honghe Prefecture who are at the core of this study. In Chapter 4, I

5 Thesis Introduction Chapter 1 introduce my methods, both quantitative and qualitative and address the challenges and ethical dilemmas in gaining access to, and then undertaking research in the field in rural Yunnan, China. The three chapters that follow present my results and are organised around an extreme weather event (pre-event, during and post event). In Chapter 5, I draw upon my fieldwork interviews to examine incentives implemented by the local governments of the four townships studied, for farmers to transition to cash cropping. I focus on the impacts of switching to cash crops on farmers’ access to assets and resources. Chapter 5 thus addresses my first research objective and present antecedent conditions to extreme weather events (also referred to as non- crisis time) and shed light on farmers’ vulnerability to climate variability. My second research objective is answered in Chapter 6, in which I analyse climate data over the 1973-2011 period to examine the increasing climate variability in Mengzi County. I then build on farmers’ interviews to examine impacts of recent extreme weather events. In the last result chapter, Chapter 7, I address my third research objective and refer to post-event and government’s aid and relief operations as well as farmers’ coping and adapting strategies in the face of extreme weather events. Finally, in Chapter 8, I draw out and interpret the three variables that I have found influence farmers’ access to the five types of capitals the most directly to meet my fourth and final research objective.

Figure 1.3: Interviewing a Han farmer in Lengquan Township with my assistant (Author 2011)

6 Conceptual Framework Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2 – CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

In this chapter, I build a conceptual framework, shown in Figure 2.1, through the critical review of three bodies of literature, namely sustainable livelihoods, vulnerability and resilience to climate variability, and food security. In Section 2.1, within the sustainable livelihoods literature, I begin by examining the importance of accessing assets and resources and responding flexibly and sustainably to external forces by developing livelihood strategies, such as diversification. In Section 2.2, I then delve into the literature on vulnerability and resilience to climate variability by assessing the numerous definitions and highlighting the temporal and dynamic dimensions of vulnerability and resilience. I end this section by opting for a holistic approach to vulnerability and resilience to climate variability to convey my thesis aim. Finally, in Section 2.3, I explore the literature on food security by defining four dimensions and reviewing Sen’s entitlement concept, which correlates with access to resources to finally reveal the close interaction of food system’s activities with sustainable livelihoods and vulnerability to climate variability. From my review and critique of this literature I identify key ideas and concepts that form the conceptual framework that I use to reach the aim of my overall research; which is first to examine the importance of cash crops and related subsidies for Han and ethnic minority farmer households in Honghe Hani-Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan, China; second, to assess how extreme weather events affect these farmers’ livelihoods and to investigate the coping mechanisms they employ. Figure 2.1 details key ideas and themes embedded in three building blocks, one for each body of literature.

Figure 2.1: Conceptual framework guiding my research

2.1. SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS Livelihoods literature is particularly relevant in supporting this research, as I focus on the ways farmers in rural Yunnan, China, negotiate and sustain their daily lives. Among the wide

7 Conceptual Framework Chapter 2 literature on livelihoods, the key ideas and concepts that I draw attention to are: access to the five different types of capital, shaping activities and everyday lives (Section 2.1.1), the necessity to continuously remain flexible in regards to sudden changes (2.1.2), the six propelling forces leading to diversification described by Rigg (2006) (2.1.3) and finally the different types of livelihood strategies adopted when facing extreme weather events (2.1.4).

2.1.1. Defining Livelihoods and Access Livelihood studies are said to have emerged in the 1980s as part of the broader literature on food security and famine linked to the Brundtland Report on Sustainable Development (Brundtland and WCED 1987). Scholars have thereafter developed and adapted the livelihood concept in a variety of disciplines, alongside governmental entities wishing to improve approaches to poverty alleviation. The livelihood approach aims to take a holistic view of the everyday lives of people in terms of making a living and the resources accessed to do so (Scoones 1998, Carney and Britain 2003, Ellis 2003). A livelihood is defined by Chambers and Conway (1992: i) as “people, their capabilities and their means of living, including food, income and assets”. Widely used within the literature, this straightforward definition has also been followed by numerous more nuanced approaches, debates and critiques. As such, Ellis (2000: 7) defines capabilities as the “ability of individuals to realise their potential as human beings, in the sense both of being and doing” (see also Sen, 1981). Ellis refers to having access to both sufficient human and social capitals and assets. Within my research, livelihoods are investigated at the individual and household levels as a diversity of livelihood strategies are adopted at both levels when coping with and adapting to extreme weather events. ‘Income’ designates three types of income and activities, including farm, non-farm and off-farm income (Ellis 2000). A farm income results from farming activities such as growing cash crops, whereas a non-farm income results from non-farming activities carried out in the farm setting, such as making handicrafts or an income from leasing a property (ibid). Off-farm incomes describe work done in a non-agricultural setting, such as factory, construction work or street vending (Bouahom, Douangsavanh and Rigg 2004, Ellis 2000). Assets or ‘capitals’ are divided into tangible (stores and resources) and intangible (claims and access) and are often defined as taking the form of different types of ‘capitals’, most commonly identified as natural, physical, economic/financial, human and social (Ellis 2000). While most livelihoods approaches widely use these five types of capitals in their approach to poverty alleviation, this is still contested and critiqued by some scholars. However first, let us review the commonly used five capitals.

8 Conceptual Framework Chapter 2

Natural capital refers to the environmental resource base, such as land, water and trees, which allow a population to survive (Ellis 2000, Bebbington 1999). Two types of natural resources can be distinguished: renewable resources, such as soil irrigated via water canals directly managed by farmers, and non-renewable resources, such as extractive resources including metals and oil which sustain livelihoods through their off-farm earnings (Ellis 2000). Physical capital addresses human-produced goods, equipment or infrastructure, such as irrigation systems dedicated to agricultural intensification (ibid.). Owning livestock, such as a buffalo is considered physical capital as it is used to plough fields, akin to agricultural equipment, but can also become a source of income when selling it (financial capital). Human capital relies on the quality and quantity of the labour force, its level of education, the skills and the health status of a population. An often overlooked component of human capital is traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), which refers to “a cumulative body of knowledge, practice, belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmission, about the relationship of living beings (including humans) with one another and with their environment” (Berkes 1999: 8). This component of human capital is further emphasized as I discuss coping and adapting strategies adopted by Han and minority nationality farmers in Chapter 7. Economic or financial capital is characterized by the stocks of cash and access to credit that one needs to invest in or consume goods (Ellis 2000). Financial capital not only includes stocks of money (savings, income or loans) but also the buffalos or goats owned by the individual or household that constitute a non-liquid asset which can either be converted to another form of capital (physical) or sold in exchange for cash (ibid.). Finally, social capital is seen as the “rules, norms, obligations, reciprocity and trust embedded in social relations, social structures and society’s institutional arrangements, which enable its members to achieve their individual and community objectives” (Narayan-Parker and Pritchett 1997: 50). Social capital allows an individual to access a range of other capitals available within the social network, which would otherwise be out of reach (DfID 2002, Ellis 2000). Putnam further distinguishes bonding social capital from bridging social capital; the former involves an individual’s close network of relatives and close friends, while the latter opens a bridge to other communities’ networks, hence to extended opportunities within a horizontal dimension (Putnam 2001, Turner and An Nguyen 2005, Woolcock and Narayan 2000). Another type of network, linking social capital, embraces a vertical dimension and is seen as a way for individuals to reach out to formal institutions and use these links to lever themselves to gain better access to resources and further economic development (Woolcock and Narayan 2000, Turner and An Nguyen 2005). While these different forms of social capital seem to only reveal the positive side of social

9 Conceptual Framework Chapter 2 capital, it has been argued that there are a number of negative aspects to social capital. Although initial research using this term ignored these, it has been increasingly part of the social capital literature to review both positive and negative sides (Hawkins and Maurer 2010, Turner and An Nguyen 2005). Indeed, as argued by Portes and Landolt (2000: 532), four negative consequences of social capital have been identified and reveal the dark side of social capital, namely: “the exclusion of outsiders, excess claims on group members, restrictions on individual freedoms, and downward levelling norms”. The positive and negative aspects of social capital play different roles in farmers’ coping and adapting strategies (or not) to extreme weather events, which I analyse in Chapters 7 and 8. As argued by Bebbington (1999), the literature on sustainable livelihoods too often reduces the types of capitals or resources rural people rely on to natural resources only. As such, Bebbington (1999) adds cultural capital to the livelihood framework, arguing that it is important to consider because it represents rural peoples’ conceptions. The notion of cultural capital is indeed too often ignored in the frameworks within livelihood studies. Indeed, the history of places, local context and the meaning of one’s livelihood strategies are also key to one’s overall livelihood. However, I suggest that cultural capital can be incorporated in human capital, when, for instance, human assets are viewed from the lens of traditional ecological knowledge, handed by cultural transmission. As such, the construction of knowledge and of one’s cultural identity is embedded in one’s skills, education, and hence human capital. In addition to cultural capital, it is argued by Ashley and Carney (1999: 35) that political capital could also be added to the sustainable livelihoods framework to include power imbalances within households and communities when analysing people’s access to assets. Building upon Ashley and Carney, I argue that power relations embedded in political capital can be analysed by focussing on how one mediates and gains access to the five types of capital. As I focus on the ways Yunnan farmers experience agrarian change and face extreme weather, the first key idea that I draw on from the livelihood literatures to establish the first building block of my conceptual framework is the importance of access to assets and resources (Ellis 2000, DfID 2002). The five commonly identified types of capital are also core elements that I examine in my case studies in Chapter 5, being mindful to stay alert to cultural aspects, the dark side of social capital as well as the various power relations (Ellis 2000, Bebbington 1999, Carney and Britain 2003).

2.1.2. Sustainability and Long-Term Flexibility According to Chambers and Conway (1992: 7-8), “livelihoods can be considered as sustainable if they can cope with and recover from stress and shocks, maintain or enhance capabilities and

10 Conceptual Framework Chapter 2 assets, provide sustainable livelihood opportunities for the next generation; and contribute net benefits to other livelihoods at the local and global levels and in the short and long-term.” In this thesis, I draw upon this definition of sustainable livelihoods and the approach developed by DfID because they encompass social, spatial and temporal dimensions, which become central in the result chapters. Sustainability and long-term flexibility represent the second key idea that I pull out from the sustainable livelihoods literature as they become central to farmers’ coping and adapting strategies discussed in Chapter 7. Figure 2.2 illustrates the sustainable livelihoods approach developed by the UK Department for International Development (DfID, 2002) and inspired by the work of Carney (1998). It shows how access to the five types of capitals is determined by exogenous factors and socio-political endogenous factors such as population growth, migration, culture and laws. It is important to note that the latter is mediated by policies, institutions and social relations (Ellis 2000). In other words, the set of assets and the portfolio of income earning activities acquired through livelihood strategies are mediated by social, economic and political aspects and various power relations between actors and may be exposed to external shocks and trends that constitute a households’ vulnerability (Ellis 2000, DfID 2002, de Haan and Zoomers 2005). Ellis (2000) especially emphasizes the influence of policies and institution processes, which is of particular importance in the agrarian transition context of my research as farmers deal access to new cash crop development by using their various social relations and managing power dynamics, further discussed in Chapter 5. Building upon sustainable livelihoods definitions, De Haan and Zoomers (2005: 33) emphasize that planning for current and future needs requires long-term flexibility over the “combinations of, and trade-offs between, different capitals”. Access to capitals or assets is therefore continuously negotiated at both individual and household levels. Exogenous factors, such as shocks, trends and seasonality affecting both individuals and households may change from year to year and season-to-season, driving populations to be flexible over time. Hence, these flexible livelihood strategies constitute an on-going and continuous process (Turner 2007). As Rigg notes (2007: 92) “individual livelihoods are always shifting and dynamic, never still. Floods and droughts are the more obvious forces of livelihood change along with tsunami, war and economic reforms”. Therefore, the degree of household and individual vulnerability to shocks necessitates the need for long-term flexibility in order to achieve a sustainable livelihood. The vulnerability context identified by DfID is divided into three types of risk or exposure (trends, shocks, seasonality) constantly threatening the states of and access to the five

11 Conceptual Framework Chapter 2 types of capitals (see left side of Figure 2.2).4 In turn, outcomes of a sustainable livelihood can include higher financial income and a more sustainable use of natural resources, which in turn improve an individual’s well being and maintain food security (see right side of Figure 2.2).

Figure 2.2: Sustainable livelihood framework (DfID 2002) These three types of risk influence access to resources, thus diminishing the ability for individuals to manage and conserve them. I suggest that this implies that human capital (health, education) plays a central role in maintaining a stable rural livelihood when facing increasing risks and vulnerabilities. Achieving a sustainable livelihood thus requires the acknowledgement of the vulnerability context to adequately access assets and capitals through social relations with the local government; this is reflected in Chapters 5-7. In the following section, I focus on the forces propelling rural diversification to then identify the corresponding livelihood strategies adopted in the face of these forces.

2.1.3. Propelling Forces to Rural Diversification Due to the agrarian transition occurring throughout most of Asia, Rigg (2006) suggests that rural livelihoods are increasingly leaning towards multiple occupations. Non-farm activities are even, in some cases, playing a greater role than farming activities. Rigg distinguishes five different propelling forces behind the diversification of rural livelihood portfolios that make up the third key idea that I draw from the sustainable livelihoods literature. First, national policy

4 The first type of risks constitutes long-term trends including environmental factors (climate change), demographic expansion, and the economic situation of a region or country as well as trends in governance, such as the politics of the given country. The second type of risks is shocks, such as those linked to human, crop and livestock health and natural hazards. Shocks can also include political conflict and sudden economic changes, such as rapid fluctuations in exchange rates. The last type of risk is seasonality and refers to agricultural production patterns, food availability and job opportunities according to each season (DfID, 2002).

12 Conceptual Framework Chapter 2 may emphasize more profitable economic sectors, leading to an urban and industrial bias and thus the erosion of farming profits. Second, the emergence of new, non-farm opportunities that are the result of improved infrastructure (roads, transportation means) which in turn increase the mobility and access to nearby villages and cities (out migration). Third, environmental degradation resulting from over-cropping and deforestation is a propelling force, which can be coupled with the occurrences of extreme weather events such as droughts or floods related to the on-going climate variability. I suggest that environmental degradation as the third propelling force reflects the vulnerability context of one’s livelihood identified within the DfID livelihoods approach (see Figure 2.2). Reforms and policies related to land resources due to population growth make up the fourth propelling force that is the increase of land shortages. Fifth and finally, Rigg identifies social and cultural changes, which drive livelihood diversification. These usually include education, mobility and the increasing media-led consumerism (Rigg 2006). These five forces driving diversification encompass the exogenous and endogenous factors identified in the DfID approach (2002) and are mediated by institutions, policies and processes as suggested by Ellis (2000) (see Section 2.1.2). To these five, I would argue there is another feature to be added that has tended to be ignored to date in this literature. Changes mediated by institutions and policies may in turn modify local conditions to such an extent that financial capital may be an increasing necessity to sustain one’s livelihood (Turner 2012). Therefore the need for more financial capital – cash – contributes to a sixth force that may drive diversification, and is one that will become apparent in my study in Chapters 5 and 7. In sum, it seems that all these forces may lead to off-farm activities gained through migration to other areas (urban or rural) as mobility and access are the main drivers. Although migration may be considered as a ‘failure’ of adaptation, I suggest that it is worthy of importance to consider the numerous ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors behind the act of migrating; the former being associated with issues linked to the area of origin, the latter referring to attractive circumstances at the destination (Lee 1966). As such, the act of moving from rural to urban areas due to high climate variability resulting in poor yields (push factors) can be seen as a way to reduce vulnerability as migration opens the path to new social and economic opportunities (pull factors). In turn, Ellis (2003) argues that this move may further lead to increased social and financial capital. In addition, remittances sent to those ‘left-behind’ may not only allow for the purchase of livestock, but may also enhance both physical and financial capital by paying for more years at school, thereby augmenting education levels and in turn increasing human capital (Tan 2009). How these propelling diversification factors intersect in the Yunnan case will be part of my focus in Chapters 5 and 7.

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2.1.4. Diversifying Livelihood Strategies to Diminish Vulnerability In response to these six propelling forces, a wide range of livelihood strategies are adopted by famers to diminish their vulnerability to external risks and exposure; these different strategies represent the last key idea that I pull out from this literature. Scoones (1998) suggests three different types of strategy, including agricultural intensification or extensification (crop diversification; on-farm income), livelihood diversification (non-farm income) and migration and remittances resulting from migration (off-farm income). These strategies can also be grouped by diversification tactic and classified according to the type of activity, as in on-farm and off-farm activities (non-farm employment, small business, migration and so on). However severe the dry or wet seasons may be, livelihood strategies are put in place to face these seasons and are adapted each year to climate variability. The challenging task here is to classify those diversification techniques adopted to control and manage one’s livelihood with the probable aim of increasing resilience. In doing so, I argue that the motivation behind an individual’s desire or need to diversify should not be overlooked. Davies (2009) stresses the importance of time when responding to shocks by comparing strategies implemented to cope with immediate (or short-term) decline in access to food with those enacted to adapt to permanent (long-term) changes to an individual’s food security. In contrast to Davies, Bouahom et al. (2004) make a distinction between two diversification techniques, namely ‘distress’ diversification and ‘progressive’ diversification. The former is adopted in the case of survival (involuntary) and the latter thought of as a voluntary strategy to increase economic expansion; while both potentially lead to new livelihood opportunities. As such, McSweeney and Coomes (2011) found that facing extreme weather events such as Hurricane Mitch in Central America in 1998, provided the community with a window of new livelihood opportunities by recovering their social-ecological memory in the longer-term reconstruction process. Building upon Bouahom et al., Turner (2007, 2012) adds another technique known as ‘selective’ diversification which is also seen as voluntary but undertaken when opportunities appear thus not necessarily ‘planned’ as progressive diversification can be. These different classifications of diversifying livelihood strategies all seem to relate to timing and to the state of access to assets and resources before, during and after crisis, as is discussed in Chapter 8. In addition to the above-mentioned ways of classifying livelihood strategies, numerous authors have developed a variety of concepts, which I have attempted to sum up in Table 2.1 according to the types of extreme weather events I focus my research on (Scoones 1998, Bebbington 1999, Ellis 2003, Bouahom et al. 2004, Cannon et al. 2004, Rigg 2006, Davies et al. 2009). In sum, short-term and sudden events with fast rates of onset, such as cold spells and

14 Conceptual Framework Chapter 2 floods, trigger more coping and distress diversification. On the contrary, slow rates of onset events, such as prolonged droughts, make way for longer-term, progressive and selective diversification. Table 2.1: Actions and possible diversification strategies according to types of extreme weather events Types of Drought (sudden; Drought (long Cold spell (sudden; Floods (sudden; events short-term) lasting; long-term) short-term) short-term) Impacts Action Coping Coping first, Coping Coping (necessity, Then adapting (necessity, involuntary) (necessity, involuntary) (necessity/choice) Mitigating further involuntary) Mitigating further Mitigating further damage Mitigating further damage damage damage Adapting (necessity/choice) Diversificati Distress Progressive / Distress Distress / progressive on selective may On-farm (crop On-farm (crop On-farm (crop On-farm (crop include: diversification) diversification/) replanting; diversification) Non-farm (textiles, Non-farm (textiles, diversification) Non-farm (textiles, furniture furniture Non-farm (textiles, furniture production) production) production) furniture production) Off-farm (migration, Off-farm Off-farm factory work) (migration, factory (migration, factory Infrastructure work) work) construction and maintenance

2.1.5. Key Points from the Sustainable Livelihoods Literature The inclusion of sustainable livelihoods in the conceptual framework for my research is key to forming a basis of understanding of how Han and minority nationalities that live in Yunnan shape their livelihoods and remain flexible when facing extreme weather conditions. Gaining access to the five types of capitals (natural, physical, financial, human and social) is an on- going negotiation among communities and with local governments that influence rural livelihoods. As my research focuses on land and water resources management in remote areas, access to these resources is of significant importance. Investigating rural populations’ differential access to the five capitals helps me assess how they may be more or less vulnerable to exogenous and endogenous factors. Exploring the forces propelling livelihood diversification also allows me to understand the various livelihood strategies of semi-subsistence farmers and how these are linked to extreme weather events. This understanding in turn helps me evaluate how rural populations build resilience and adapt to climate variability.

2.2. VULNERABILITY AND RESILIENCE TO CLIMATE VARIABILITY The literature on vulnerability and resilience to climate variability represents the second building block of my conceptual framework. Vulnerability refers to the degree to which a

15 Conceptual Framework Chapter 2 system is susceptible to damage caused by a crisis, while resilience pertains to the degree to which a system is able to overcome the damage caused by a crisis (Olmos 2001). As these two concepts are highly debated and contested within the literature, I first review the nuances brought by various authors to finally adopt working definitions for this thesis. I then pull out the key ideas relevant to my research: first, the dynamic and temporal dimension behind vulnerability and resilience (Section 2.2.1), second, the interconnections of vulnerability and resilience concepts, which leads me to argue for a holistic approach of these concepts (Section 2.2.2). This need for a holistic approach allows me to take into account social structures and political and economic dominance that may influence rural livelihoods in the context of my research (Section 2.2.3).

2.2.1. Defining Climate Variability, Vulnerability and Resilience Climate variability is defined by the Canadian Climate Change Scenarios Network – CCCSN (2010: online) as “a deviation from the overall trend or from a stationary state, and refers to variations in the mean state and other statistics (such as standard deviation, the occurrence of extremes, etc) of the climate on all temporal and spatial scales”. It is argued that climate variability and climate change are superimposed changes; the former is usually represented by short-term fluctuations while the latter is a longer-term trend (ibid). The variability embedded in climatic conditions, which is a focus in this thesis, represents a constant risk for rural livelihoods on top of other potential changes occurring at the social, economic and political levels, all of which may exacerbate the population’s overall vulnerability and reduce resilience (Ford et al. 2010). Climate variability may translate into events such as long lasting droughts, floods or flash floods, each of which have different rates of onset. Building upon characteristics of climate variability, I argue that an event characterized by a slow rate of onset (such as a drought) puts pressure on a system for a rather long period, while an event with a fast rate of onset (such as a flood, cold spell, hurricane, earthquake) results in immediate disaster and necessitates rapid intervention. In addition to the rate of onset, other characteristics of a natural disaster, such as the frequency, duration, intensity and magnitude should be taken into account when analysing climate variability (Cutter et al. 2008). Before delving into the various definitions of vulnerability and resilience, it is worth noting that as the analysis of vulnerability and resilience draws on both physical and social sciences, their approaches encompass many disciplines from climatology to human and physical geography. Therefore, when referring to vulnerability and resilience assessment, researchers tend to ground their study within the socio-ecological system (SES), also known as the coupled human-environment system (Turner et al. 2003, Adger 2006, Gallopín 2006). SES

16 Conceptual Framework Chapter 2 is defined by Gallopin et al. (2006: 294) as “a system that includes societal (human) and ecological (biophysical) subsystems in mutual interactions”. This is also stressed by Adger (2006: 268) when he states that “the concept of a socio-ecological system reflects the idea that human action and social structures are integral to nature and hence any distinction between social and natural systems is arbitrary”. The following paragraphs review the literature of both concepts and relate them to climate variability, as the aim of my thesis is to examine farmers’ vulnerability to climate variability as well as to investigate the strategies farmers develop to maintain their resilience. Studies on vulnerability emerged in the early 1970s in the disaster discourse and since then, definitions of vulnerability have grown in many directions so much so that they are strongly contested and often encompass the concept of resilience within vulnerability. As such, Clark et al. (2000: 2) see vulnerability as a “multidimensional concept encompassing exposure, sensitivity and resilience”, further defining it as “the risk of adverse outcomes to receptors or exposure units (human groups, ecosystems, and communities) in the face of relevant changes in climate, other environmental variables, and social conditions”. In contrast, in its third assessment report (2001) the IPCC defined vulnerability as “a function of the character, magnitude and rate of climate variation to which a system is exposed, its sensitivity, and its adaptive capacity” including adaptation which is ignored by Clark et al. Building upon the IPCC, Adger (2006: 1) defines vulnerability as “the state of susceptibility to harm from exposure to stresses associated with environmental and social change and from the absence of capacity to adapt”. For this research, I adopt Adger’s definition of vulnerability as it includes the human-environment system and the notion of adaptation that will be further addressed in Chapter 7. The recent emergence of so-called ‘contextual vulnerability’ (Ford et al. 2010) as opposed to the ‘impact-driven vulnerability’ enhances Adger’s (2006) statement on the need to consider integrated socio-ecological systems and is of critical importance in the assessment of vulnerability. Impact-driven vulnerability only focuses on the evaluation of natural and human vulnerability, while contextual vulnerability relates to vulnerability as a function of climatic conditions and the social, economic and political conditions of a given system or community (Ford et al. 2010: 377). As I focus on climate variability and the vulnerability and resilience of exposed populations to extreme weather events, I suggest that the concept of vulnerability should be seen in relation to hazards or causal shock factors, rather than in relation to the outcomes of a disaster event. Vulnerability as a function of climatic conditions is therefore more appropriate in this thesis than vulnerability to food insecurity, which may also be the outcome of severe climatic conditions, as discussed in Section 2.3 (Dilley and Boudreau 2001,

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Ford et al. 2010). In addition, Adger (1998) suggests that a distinction between individual and collective vulnerability is essential as they are linked through the political economy of markets and institutions. Vulnerability at the individual level refers to the relative poverty and deprivation as well as the informal social security of an individual, while collective vulnerability refers to the infrastructure, the role of the state and the policy intervention. For instance, collective vulnerability can be increased through institutional changes, such as changes in the distribution of water resources. As such, “vulnerability to climate change encompasses changes in individual and collective vulnerability over time associated with the changing incidence of extreme events” (Adger 1995: 1). Adger further adds the importance of the social structure of dominance and local institutions mediating the distribution of natural and social resources and thus influencing vulnerability and resilience at individual and collective levels (Adger 1998, Wisner 2004). The concept of contextual vulnerability and the need to consider individual and collective levels in assessing vulnerability reveal the multi-dimensional and multi-scalar component of vulnerability, which represents the first key idea pulled out from this literature. As identified within the sustainable livelihoods literature, livelihood strategies such as diversification (distress, selective or progressive) play an important role in reducing vulnerability to exogenous stresses and shocks and are one approach to enhance individuals’ resilience to climate variability. Hence vulnerability is directly linked to resilience and these are together related to social and ecological systems embedded in the livelihoods literature through access to resources. According to Brenkert and Malone, the assessment of vulnerability and resilience are centred on “societal systems and individual humans” (2005: 61), meaning that both concepts coexist at different scales, which is why I now turn to resilience definitions. Resilience originated in the sphere of ecology in 1973 (Holling 1973). Within the three decades that followed, resilience has been used in interdisciplinary studies within the coupled human-environment systems. As such, Carpenter et al. (2001: 765) define resilience as “the magnitude of disturbance that can be tolerated before a social-ecological system moves to a different state controlled by a different set of processes”. In contrast with Carpenter et al. who ignore the concept of adaptation within their definition, Folke et al. (2002: 438) refer to resilience for socio-ecological systems as related to “the magnitude of shock that a system can absorb and remain within a given state; the degree to which the system is capable of self- organisation; and the degree to which the system can build capacity for learning and adaptation”. I argue that the concept of adaptation plays an essential role in the long-term resilience as it is forward-looking and contributes to dealing with uncertainty and change (Berkes 2007: 284), as will be discussed in Chapters 7 and 8.

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Building upon Folke et al. (2002), Cutter et al. (2008: 599) define resilience as “a social system’s capacity to absorb disturbance and re-organize into a fully-functioning system”. Within their definition, the concept of resilience has two qualities: inherent and adaptive. The first one refers to the social system’s inherent conditions in non-crisis time while the second one refers to the capacity to learn, change and re-organise following the event (ibid). From this definition, the key idea that I pull out to build my conceptual framework is the fact that resilience takes into account social, temporal and spatial dimensions, that will become essential elements in Chapters 7 and 8. Furthermore, I argue that this definition from Cutter et al. (2008) relates to the sustainable livelihoods literature, as a community’s resilience to natural disasters is built upon livelihood strategies employed in response to exogenous factors. This refers both to longer-term livelihood strategies, often called adapting strategies (adaptive resilience), and to coping strategies, which are seen as immediate and short-term actions (inherent resilience) (Cutter et al. 2008, Davies et al. 2009). This corroborates Berkes’ (2007) argument of the benefits from ‘resilience thinking’ for a community to move forward as it copes with and adapts to external shocks.

2.2.2. The Concepts of Vulnerability and Resilience to Climate Variability Vulnerability and resilience concepts were first linked (Vogel et al. 2007) in the 1980s by Timmerman (1981: 2) who defined vulnerability to extreme weather events as “the degree to which a system acts adversely to the occurrence of a hazardous event. The degree and quality of the adverse reaction are conditioned by a system’s resilience”. Although these concepts have been tackled by various disciplines, among which disaster management and climate change adaptation, they have not necessarily collaborated in establishing their approaches, which have resulted in a number of isolated studies on the same topic (Vogel et al. 2007). According to Cutter et al. (2008: 598), recent research done by the US federal agencies reported a “shift in the rhetoric of hazards and disasters, moving from disaster vulnerability to disaster resilience, the latter seen as a more pro-active and positive expression of community engagement with natural hazard reduction”. Within the literature on natural hazards, Manyena (2006) argues that resilience may be seen as the outcome of an event, referring to post-disaster coping strategies and embedded in the vulnerability concept, thus considered as reactive once the disturbance occurred. In contrast to Manyena, Cutter et al (2008) see resilience as a continuous learning process involving better decision-making and a higher capacity to handle disasters, interpreted as pro-active and positive. This view of resilience, called process-related resilience, includes pre- and post-event measures and can be seen as an improvement process on both a short and long term basis, rejoining a sustainability approach (Cutter et al. 2008).

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Therefore, Cutter et al. (2008) refer to vulnerability and resilience as pre- and post-event respectively, adding a dynamic and temporal dimension and placing the system affected by an event or a disturbance at the centre of attention. In that sense, if seen in a loop, resilience may be seen as a continuous process, while vulnerability may be seen as both the antecedent conditions and the outcome of this on-going resilience. Therefore, the more resilient a household or a community is, the less vulnerable it is. This confirms that vulnerability and resilience are interconnected and overlapping concepts, which enhance the importance of a holistic approach to vulnerability and resilience to climate variability and make up the third key idea from this literature.

2.2.3. A Holistic Approach As the focus of my research is on the understanding of coping and adapting strategies of affected communities, I propose one approach that encompasses both vulnerability and the two qualities of resilience and adaptation over time. In Figure 2.3, I attempt to show the model of disaster resilience of place (DROP) developed by Cutter et al. (2008) and adapted to my research to include the concept of vulnerability. As such, inherent vulnerability and resilience overlap within a given system mediated by the social, natural and built environment (Fig 2.3, seen in the triangle on the left). Inherent vulnerability refers to the level of sensitivity and adaptive capacity resulting from exposure, while inherent resilience refers to the availability of the five types of capitals to an individual in a non-crisis period, which forms the baseline conditions. 5 These antecedent conditions interact with an event and its characteristics (frequency, duration, intensity, magnitude, rate of onset) specific to the location. Once the event happens, it triggers immediate effects on biophysical and socio-economic vulnerability (sensitivity and adaptive capacity), which can be amplified or attenuated (represented by a plus and a minus sign respectively) by already implemented coping responses that rely on inherent resilience. From then on, two possible cases may follow (see Figure 2.3): a) if the impacts of the disaster are sufficiently attenuated by coping responses, thus not exceeding the community’s absorptive capacity, this will result in a high degree of recovery from the event; b) the community’s absorptive capacity may be exceeded due to a highly severe or prolonged event which overwhelms the local capacity, or, the event may be less severe but the community’s adapted coping responses may be insufficient, in which case the community will have to improvise and learn by adapting to fully recover. The concept of longer-term adaptation thus comes into play as it contrasts with immediate coping strategies. Smit et al. (2000: 6)

5 The five types of capital are represented by the asset pentagon seen in Section 2.1.1: Human, social, physical, financial and natural

20 Conceptual Framework Chapter 2 consider that “adaptation involves adjustments to enhance the viability of social economic activities and to reduce their vulnerability to climate, including its current variability and extreme events as well as longer term climate change”. Adaptive resilience or adaptation helps reduce vulnerability and is closely linked to the sustainable livelihoods’ strategies, highlighted in Section 2.1 and is therefore the final key idea that I pull out from this literature (Berkes 2007).

Figure 2.3: A holistic approach to vulnerability and resilience to climate variability (adapted from Cutter et al., 2008) Furthermore, the above-adapted framework from Cutter et al. (2008) emphasizes the fact that to understand vulnerability, one should understand resilience to climate variability; therefore it is necessary to conceptualize them in a holistic approach. From a livelihood studies perspective, inherent resilience and vulnerability can thus be seen, respectively, as the presence and absence of forms of capital.

2.2.4. Key Points from the Vulnerability and Resilience to Climate Variability Literature I reviewed the literature encompassing vulnerability and resilience to climate variability and extracted the following key concepts that will be relevant to my research. I first emphasized the importance of considering a socio-ecological system (SES) as a base before reviewing existing definitions. I proposed to assess contextual vulnerability and process-related resilience as two multidimensional and multi-scalar concepts based on a broader sustainable livelihoods approach. Third, I examined the links between vulnerability and resilience and presented a holistic approach adapted from Cutter et al. (2008). This approach takes into

21 Conceptual Framework Chapter 2 account the multiple dimensions (biophysical, socio- economic and political) and multiple scales (spatial, temporal) embedded in both vulnerability and resilience. Within this dynamic approach, the concept of adaptation came to be identified as a longer-term strategy as opposed to a short-term coping strategy. I now turn to food security: a successful – but vulnerable to climate variability – outcome of one’s livelihood.

2.3. FOOD SECURITY Food security represents the third and final building block of my conceptual framework. I first define food security and focus on Sen’s entitlement concept to starvation and famine, which ties to the notion of access to resources and to the five capitals identified in the sustainable livelihoods approach (2.3.1). Second, I build upon the food security definitions to focus on the four dimensions of food security and how they must co-exist over time for the food system to remain resilient to external shocks (2.3.2). Third, I draw special attention to the composition of a food system including global environmental change and its relevant outcomes that contributes to food security (2.3.3). These key ideas and concepts come together to uncover the close interaction between food security and livelihood studies.

2.3.1. Defining Food Security The field of food security studies emerged with the Human Rights Declaration in 1948, which recognized the right to food as part of the right to an adequate standard of living (UN 1948: Art. 25). Food security was defined at the 1996 World Food Summit, as “a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (Barrett 2010: 825). However, before the early 1990s, food security concerns were solely addressed at regional and national levels and mostly referred to shortages in aggregate food supply rather than issues around getting access to food (Barrett 2002). As argued by Barrett (2002), this view of food security ignored within-group variability as well as regions where food supply was adequate but were still stricken by food insecurity. These shortcomings led to Sen’s concept of “entitlements” which shifted the concern from food supply to food demand in terms of access to food at the household and individual levels. Sen’s approach (1981) is defined as: an approach to starvation and famines which concentrates on the ability of people to command food through the legal means available in the society, including the use of production possibilities, trade opportunities, entitlements vis-à-vis the state, and other methods of acquiring food (1981: 45).

22 Conceptual Framework Chapter 2

In this research, I focus on food insecurity occurring at the individual and household levels as a consequence of high vulnerability and low resilience to climate variability. As achieving food security is part of one’s livelihood outcomes (see the DfID’s framework in Section 2.1.2), it is consequently part of the dynamic context and the long-term flexibility embedded in sustainable livelihood strategies (Capaldo et al. 2010, Scaramozzino 2006, Rigg 2006). In reviewing the food security literature, I identified a close link – also embedded in Sen’s entitlement approach – between enhanced food security and sustainable livelihoods. Indeed, the entitlement concept refers directly to the dimension of access to resources and thus to food, all conditioned by the five different capitals of Ellis (2000) and DfID (2002). I argue that natural, physical, human, social and financial capitals are all intertwined with food access, production and distribution. Building upon this, the last FAO annual report on global food insecurity recommends the adoption of a holistic approach to livelihood strategies, vulnerability, and the causes and consequences of food insecurity (FAO, 2010). It is such a holistic approach that I am attempting to take in this thesis.

2.3.2. Food Security: Four Dimensions Over Time The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) emphasizes four dimensions of food security that should be fulfilled simultaneously: food availability, economic and physical access to food, food utilization and the stability of these three dimensions over time (Lovendal 2004, Schmidhuber and Tubiello 2007). Food availability refers to the agricultural system and its capacity to produce sufficient food according to the given agro-climatic conditions. The second dimension, economic and physical access to food refers to the “access by individuals to adequate resources known as entitlements to acquire appropriate foods for a nutritious diet” (Schmidhuber and Tubiello 2007: 19703). As argued by Smith (2000: 201), access to food can be gained through: “production or gathering of food, purchase of food in the market with cash income and/or receipts of in-kind transfers of food”. Building on these definitions, I argue that access to food directly pertains to gaining adequate access to financial capital, which in turn is conditional on accessing the other four types of capitals – mentioned in Section 2.1 – such as natural capital in terms of land and human capital in terms of adequate skills to produce goods. The third dimension focuses on food utilization which includes “safety and quality aspects of nutrition”, hence closely related to health and sanitary conditions along entire food chains (ibid: 19703).6 Finally, the fourth dimension addresses the stability of the first three dimensions, introducing a temporal element. Unstable conditions of the three other dimensions (availability,

6 In my results, I do not refer to food utilization as it involves precise nutrition indicators that I was not able to collect in the field. Therefore I focus my analysis on the other three dimensions of food security: availability, access, and stability.

23 Conceptual Framework Chapter 2 access and utilization) can be triggered for instance, by climate variability and exposure to external stress and shocks, consequently exacerbating the food system vulnerability and reducing its resilience – discussed in Chapters 6 and 7. These four dimensions of food security and their essential temporal element make up the second key idea that I pull out from the food security literature.

2.3.3. Food System Concept The third key idea that I draw from within this literature is the importance of considering food security as an outcome of a food system. The food system concept dates back from early 1990s and was developed following increased research interest on the interactions between global environmental change (GEC) and food security (Ingram 2011). Following several attempts to modelling food systems with GEC (McMichael 1994, Sobal et al. 2006, Tovey 1997, Dixon 1999, Fraser, Mabee and Figge 2005), Polly Ericksen (2008b: 3) defines a food system as “a set of activities and outcomes ranging from production through to consumption, which involve both human and environmental dimensions”. As such, a food system’s outcomes contribute to food security. However, Ericksen (2008) points out that a broader framework for food systems is necessary to account for the complexity and multiple interactions encompassing food security. She thus adds the following elements, to her initial food system definition (illustrated in Figure 2.4) (Ericksen 2008a: 234): The interactions between and within bio-geophysical and human environments determine a set of activities; the activities themselves (from producing to consuming); the outcomes of the activities (contribution to food security, social welfare and environmental security); and other determinants of food security. Building upon this food system definition, I argue that these elements refer to the sustainable livelihoods approach as a food system, which benefits from and affects access to natural, social, physical, human and financial capital. Figure 2.4 shows the four food system activities that contribute to food security, social welfare and environmental security (Ericksen 2008a). Here, Ericksen refers to social welfare as access to financial, social, political and human capitals, while environmental security pertains to one’s access to natural capital and ecosystem services.

24 Conceptual Framework Chapter 2

Figure 2.4: Components of a food system (Ericksen, 2008: 239) To gain a better understanding of Han and minority nationality livelihoods in Yunnan, I assess – in Chapter 6 – if and how climate variability affects minority nationalities’ food systems and food security. As mentioned in Section 2.2, a comprehensive and holistic approach is necessary to explore the vulnerability and the resilience of any socio-ecological system; therefore this also applies to assessing a food system’s vulnerability and resilience to climate variability. Figure 2.5 shows how exposure to Global Environmental Change (GEC) – or climate variability in this case – may impact a food system’s vulnerability and resilience, which would in turn trigger societal change and affect the capacity of individuals to cope with or adapt to changes (Schmidhuber and Tubiello 2007, Ericksen 2008b). As argued by Ingram (2011), considering the whole food system as a holistic concept rather than looking at its outcomes only, helps to identify which food system’s activity make it vulnerable to GEC. Knowing which activity is more vulnerable can help indicate “what, where and how adaptation measures can enhance food security in the face of GEC” (Ingram 2011: 422). I refer to this approach of analysing coping and adapting measures to climate shocks in order to ensure the four dimensions of food security in Chapter 7.

25 Conceptual Framework Chapter 2

Figure 2.5: Food system vulnerability and resilience as a function of the environmental change, exposure, and adaptive capacity (Source: Ingram and Brklacich, 2002, in Ericksen 2008: 7)

2.3.4. Key Points from the Food Security Literature The inclusion of food security as one of the building blocks of my research is important insofar as food insecurity affects livelihood outcomes. External shocks such as those triggered by climate variability can directly affect agricultural communities and their food reserves. In this section, I reviewed definitions of food security and Sen’s concept of entitlement and how it relates directly to the concept of access to resources, which in turn reveals the close interaction that stems from sustainable livelihoods, food security and vulnerability and resilience to climate variability. I then addressed and emphasized the temporal element of the four dimensions of food security – availability, access, utilization and stability – for a food system to cope with climate variability. Finally, I addressed the food system approach and highlighted the importance of its outcomes and contribution to food security.

2.4. CHAPTER CONCLUSION In this chapter, I build a conceptual framework based upon key ideas stemming from three interrelated bodies of literature, namely, sustainable livelihoods, vulnerability and resilience to climate variability, and food security. The key ideas established in this chapter identify themes, which not only guide my research in the field but also inform the analysis of my collected data. Figure 2.6 shows how the three building blocks of my conceptual framework are interrelated and help reach my four research objectives within three results chapters and one discussion chapter (Chapters 5 to 8). The concepts and key ideas identified within each body of literature should be seen as evolving in a dynamic socio-ecological environment and need to be viewed through a holistic approach that includes external as well as internal influences at multiple scales (spatial, temporal and social).

26 Conceptual Framework Chapter 2

Figure 2.6: Conceptual framework guiding my research First, using Ellis (2000), DfID (2002) and de Haan & Zoomers (2005)’s work on rural sustainable livelihoods, I pull out three key components of a livelihood framework that are directly relevant to my work – access to assets, long-term flexibility and the vulnerability context. I draw special attention to six propelling forces (Rigg, 2006) triggering livelihood diversification and the importance of the five types of capital within the diversification process and the different livelihood strategies. Second, I review the definitions of vulnerability and resilience to climate variability developed by various prominent authors, highlighting the multidimensional and multi-scalar concepts of vulnerability and resilience. Building upon the approach from Cutter et al. (2008), I emphasize the importance of the need for a holistic approach to vulnerability and resilience to climate variability and the distinction between short- term coping strategies and long-term adaptation relating to the sustainable livelihoods literature. Finally, from the food security literature, I use the food system approach (Ericksen, 2008) and the entitlement concept (Sen, 1981) to extract three key components relevant to my research: the contribution of the food system activities to achieving food security; the four dimensions of food security; and the close interaction between Sen’s entitlement concept and the other two bodies of literature of this conceptual framework. As a whole, this conceptual framework provides an analytical tool and a foundation to assess how extreme weather events in Honghe Prefecture, Yunnan, People’s Republic of China, affect Han and minority nationality Yi, Yao, Hmong and Zhuang livelihoods and to investigate the coping and adapting strategies they resort to.

27 Context Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3 – CONTEXT

In this chapter, I contextualize the contemporary ecological landscape as well as the political, economic and social situation of Yunnan and more specifically Honghe Prefecture. This chapter is divided into five sections. Section 3.1 reviews the institutional and policy changes over the past 60 years regarding land and water management by tracing China’s key historical events. I examine the chronological evolution of state policies concerning land and water resources from 1949 when the communists won the civil war and Mao Zedong enforced drastic land reforms until de-collectivisation in the early 1980s (Section 3.1). This retrospective continues from Deng Xiaoping’s open door strategy to the subsequent uneven development brought by regional policy (Section 3.2.1) and from the Go West campaign and the Western Development Program initiated by Jiang Zemin in the 1990s to its consequences on Yunnan’s development until now (Section 3.2.2). I end this section by contextualising these changes within the broader agrarian transition that has swept across China since 1978. In Section 3.3, I examine the politics of belonging to a minority nationality as opposed to the Han majority, and how it influences access to resources. I then introduce the complex geographical landscape of Yunnan province and its multi-ethnic population by focusing on the minority nationalities that I interviewed in the field, namely Yi, Hmong, Yao and Zhuang (Section 3.4).7 Finally, I focus on Honghe Prefecture as I introduce the four townships of Mengzi and Hekou counties where I conducted fieldwork during Summer 2011 in Section 3.5.

3.1. ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT AND RELATED POLICIES The changes in policies and reforms discussed here are all part and parcel of Yunnan’s agrarian transition. Defined broadly by a group of scholars, agrarian transition consists of a “large societal transformation from an agrarian society to one based increasingly on industrial production and services while urbanisation and livelihood changes proceed apace” (Chatsea 2009: online).8 More specifically in the Asia region, it is often associated with the agricultural intensification process, which has been the primary focus of this transition in Yunnan Province as well as market integration, and regulations intensification (Caouette and Turner 2009). In this research, these processes include the introduction of state-sponsored cash crops and related subsidies, that will be the focus of Chapter 5, where I analyse the impacts of switching to cash

7 The Hmong are a recognized sub-group of the Miao ethnic minority in China (Michaud, 2006) 8 This same group of scholars identified six key processes embedded in agrarian transition, worth mentioning here, namely: agricultural intensification, market integration, urbanisation and industrialisation, population dynamics, intensification of regulation, and environmental change.

28 Context Chapter 3 crops on local livelihood decision-making in Honghe prefecture. The following sections contextualise this agrarian transition in China, Yunnan and Honghe.

3.1.1. Land Resources Related Institutional and Policy Changes Since 1949 In order to understand agrarian livelihoods in southwest China, it is essential to review the history of agrarian reforms as well as the more recent evolution of water management related regulations and policies (see Figure 3.1). The 1949 communist victory represented a dramatic historical change for rural areas as Mao Zedong launched a land reform to redistribute confiscated properties to self-farming households in order to recover from the civil war (Kueh 1995). This ‘remunerative’ approach lasted from 1949 to 1952 and referred to decentralized rural control with farmers given financial incentives thanks to a market-oriented system. This period was seen as a period of recovery and a transition to collectivization. However, once farm output was well recovered in 1952, Mao Zedong engaged the country in land collectivisation, shifting from a ‘remunerative’ to a ‘coercive’ approach (Kueh 1995). In 1953, this ‘coercive’ approach was introduced by way of a centralized system in which farmers were collectivized and required to follow delivery quotas set by the Central government (ibid). This was then translated into the Great Leap Forward (1958-1960), which merged collectives together to carry out the construction of irrigation projects, industrial development and agricultural production with the aim of reaching self-sufficiency in the whole of China. This two year period of drastic reforms is also referred to as “Mao’s war against nature” and led to land degradation, deforestation and the worst famine in China’s history (Shapiro 2001). Consequently, the following four years (1961-1965) were focused on reorienting agricultural production towards income benefits for the collectives, leading to the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), which witnessed an intensification of agriculture (Kueh 1995). After Mao Zedong’s death, Chairman Deng Xiaoping shifted back to a ‘remunerative’ approach by giving land use rights back to individual farmers through the Household Responsibility System (HRS) which he established in 1984 (ibid). The HRS is part of the Land Administration Law and provides households with a contract signed with the local village authorities – the rural collective or lessor –, which entitles the lessee to use the land independently for 30 years (Ho 2001). 9 Within the HRS, areas of land were distributed according to the number of individuals per family. Once the households/farmers have paid agricultural tax and sold a quota of their output to the state, households can keep or sell the rest of the production (if any) resulting from the land, subsequently increasing productivity

9 Initially, the contract period was set at 5 years. This period was first modified in 1984 to 15 years and then again in 1993 to 30 years on top of the 15 years, meaning that all leases are up in 2029 (Ho, 2001).

29 Context Chapter 3 incentives through intensification and cash crop development (Pei 2002). Farmers in western provinces have been exempted from both paying agricultural tax and giving a quota of their production back to the state since the Western Development Strategy in 1999 (see Section 3.2.2). One could argue that this marked the return to a more harmonious relationship between human beings and nature, resulting in policy-based solutions to environmental issues instead of physical solutions applied during the Mao years. In addition, shifting back to a remunerative approach has reshaped the household, making it the main production unit and changing the focus from essential subsistence to market-based demand (Xu and Ribot 2004). However, within the HRS, as Ho (2001:397) mentions, “the contract is often but a ‘paper agreement’” as the rural collective has the power to decide to redistribute land rights when necessary (in response to changes in family size for example). The HRS is therefore somewhat ambiguous as it can unpredictably change according to the rural collective’s will (Ho 2001).

Figure 3.1: Political context and corresponding land reforms from 1949 to early 2000s

3.1.2. Water Management Related Policies Since 1988 Increased agricultural productivity, brought on by the reforms of Deng Xiaoping, led to higher demands for water, which in turn necessitated policies and regulations for water management. In 1988, the national Water Law became effective and focused on water use efficiency at central and local government levels to facilitate economic growth (Shugang 2010). Since 1993, the Ministry of Water Resources has established Water Affairs Bureaus at the prefectural level to conduct integrated urban and rural water management (Shen and Liu 2008). These Water Affairs Bureaus oversee water resources management, regulation enforcement and environmental management functions at the local level (ibid). In 2002, the law was revised as a result of water quality deterioration and depletion (Shugang 2010, Bin and Speed 2009). While

30 Context Chapter 3 the Water Law of 1988 took a reactive approach to water management, focusing on necessary actions in case of drought or famine; the revisions drafted in 2002 aimed to anticipate and mitigate potential water management issues through strategic planning (Shugang 2010). In addition, the 2002 Water Law not only includes articles on water resources development, usage and conservation, but also provides details on ownership, rights for abstraction and settlement of potential disputes over resources (Shugang 2010). Within the 2002 revised Water Law, the Water Allocation Plan (Article 45, 2002 Water Law) represents a “decision-making process involving the redistribution of water resources in respect of time, location, purpose and user” operating at three interconnected levels: a) river basin/regional level, b) abstractor level and c) user level within public water supply systems (Dajun and Speed 2009:209). As such, this plan allows river basin organizations to provide water where the natural distribution is uneven. Thus, if long-term drought events occur, the local authority for water resources is legally responsible for enacting efficient management techniques and provide water in sufficient quantity and quality in dry areas (ibid). At the abstractor’s level, the Water Permit Regulation requires the abstractor (individuals such as farmers or legal entities such as factories, water supply companies and irrigation districts) to acquire an abstraction permit. Once this permit is obtained, if the abstractor does not utilize the quantity of water use allowed by the permit, the water surplus can be transferred “with compensation”. This system is similar to cap and trade (Bin and Speed 2009). Finally, at the user level, water is supplied through the public water supply system to both urban and rural systems (that is farmers within an irrigation district will be allotted their share of the district’s water allocation and may transfer water rights between farmers) (Bin and Speed 2009, Dajun and Speed 2009). This contextual information will be discussed in Chapter 5-7, as I examine farmers’ access to land and water resources – identified within natural capital – in times of non- crisis and crisis.

3.1.3. Regulations Resulting From Land and Water Resources Degradation In addition to land and water resources management laws, China has put in place several laws to help face adverse effects from natural resources exploitation. As such, the Water and Soil Conservation Law, put into effect in 1991 aims at preventing and controlling water and soil erosion by promoting a rational use of natural resources as well as mitigating floods, droughts and sandstorms and improving the ecological environment and economic development (Shen and Liu 2008). In regards to floods, in addition to the special plan on flood control (within the Water Law) and the Water and Soil Conservation Law, the Flood Control Law, which came into force in 1997, regulates the prevention and control of floods while attempting to mitigate

31 Context Chapter 3 damage and secure livelihoods (Bin and Speed 2009). The Department of State Flood Control and Drought Relief is one of twelve departments within the Ministry of Water Resources and is in charge of enforcing this law. In the late 1990s, occurrences of severe droughts and floods intensified across China, including Yunnan province, and these events were considered to be the result of deforestation. Consequently, in 1998, after the disastrous impacts of flooding along the Yangtze river, the State put in place the Natural Forest Protection Programme (NFPP) in order to ban logging of forests and avoid further soil erosion (Xu, Lebel and Sturgeon 2009). The logging interdiction was then supplemented by the Sloping Land Conversion Programme or “Grain for Green Program”, which started in 1999. The Sloping Land Conversion Programme was designed to convert any farmland, barren and degraded land with a gradient above 25 degrees (which represents 14.67 million ha) to forest or grassland by 2010 (Xu et al. 2009, Bennett 2008, Xu and Ribot 2004). Both of these programmes, whose main objectives are the conservation of land and forest, are still being actively implemented in Honghe Prefecture among the rest of Yunnan Province (Bennett 2008). Beyond water supply or quantity, in the late 1990s, water pollution, especially from industries and from farm runoff such as pesticides came into the state’s focus (Shen and Liu 2008). The Law on Prevention and Control of Water Pollution, was put into effect in 1984 and amended twice in 1996 and 2008 and has two main objectives, namely, the prevention of water pollution and the protection of water quality and human health (Bin and Speed 2009). In sum however, over the last 60 years, the State’s back-and-forth in reforms and policies regarding land and water resources have negatively impacted the state of the country’s natural resources. Regulations are now aiming for a more sustainable use of resources, but the outcomes are yet to be determined.

3.2. POLITICAL AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONTEXT

3.2.1. East Versus West: 1978 to late 1990s In 1979, Deng Xiaoping started economic reforms which slowly moved China’s economy away from a planned, centrally run model towards a market-oriented economy (albeit still politically socialist) (Keith 2009). As opposed to Mao Zedong who favoured the interior provinces, Deng Xiaoping’s strategy of opening the economy to the outside world focused primarily on developing China’s coastal provinces (McCarthy 2002). As cited in McCarthy (2002:113), Dali Yang, a USA-based political scientist, considers that Deng Xiaoping chose to “favour growth at the expense of equity”. Deng Xiaoping considered coastal economic development as a driver for later inland and western economic development, as he mentioned: “areas that become prosperous first would pay more profits and taxes to help the development of poor areas”

32 Context Chapter 3

(Holbig 2004: 337). These coastal provinces, in 1995, represented 15 per cent of China’s area and 41 per cent of the population (Lai 2002). Only later was the widening gap between the east and the west recognised. These social cleavages, which became especially acute in the late 1980s, were an unexpected side effect of Chairman Deng Xiaoping’s implementation of the ‘open door’ strategy. In the early 1990s, the Central Government realized the potential for social unrest due to massive economic disparities between its coastal and inland regions, and due to disparities between minority nationalities and Han Chinese (Singh 2002). In Yunnan a number of negative consequences have arisen from these economic reforms in China’s coastal regions, among which are a high level of socio- economic marginalisation of minority nationalities due to the unbalance between new requirements driven from the central state and local ability to change (Xu and Ribot 2004). Indeed, in 1997, Yunnan’s per capita income fell behind the national average by over one-third (McCarthy 2002). This was exacerbated by the increasing gap between rural and urban dwellers. High poverty and underdevelopment in the province are further compounded with a high illiteracy rate (25 per cent) in the 15-year-old and older groups and increasing rates of AIDS (ibid). This further enhances the discrepancy between the government’s land and water management policies and traditional livelihood strategies.

3.2.2. Go West Campaign and Western Development Strategy: late 90s-early 2000 In the 1990s, Jiang Zemin, President of the People's Republic of China from 1993 to 2003, began to pay close attention to this phenomenon of economic inequality across China. In 1999, the central government launched the Go West Campaign, which introduced policies to speed up development in western provinces, such as tax exemptions or reductions, in order for the west to ‘catch up’ with the eastern provinces’ development (Yeung and Shen 2004).10 This campaign was renamed the Western Development Strategy in 2001 and tweaked to encompass a three- phase program spanning the following 50 years (2001-2010; 2010-2030; 2030-2050). According to Singh (2002: 123), the strategy’s key elements included “developing infrastructure, protecting environment, promoting urbanisation/new cities, helping people from western provinces in education […] and encouraging tourism and giving a new face to agriculture” (a ‘new ‘face’ which was never defined in policy documents at the time). More broadly, the ultimate goal of these campaigns was to strengthen the economy and address regional, ecological and security concerns (Lai 2002, Lan 2010b). Critically, the Western Development Strategy’s aims are seen by Goodman (2002) as part of an internal colonization

10 Tax incentives included exemptions from tax on profits for new foreign investment enterprises during their first two years of operations and a 50 per cent reduction of the normal tax rate for the following three years (Lai 2002, Yeung and Shen 2004).

33 Context Chapter 3 project by the central government to tap into western natural resources and have better control over minority nationalities. In terms of environmental protection, promoting reforestation was the main action taken to reduce soil erosion and control natural disasters such as floods and droughts in the west and southwest and sandstorms in the north (Lai 2002). In regards to security concerns, the aims of the Western Development Strategy were not only to secure China’s border regions that are mostly inhabited by minority nationalities (56 per cent of minority nationalities in China are concentrated in the west), but also to protect and build infrastructure to tap into abundant natural resources – water and minerals – all in order to respond to increasing population growth and depletion of resources in the east. Hence, plans to build both highways and railways to connect the east to the centre and the west of the country appear to have been predominantly undertaken to satisfy rising resource demands from eastern provinces (Goodman 2004). In Yunnan, the provincial government directs economic development and social policy in the post-Mao reform era, under the broader auspicious of central state plans. As a landlocked province in the west, the Go West Campaign in the late 1990s, followed by the Western Development Strategy directly influenced provincial policies, especially those regarding strengthening the local economy (Singh 2002, Xu and Salas 2003, Goodman 2004). Yet, despite the Western Development Strategy, in 2007, Yunnan’s per capita GDP scored far below the rest of China, with a nominal per capita GDP of 18,694 RMB (2,860 US$) (IMF 2008). However at the scale of China’s 12 western provinces, Yunnan ranked third highest in 2007 in terms of nominal GDP as it marked a 65 per cent increase in 10 years (72 billion US$ in 2007), but was still far below Inner Mongolia and Sichuan (Starmass 2010, Lin and Ren 2009). Between 1997 and 2007, Yunnan’s nominal per capita GDP went from 4,020 RMB (615 US$) to 10,500 RMB (1,603 US$). Although this shows a steady increase year after year, it is concentrated in the seven most populated cities/prefectures, which account for 82 per cent of the provincial GDP, with urban dwellers earning an average annual income nearly four times higher than that of rural populations (Yang 2006b, China Data Online 2009, Wei and Cai 2009). 11;12 It is clear that wealth disparities still remain large between urban and rural areas. Around 75 per cent (2006 data) of Yunnan’s population is engaged in agricultural production, although only 6 per cent of its area is arable (Miao, Xiao and Wang 2008, Thomas 1993). The food crops grown in Yunnan are mainly rice, maize and wheat. As for cash crops, Yunnan is not only the main growing and exporting province of the famous Pu’er tea with

11 The seven most populated cities/prefectures are: Kunming City, Qujing City, Zhaotong Prefecture, and Honghe, Dali, Wenshan, and Chuxiong Autonomous Prefectures. 12 The per capita income in urban areas amounts to 9,270 RMB (1,415 US$) compared to 2,040 RMB (312 US$) in rural areas in 2007 (Starmass 2010).

34 Context Chapter 3

320,000 hectares of tea plants, but also China’s primary producer and exporter of fresh flowers providing about 80 per cent of the domestic market with fresh flowers sales (Yin 2010). Sugar cane, rubber and tobacco compose the rest of the province’s main cash crops. Most cash crops have been introduced and promoted by both prefectural and provincial level governments within frameworks of either local rural economic growth policies or provincial reforestation programmes for the case of agro forestry products in late 1990s or early 2000s (such as apple, mango and mulberry trees, pineapples and banana plants in Honghe Prefecture) (Honghe Prefecture Official Website 2011, Honghe Prefecture Bureau of Statistics 2012).13 The relevant local government bureau, such as the Lengquan Township Bureau for Agriculture, encourages cash crop cultivation through subsidies but it is up to farmers to make the final decision. These farmer decision-making strategies are the focus of Chapter 5. As part of the Western Development Strategy, since the year 2000 Yunnan has been shifting from an agriculturally driven to a service oriented economy, brought about by large- scale service investments in tourism and infrastructure (Liu, Wang and Hu 2009). Indeed, in 1999, the agricultural sector employed 74 per cent of the working population while the secondary and tertiary sectors employed 9.3 per cent and 16.9 per cent respectively (Singh 2002). Seven years later, in 2006, the manufacturing and service sectors accounted for 36 per cent and 39 per cent of GDP respectively plus 7 per cent by the construction sector, while the agricultural sector declined to 18 per cent (Starmass 2010). This reveals that Yunnan experienced steady economic growth, focusing on the service and the manufacturing sectors to attract foreign direct investment. Gros (2010) considers the fact that in 2005 Yunnan recorded the largest number of tourists in Western China can also be due to the 1998 enforced ban on logging which forced rural populations to move towards tourism as a new livelihood strategy. However this rapid economic growth did not take place without side effects (Gros 2010). Although Yunnan’s economic development has resulted in better living conditions for a large proportion of the population, it has also led to environmental degradation and increasing social cleavages. Among the environmental impacts, water quality and quantity have been reduced, emphasizing the gap between rural and urban areas, which in turn, have led to social impacts as migration to cities increases. It is suggested that in the decade from 2009 onwards Western Development Strategy policies in Yunnan province intend to further emphasize investment in infrastructure, as well as enhance educational development, technology advancement and develop the modernization of industrial agriculture (Liu et al. 2009, Yunnan.cn 2012).

13 Programmes that promote the introduction of cash crops are usually designed by the prefectural Agriculture Bureau and adapted by the county or township government to fit the local context (see Chapter 5).

35 Context Chapter 3

3.3. POLITICS BEHIND THE MINORITY NATIONALITY ‘LABEL’ As Michaud et al. (2002) state, the complex topography found in the Southeast Asian Massif (defined in Section 3.4.1) has determined and shaped the livelihoods of minority nationality groups living here in terms of their economic, social and cultural development since their arrival in the area. While environmental factors have indeed played a large role in shaping minority nationality livelihoods, China’s recent political history has also left its mark on ethnic consciousness. How the 55 minority nationalities have been classified and the politics such classifications entail, influence local livelihoods decisions in my case study area in subtle ways. The constitution of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), signed in 1949, promoted a “unified country of diverse nationalities” – tongyi duominzu guojia, in opposition to the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang - KMT) and its leader Chiang Kai-shek’s aspiration of a ‘One people’ nation, which would in theory have forcibly assimilated a single ‘Chinese People’ – zhonghua minzu (Harrell and Yongxiang 2003). In the early 1950s, the PRC charged the State Nationalities Affairs Commission (SNAC) to undertake the “Minority nationalities identification programme” (Guo 2008, Mullaney 2011). Investigators were social scientists paired with local government officials. The underlying purpose of this programme was to unite minorities – mostly located near China’s borders – with the Han majority against potential foreign intrusion (Shih 2007). According to one of the investigators, Fei Xiaotong, the programme originally identified more than 400 different minority nationalities in all of China, among which 200 came from Yunnan Province (Fei 1980, Mullaney 2011). These 200 originally identified categories were then reduced to 25, because many of them did not qualify by state classification rules to obtain the status of a minority nationality group (Fei 1980). The reason behind this was either because the population was too small or because their language was shared with other ethnic groups, thus they were grouped together (ibid). Several consequences have emerged from this classification, among which I argue, the reduction of ethnic identity and the loss of languages as well as custom and traditions. As Mullaney (2011) argues, minority nationalities also became the centre of tourism attraction in Yunnan, making them commodities from which the State profited. In addition to classifying minority nationalities, the State designated ‘ethnic autonomous’ regions, with a certain degree of political, economic and cultural autonomy for minority nationalities (Xu and Ribot 2004). Indeed, as argued by Zhu and Blachford (2006: 330), since China is seen as a “culturally diversified and multinational state” with the aim of “maintaining national unity and internal cohesion”, each minority nationality’s socio-economic, political and cultural conditions count and influence policy decisions. While this may be true in theory, it is not always the case in reality. In terms of ‘political autonomy’, in theory, the

36 Context Chapter 3

“autonomous” status entitles these areas not only the right to self-administer and appoint minority nationality members to leadership positions and offices, but also the use of local languages and writing systems. In practice, this ‘political autonomy’ is not always applied; such is the case for minority language schools that too often lack qualified teachers to succeed in maintaining their language for instance. In turn, ‘economic autonomy’ means that the state allows for self-determination of the national development programme according to local needs in line with the goals of national economic development. However, from my observations in the field, local needs are usually assessed within a top-down approach rather than a bottom-up approach, hence ignoring local people’s on-the-ground realities. Finally, ‘cultural autonomy’ allows minority nationalities to decide whether or not customs should be reformed, plan educational programmes, health services and family planning (Lai 2009, Xu and Ribot 2004). Although this may be the case on paper, according to Harrell (1990) and other scholars (Schein 1997, Mullaney 2011) minority nationalities have generally less power than the Han over decision-making, who more often than not act with condescending behaviours. In 2000, minority nationalities represented only nine per cent of China’s total population, however they are concentrated in 64 per cent of China’s total land area of which 90 per cent comprise China’s border regions (Zhu and Blachford 2006). Yunnan Province has a total of 16 prefectures and cities, among which, half are autonomous prefectures dedicated to some minority nationalities that are in turn divided into autonomous counties (Yang 2006b). Of the 13 counties in Honghe Hani-Yi Autonomous Prefecture, three have “autonomous county” status, as they are mostly inhabited by ethnic groups that represent a majority compared to Hani and Yi, namely Hmong, Yao and Dai.14 Their strategic geographic locations as well as their traditions and agrarian livelihoods enhance their importance for the central government in terms of national security, political stability, economic development and social coherence, which actually offset their low representation in terms of population (Zhu and Blachford 2006). In addition to being located at the border regions, the areas inhabited by minority nationalities are the richest in terms of natural resources, such as grasslands, forests, oil, gas, minerals and precious metals. Although this may appear to be an advantage for minorities for their adequate and easy access to resources, the remote and mountainous areas they inhabit are harsh environment that can prevent from sustainable access to resources. In addition, the recent reforms and policy changes on land and water resources management, discussed above, have had impacts on minority nationality livelihoods living in the highlands of southwest China (Xu

14 The three autonomous counties of Honghe Prefecture are: Pingbian Hmong (Miao) Autonomous County, Jinping Hmong-Yao-Dai Autonomous County and Hekou Yao County (the last two located in the south of Honghe Prefecture and bordering Vietnam).

37 Context Chapter 3 et al. 2009). Therefore the politics of belonging to a minority nationality living in the highlands of Yunnan Province enclose a very complex picture in terms of their access to resources and livelihood decision-making that I further tease out in the results chapters.

3.4. LANDSCAPE AND MULTI-ETHNICITY IN YUNNAN AND HONGHE PREFECTURE

3.4.1. Topography, Hydrology and Demography of Yunnan Province Yunnan lies within what has been called the Southeast Asian Massif or Zomia (Scott 2009). This broader region covers all land over approximately 300-500 meter above sea-level from northeastern India, Burma, four provinces of southwest China (Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi and southwest Sichuan), Laos, Thailand, Cambodia to the central highlands of Vietnam (Scott 2009). At the provincial level, the landscape of Yunnan is composed of basins, valleys (6 per cent) and mountains (94 per cent). Elevation ranges from as low as 76,4 m in the Red river valley in the south east county of Hekou to as high as 6 740 m in the north west county of Deqin (see Figure 3.2; left) (Yang 2006b). With six15 of Asia’s major rivers running through its mountainous regions, Yunnan’s river network represents a large potential for hydroelectric power (Figure 3.2; right). Despite Yunnan’s reputation as the ‘water tower’ of Asia (Yang 2006b, Xu and Ribot 2004), extreme weather events such as droughts and floods have the ability to inflict severe stress on local livelihoods, perhaps in part due to a long-term assumption of local water availability.

Figure 3.2: Topography (left) and hydrology (right) of Yunnan province, China (Author 2011)

15 Lancang-Mekong river, Salween river (Nujiang), Yangzi River, Red river (Honghe or Yuanjiang), Nanpan river, Pearl River (Zhujiang)

38 Context Chapter 3

Yunnan is home to 45.4 million people (2008) of whom 34 per cent (15.4 million) belong to 25 of China’s 55 officially registered and recognized minority nationalities (shaoshu minzu) (China Data Online 2009). Bordering northern Vietnam along 848 km, mountainous Honghe Hani-Yi Autonomous Prefecture where my case study was conducted is one of the 16 prefectures and cities in Yunnan province (Michaud 2006). The Prefecture’s population is 4.4 million and is home to a wide range of minority nationalities. These include Yi, Hani, Hmong, Zhuang, Yao and Nung, of whom 82 per cent live off agriculture. Due to their dependence on the land, these households are likely to face hardships in their livelihoods when exposed to a long lasting drought or a sudden cold spell or flooding event (China Data Online 2009). In the next section, I briefly review Yi, Hmong, Yao and Zhuang minority nationalities’ historical and current livelihoods in China.

3.4.2. Minority Nationalities’ Historical and Current Livelihoods in Honghe Prefecture Following the minority nationality identification programme achieved in 1958 (described in Section 3.3), the state categorized the officially identified minority nationalities according to their modes of production (late primitive communal society, slavery society, feudal suzerain system, or landlord economy) in order to facilitate the transition from their modes of production to the coming collectivisation/communization taking place within the Great Leap Forward (‘direct transition’ or ‘peaceful consultation’) (Guo 2008). Yi were one of the ethnic groups organised in stratified societies and therefore were considered as needing to go through a ‘peaceful consultation’ (和平协商 - heping xieshang) before the transition as opposed to Hmong (Miao) and Yao who underwent a ‘direct transition’ (直接过渡 – zhijie guodu) (ibid). Nowadays, Yi (23 per cent), Hmong (6 per cent), Yao (2 per cent) and Zhuang (2.4 per cent) minorities represent less than half – 33.4 per cent – of Honghe’s population (China Data Online 2000). As 85 per cent of the prefecture’s area is mountainous, its population is mainly composed of minority nationality upland residents, including Yi, Hmong, Yao and Hani among others (Qi and Chunyue 2008), all living in the geographic margins, and thus socially distanced from the state’s power and regulations. These minority nationalities (shaoshu minzu, 少数民族) are mostly semi-subsistence farmers growing maize and rice as their main food crops in addition to secondary food crops such as buckwheat, beans and millet. Many have recently started growing cash crops such as tea, tobacco, rubber, peanuts, bananas, sugarcane, chilli peppers and ginger (Xu et al. 2009, Olson 1998). In Honghe Prefecture, minority groups living in the highlands mainly grow terraced or hill rice and maize on hill slopes and usually produce one harvest per year in autumn (Kueh 1995). While these four minority groups may present similar ways of living,

39 Context Chapter 3 their embedded history, identity and livelihood patterns should be considered individually (Michaud and Forsyth 2010). Yi people (yizu, 彝族) are considered as one of the first established ethnic groups living in Yunnan and are the second largest minority nationality in China as well as the largest of 16 minority nationalities using the Tibeto-Burmese language group (Michaud 2006). Members of the Yi ethnic nationality mostly inhabit the provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan and Sichuan and include different groups of Yi that may not speak the same language (Michaud 2006, Harrell 1990). Yi people used to live within a feudal society with Black Yi as aristocrats and White Yi as their slaves. Today, the Yi in Yunnan mostly live in Chuxiong Prefecture and Honghe Hani- Yi Prefecture, where they represent 23 per cent of the population (China Data Online 2000). Yi commonly grow rice on terrace fields, but also buckwheat and potatoes which, along with animal husbandry, represent traditional subsistence practices (Harrell 1990, Xu and Ribot 2004, Harrell 2001) (Figure 3.3).

Figure 3.3: Yi farmers working in the fields, Xibeile Township (Source: Author 2011) In China, Hmong people are considered to be a sub-group of the officially recognized Miao minority nationality (miaozu, 苗族). “Miao” is a term used to designate non-Han groups who lived in mountainous southwest China. Originally from Hunan province, they migrated to provinces in southwest China including Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and further south to China’s bordering countries such as Vietnam and Laos from Hunan province several centuries ago (Tapp 2003). In Hmong social organization, the father, along with every male member of the family, is responsible for creating a clan lineage, as women marry outside their clan and always live with their husband’s family, following clanic exogamy. Despite the importance of clan lineage, Hmong do not ascribe to a hierarchical form of social organization (Lee, 2000). In the past, Hmong grew opium poppies alongside other crops until its cultivation was banned in China in the 1950s and in neighbouring countries in the 1990s. Today, Hmong are present in most parts of the Southeast Asian Massif and usually live in the highest mountainous areas

40 Context Chapter 3 growing terraced or hill rice and maize (Tapp 2003). They are the third largest minority nationality living in Honghe Hani-Yi Prefecture, representing 6 per cent of the prefecture’s minority nationality population (China Data Online 2000). Yao people (yaozu, 瑶族) migrated from Hunan toward West China over the last four centuries due to population pressure from the Han majority (Michaud 2006). Yao people live in the highlands and are concentrated in Hekou Yao Autonomous County, representing 2 per cent of Honghe Prefecture’s population (China Data Online 2000). In the past, Yao people also cultivated opium like Hmong as well as paddy rice and maize. Under the ‘Zhuang’ people label (zhuangzu, 壮族) is a combination of numerous groups that represent the largest minority nationality in China with 16 million people, mainly concentrated in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Province (Michaud 2006). The Zhuang people also live in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces. They account for 2.4 per cent of Honghe Prefecture’s population (China Data Online 2000). When speaking to the Zhuang living in the low lands of Hekou County, they said they had migrated from Qiaotou Hmong and Zhuang Township in the neighbouring prefecture of Wenshan to Hekou in 1979 to hide during the Sino- Vietnamese war (farmers, Hekou, July 2011).

3.5. FOUR TOWNSHIPS IN MENGZI AND HEKOU This research was conducted in four townships in Honghe Prefecture, namely Lengquan and Xibeile located in Mengzi County and Yaoshan and Nanxi located in Hekou Yao Autonomous County (see Figure 3.4). 16 As noted earlier a township is not necessarily an urban conglomerate, and in these four cases are rural areas. In the past, farmers living in these four townships were mostly subsistence farmers cultivating food crops suited to the local climate. Both counties are located north of the Red River. All four townships belong to the South Asia sub-tropical climate with short winter and clearly differentiated dry and rainy seasons (Lengquan Township Government 2011).

16 See Section 1.2 for details on local state-level bureaucratic divisions in China.

41 Context Chapter 3

Yunnan Province

Honghe Hani-Yi Autonomous Prefecture

Red River

Figure 3.4: The four townships where fieldwork was undertaken, Honghe Prefecture (Author, 2012) Lengquan Township (lengquan xiang; 冷泉乡) is located 29 kilometres south west of Mengzi City accessible by both a winding mountainous road and a new expressway leading to Vietnam (thanks to the previously mentioned Western Development Strategy) (China Highway News 2009).17 The township represents 18.5 per cent of the Mengzi County’s administrative boundary’s total area (Lengquan Township Government 2011). The township is home to 22,200 people and 4,751 households, of which 98 per cent belong to the agricultural population while 1.8 per cent are engaged in off-farm activities (Lengquan Township Government 2011). Eight village committees fall under the administration of Lengquan Township, which group 107 natural villages and 117 villagers’ groups.18 In terms of minority nationalities the eastern part of the township (4 village committees) is mostly home to Hmong and the western part (3 village committees) to Han and Yi minority. Mountains and narrow valleys characterize Lengquan’s landscape with elevation ranging from 114 to 2,275 meters above sea level, which explains that among the 78,893 mu (5,259 ha) of arable land, the majority is non-irrigated farmland (handi, 旱地) and the rest is composed of paddy fields (shuitian, 水田). With 2.14 mu

17 The G8011 Kunming-Hekou Expressway opened to traffic in 2009. 18 The hierarchy of the Chinese communist party starts from the Central government, down to Province, Prefecture, County, and Township, under which village committees group natural villages and villagers groups at the same level.

42 Context Chapter 3

(1,426 square meters) of arable land per capita, the overall rural economy still manages to generate a gross income of RMB59 million (USD9.4 million) and a net per capita income of RMB1,729 (USD275). The predominant food crops are maize, rice and wheat; fruit crops include pomegranate, loquat, red dates and grapes. The most frequently cultivated cash crops are tobacco, silk and sugarcane.(Lengquan Township Government 2011, Mengzi City Online Statistics 2010, Mengzi City Online Statistics 2012a). Xibeile Township (xibeile xiang; 西北勒乡) is located 33 kilometres north east of Mengzi County and is accessible via a very winding mountainous road. It is home to 10,055 people in 2,101 households, of which 98.4 per cent are engaged in agricultural activities (Xibeile Township Government 2010). Five village committees fall under the administration of Xibeile Township, which include thirty-three villages altogether. Yi and Hmong minority nationalities as well as Han represent the majority of the population living in Xibeile’s villages. Xibeile is characterized by high plateau areas, ranging from 1,800 to 2,400 meters high, and mountainous, rocky and kartics landforms, which provide 25,125 mu (1,675 ha) of forest woodland area and 19,607 mu (1307 ha) of arable land. Out of this arable land, only 265 mu (18 ha) are paddy fields. With 1.95 mu (1300 square meters) of arable land per capita, the overall rural economy generates a gross income of RMB21 million (USD3.4 million) and a per capita income of RMB1626 (USD257). The predominant food crops are maize and upland dry rice; while the most cultivated cash crops are tobacco, walnut and apple trees (Xibeile Township Government 2010, Mengzi City Online Statistics 2012b). Yaoshan Township (yaoshan xiang; 摇山乡) is located 56.4 kilometres north of Hekou city, accessible via a winding road through the mountains, off the recently built expressway linking Hekou to Kunming. Yaoshan township is home to 11,107 people and 2,476 households of which 85 per cent belong to the Yao minority nationality, with the rest belonging to Yi, Hmong and Zhuang minority nationalities (Yaoshan Township Government 2011). Five village committees fall under the administration of Yaoshan Township, which include 45 natural villages and 49 villagers’ groups within a mountainous landscape ranging from 120 to 2,354 meters above sea level (Yaoshan Township Government 2011). Yaoshan is also characterized by an abundant forested area of up to 156,648 mu and a natural reserve area of 87,619 mu. This type of landscape along with the tropical climate of Yaoshan (annual average temperature is 22.5°C) suit the cultivation of tropical crops, among which are paddy rice, banana plants, pineapples, rubber, and pomelo trees. Abundant water resources allow for electricity generation of 5,000 kilowatt/hour (Yaoshan Township Government 2011). My final fieldwork site, Nanxi Town (nanxi zhen; 南溪镇) is located 18 kilometres north east of Hekou city and shares a 60 kilometre long border with Vietnam. Four village

43 Context Chapter 3 committees fall under the administration of Nanxi Town with 39 villagers groups and a total of 5,078 people. The population includes 15 different minority nationality groups, among which Yao, Hmong, Buyi and Han are the most numerically important ones. Nanxi Town covers an area of 25,800 ha, among which 98 per cent is mountainous land and 0.02 per cent is cultivated farmland, making it a very unfavourable environment for farmers to grow cash crops at a large scale and pushing them towards off-farm work (Nanxi Town Government 2010). Elevation in Nanxi ranges from 105 to 1,200 meters above sea level. Cultivation in Nanxi Town consists mainly of cash crops, namely banana, rubber and more recently watermelon planted in greenhouses. In 2009, the overall rural economy generated a gross income of RMB9.1 million (USD1.4 million) and a per capita income of RMB1,771 (USD280). In addition, Nanxi Town’s enterprises (off-farm activities) bring a total revenue of RMB95 million (USD15 million) (Nanxi Town Government 2010). From this overview of my field sites, it is important to note that Nanxi Town farmers are financially wealthier than those in the other three townships. This township also has the highest number of Han and Zhuang lowland communities. The minority nationalities that are located in the more remote villages of Lengquan, Yaoshan and Xibeile have lower income.

3.6. CHAPTER CONCLUSION In this chapter, I examined the political, economic, social and environmental characteristics of Yunnan and Honghe Prefecture in order to contextualise my research. I highlighted land and water resource management policies along with the economic and political developments in China since 1949 that have directly impacted on Yunnan province. In Section 3.4, I emphasized the complex geographical landscape of Yunnan and Honghe Prefecture and how it shapes the agrarian livelihoods of Yi, Hmong, Yao and Zhuang highland communities. I then focused on the political aspects of belonging to a minority nationality versus the Han majority. The last section of this chapter introduced the multi-ethnic and mountainous locales where I conducted fieldwork.

44 Methodology Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4 – METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, I outline the methods used to conduct this research, review the challenges of gaining access to the field in China and explain debates around positionality and power relations that I suggest are bound to appear in such a field work endeavour. My fieldwork season of nine weeks included two weeks in Kunming and seven consecutive weeks in Honghe Prefecture, Yunnan province. In Kunming, I met with my field assistant, Dingxiang, local researchers from various universities and non-governmental organizations and collected yearly Honghe Prefecture official governmental reports at Yunnan University. I was then primarily based in Honghe prefecture’s capital city, Mengzi, from which I travelled to four different field sites: two located in Mengzi County and two located in Hekou County. As I speak Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua), I was able to conduct interviews in Chinese and communicate with my field assistant in Chinese when participants used local dialects (Yunnan Hua) to answer my questions. As my research focuses on the occurrence of extreme weather events and the severity of their impacts on Han and minority nationality livelihoods and food security, I used both quantitative and qualitative approaches of data collection and analysis not only in order to maximize the understanding of my research objectives but also to see if qualitative accounts coincided with climate data from the local meteorological stations. Following Berg (2001) and Valentine (2005), I also wished to use multiple methods and sources as a way to increase rigour through gaining more than one perspective for each question. Figure 4.1 illustrates how I used triangulation of sources in both qualitative and quantitative terms to enhance the validity and avoid bias in data collection, analysis and interpretation (Denzin 2009).

Figure 4.1: Triangulation of sources in my quantitative and qualitative methods

45 Methodology Chapter 4

4.1. FIELD SITES As introduced in Chapter 3, this research was conducted in two of the 13 counties of Honghe Hani-Yi Autonomous Prefecture (Mengzi County and Hekou County). I conducted participant observation and interviews in Mengzi City’s several markets as well as in Lengquan and Xibeile, two townships within Mengzi County. In the last three weeks of my research in the field, I worked in two townships (Yaoshan and Nanxi) within Hekou County located right at the border with Vietnam. The main interview sites are identified on the map of Honghe Prefecture in Chapter 3 – Section 3.5. I had pre-selected field sites before arriving in the field by searching disaster databases and Chinese news reports in the area (Lengquan, Bisezhai and Mengzi markets). Upon arrival in Mengzi, I started interviewing farmers selling their crops in markets (Mengzi and Caoba) and asking them if and how their villages were affected by extreme weather events. During these interviews, some of the pre-selected sites were confirmed and others such as Xibeile Township were suggested. According to a scholar doing research on rice terrace fields at the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, places located north of the Red River suffer from heavy drought while those located south of the Red River are much more often wet and prone to floods (Mr. Qing, 13/06/2011). I then met with the Director of the Disaster Relief Bureau at the prefectural government level who recommended places within Honghe that had recently and historically been hit by extreme weather events, namely Yaoshan Township and Nanxi Town.

4.2. QUANTITATIVE METHODS

4.2.1. Climate Data Analysis – Mengzi County Weather Station Prior to my field work season, I collected daily and monthly climate data for Mengzi weather station from 1973 to 2011 (NCDC-NOAA 2010, Tao et al. 1991). The object of analysing this set of data was to detect signals of drought and flooding events in daily and monthly temperature and precipitation data. Several analyses were conducted to reveal anomalies and extremes in both precipitation and temperature data at the yearly, monthly and daily resolutions over the period from 1973 to 2011 and for specific events in 2010 and 2011.19 These methods are detailed in the following sections. First, to calculate the annual total precipitation, daily and monthly precipitation data was summed. However, because the daily precipitation data presented several gaps, to account for these gaps, the available data was scaled up according to the number of days in the months to obtain a sum of precipitation per month and per year. The yearly precipitation data is shown

19 Post-fieldwork analyses were conducted with a research assistant from McGill University.

46 Methodology Chapter 4 in Figure 6.1 in Chapter 6. From the scaled precipitation data, yearly long-term averages and 12 monthly long-term averages over the 1973-2011 period were calculated. Unlike precipitation, daily temperature data does not ‘accumulate’ and hence is not summed but averaged over months. Monthly and annual mean temperatures were calculated from daily temperature data to then calculate the yearly and 12-monthly long-term averages (also called yearly and monthly climatologies) over the 1973-2011 period. Figure 6.2 in Chapter 6 shows yearly deviations for temperature data plotted from the long-term average temperature and allows for a visual interpretation of the overall trend. At the monthly resolution, two analyses were conducted to detect months where changes are occurring and determine whether these months coincide with the crop-growing season. First, anomalous months were identified according to a threshold determined for precipitation and temperature and then counted over the 1973-2011 period to show the distribution of anomalies within a year. Anomalous months for precipitation were determined as follows: a month is considered anomalously dry when total precipitation is equal to or more than 25 per cent below the long-term average; a month is considered anomalously wet when total precipitation is equal to or greater than 25 per cent above long-term average. For temperature, a month is considered anomalously warm when its average temperature is two degrees Celsius above the long-term average; a month is considered anomalously cold when its average temperature is two degrees Celsius below long-term average. The number of anomalous months for each variable over the 1973-2011 period with four different lines, each representing one decade, is shown in Figures 6.3 and 6.4. To compare these two different variability analyses, their results are summed in Table 6.1. The second monthly analysis consisted of plotting the monthly long-term averages for precipitation and temperature per month along with the monthly standard deviations, shown in Figure 6.5. Yearly and monthly analyses allowed me to detect the times of the year and season that show greatest overall variability. To further this analysis at the micro scale, this overall variability was then inspected at the daily resolution in order to decipher if these identified monthly anomalies revealed real long periods of consecutive hot and dry days or if these were more uniformly spread out over a month thus skewing the already seen overall variability. A daily analysis was not realistic for the entire 40-year period of available meteorological station data, therefore the analysis was limited to the disasters from farmers’ accounts gathered qualitatively during my field work and confirmed or not by five other secondary data (see Section 4.2.2). I selected the two most reported extreme weather events, namely the 2009-2010 prolonged drought and the 2010-2011 cold spell and investigated the disaster relevant months at the daily resolution. The disaster relevant months for the 2009-2010

47 Methodology Chapter 4 reported drought and the 2010-2011 cold spell were isolated according to what farmers reported as their main concern for each event:  Drought: months of April, May and June seem to stand out of the regular dry season and were designated as prolonging the rainless days.  Cold spell: winter months from October to March were the months with high potential for extremely low temperature according to farmers.  Floods: the month of August seems to stand out in terms of extreme precipitation surplus in Hekou County, however, the daily resolution analysis was not pursued for floods as farmers living in Mengzi County’s rural areas did not mention such big impacts from floods (farmers interviews, Honghe, June-July 2011). The daily data analysis was carried out in three steps: First, in spite of the encountered data weaknesses at the daily resolution for precipitation, time series from 2000-2011 for temperature and precipitation at the daily resolution were created to observe if the given extreme weather event followed a secular trend over the past ten years.20 This also allowed for a comparison of disaster reported years with years not reported as extreme. In regards to the drought event, we examined the number of days and the magnitude of extreme weather during the months of April, May and June through two indicators and their coincidence per year. These two indicators are shown in Figure 6.6 in Chapter 6.  The number of rainless days (days with less than 1 mm of rain)  The number of days with temperature 1 standard deviation greater than the average, over the 10 years.  The combination of both of the above two indicators (i.e. number of dry hot days) For the cold spell event, we examined the number of days and the magnitude of extreme temperature through two indicators during winter months from October to March. These two indicators are shown in Figure 6.8.  The number of days with temperature 1 standard deviation lower than the average, over the 10 years.  The number of days with temperature 2 standard deviation lower than the average, over the 10 years. The second step in the daily analysis was to examine which month(s) had contributed the most to the given extreme weather events and how this had evolved from 2000 to 2011. To do so, we examined the average number of rainless days per month for drought and the average

20 Precipitation data presented weaknesses that were taken into account in our analysis: 1) There are many missing data points throughout the time period (market as ‘I’ or ‘99.99’). Some months have only a handful of data points, making it difficult to conclude that scaling up the sum per availability actually captures an appropriate estimate of the monthly total (see Chapter 6). 2) Dry season months have more missing values than wet season months. Perhaps this indicates that sometimes 'missing' data are actually days without precipitation. This could be a major and insurmountable flaw in the data.

48 Methodology Chapter 4 number of days with temperature one standard deviation below the mean for cold spell over the 10-year period, represented in Figures 6.7 and 6.9. The final step focused on the specific years of the event selected. The raw data of both temperature and precipitation for the drought event and of temperature for the cold spell were presented in tables to highlight the extreme values. This clearly showed if the extreme values of both variables coincided during drought and cold spell and if extreme conditions were present over several consecutive days in a month (Table 6.2 - Drought; Table 6.3 – Cold spell).

4.2.2. Secondary Data Analysis In order to enhance the validity of this analysis, I triangulated sources, represented in Figure 4.1. I conducted a content analysis of the three following secondary data sources looking for keywords in Chinese and English, including: Honghe, Mengzi, climate extremes, drought, cold spell, floods and landslides.  Yearbook from the Prefectural Government and local government’s reports on disaster.  Local and international newspapers.  EM-DAT disaster database. This is the international disaster database developed by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), based in Brussels at Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL). The database uses the following criteria for an extreme weather event to classify as a natural disaster: ten or more people reported killed; a hundred or more people reported affected; a state of emergency declared; call for international assistance. This secondary data was then interpreted within the triangulation of sources in Chapter 6, Section 6.1. It is worth noting that each of these sources provided different types of data and could therefore complement or discredit one another. On the quantitative side, first, the daily climate data indicated the physical causes of the events and the potential increase in time and magnitude. Second, the disaster database reported the most important disasters at the provincial level or county level, as determined by the CRED. Third and finally, government yearbooks and disaster reports emphasize the magnitude of events in terms of damage and economic loss at the county, township and village levels with very detailed statistics. On the qualitative side, two types of sources are key: first, through conversational interviews, farmers and local government officials recounted their impressions of certain extreme weather events, tending to focus on how it impacted their livelihoods and township. Second, newspaper reports gave details about the location and impacts at county and township levels. In Chapter 6, I interpret these five different sources for two extreme weather events identified by farmers on numerous occasions in interviews, namely the prolonged drought over the 2009-2010 dry season and the cold spell of winter 2010-2011.

49 Methodology Chapter 4

4.3. QUALITATIVE METHODS

4.3.1. Participant Sampling Among the multiple non-probability or purposive sampling strategies identified by Patton, I used four, namely criterion sampling, opportunistic or emergent sampling, stratified purposeful sampling and snowball or chain referral sampling. In qualitative research, the number of participants sampled does not matter as much as the quality and meaning of information (Patton 2002). As Patton (ibid: 230) further argues: “The logic and power of purposeful sampling lie in selecting information-rich cases for study in depth” which is emphasized in each of the following sampling approaches. In practicing criterion sampling, a researcher “reviews and studies all cases that meet some predetermined criterion of importance” (Patton 2002: 238). The first week in Mengzi was spent undertaking initial interviews in markets and readjusting questions to local realities. I used criterion sampling when interviewing semi-subsistence farmers belonging to minority nationalities in the market. The criterion in this case led to farmers vending in the markets. Opportunistic or emergent sampling is defined by Patton (2002: 240) as a technique that “takes advantage of whatever unfolds as it unfolds” leaving the researcher to stay flexible and spontaneous. Often times, while waiting for the bus to and from Lengquan to Mengzi, my research assistant Dingxiang and I talked to farmers going back home or going to the city. What seemed to be a simple conversation often times ended in an informal conversational interview, and followed this very flexible sampling strategy. “The purpose of a stratified purposeful sampling is to capture major variations rather than to identify a common core, although the latter may also emerge in the analysis” (Patton 2002: 240). Stratified purposeful sampling was used when I only had limited access to a village due to local authorities’ decisions. In this context, I either conducted a longer interview with a farmer working for the village committee as the village chief, if he seemed to know the overall situation well; or I asked the village committee farmer or a key informant to lead me to farmers with low quality living conditions and to farmers with higher quality living conditions to examine the two extremes in one village and understand the differences in their ways of coping with and adapting to climate shocks.21 Most of the participants I conducted interviews with were sampled through snowballing, a technique also known as chain referral sampling (Patton 2002). Key informants whom I met in each village were the main actors referring me to potential interviewees that corresponded to my research objectives. However, as the key informants and gatekeepers were

21 Villages chiefs (cunzhang 村长) are appointed by and report to the local township government.

50 Methodology Chapter 4 often local government officials or village committee members, this could have biased the data collection from these participants. However, since most of the questions I asked were about their ways of living and coping through climate shocks, they were not considered sensitive to state officials. If I felt interviewees were not comfortable answering questions, I would ask again in another manner later in the interview to crosscheck the information. Although the aim of this research does not relate to gender distribution, it is worth noting the gender imbalance found among my participants. I interviewed a total of 78 individuals (see full list in Appendix 2), of whom most were male as most females were working in the fields in the daytime. The fact that I was referred to participants through the local government officials or village committee members might have also played a role in the gender imbalance of my sample as the vast majority of officials were men (see Table 4.1). However, this gender imbalance was reversed when interviewing in markets, where the majority were female interviewees.22 Table 4.1: Participants, locations, interviews and gender distribution Type of Interviewees Location Total Female Male interviews Minority nationality farmers 31 9 22 Mengzi, Han farmers Lengquan, Xibeile, Conversational 15 5 10 Farmers and village chiefs Yaoshan, Nanxi interviews (belonged to Yi, Yao, Zhuang, villages 18 1 17 Dai, Hmong, only one Han) Mengzi, Lengquan, Xibeile, Semi-structured Government officials 13 0 13 Yaoshan, Nanxi interviews villages Total 77 15 62

4.3.2. Participant Observation According to DeWalt (2002: 2) participant observation is “a way to collect data in naturalistic settings by ethnographers who observe and/or take part in the common and uncommon activities of the people being studied”. Participant observation allows the researcher to collect several forms of data and thus to enhance the quality of other data collection by providing other forms of evidence (Laurier 2010, Kearns 2005, DeWalt and DeWalt 2002). I used participant observation to collect data about landscapes, crop cultivation along the roads and in villages, water resources and management, people I met and interviewed, and the villages they lived in. This allowed me to incorporate more evidence about how people in rural Honghe Prefecture live. To collect these observations, I used several mediums, among which note-taking, photography, and voice recording were the most practical. I conducted

22 Among the 15 female interviewees, eight were interviewed while vending in markets.

51 Methodology Chapter 4 observation almost all the time in order to capture every detail about rural livelihoods in Honghe Prefecture, such as during meals with farmers, while on the bus or walking in a market. Participant observation work also helped me to initially gauge the reactions of my interviewees to my questions and re-adapt them to the context and for better understanding.

4.3.3. Unstructured / Conversational Interviews with Farmers Dunn (2005) identifies three types of interviewing methods that can be placed on a continuum: unstructured, semi-structured and structured interviews. I chose to use the first two of these methods in my research. Conducting conversational or unstructured interviews allows the researcher to maintain flexibility and the interviewee to feel less formally constrained, as it is “the most open-ended approach to interviewing” (Patton 2002: 342). The aim of the researcher here is to focus on the participant and to ensure they feel comfortable. In turn, this allows the researcher to gain a more in-depth understanding of the issue in question, as the interview is not bound by a predefined structure (Mullings 1999, Baxter and Eyles 1999, Kitchin and Tate 2000). In order to understand their daily lives and discuss their coping and adapting strategies in times of crisis, I conducted conversational interviews with Han and Yi, Yao, Zhuang, Dai and Hmong minority nationalities in both Mengzi and Hekou counties. Among them, were semi-subsistence farmers, village chiefs, off-farm workers. Interviews with semi-subsistence farmers were either conducted at their home or in the market. Main themes included household and cultivation situations, access to land and water resources, livestock, financial situation and government subsidies, extreme weather events, and coping and adapting strategies. These conversational interviews were often done over a meal, and at two occasions involved more than one participant, and as such could be considered as flexible focus groups with ideas ‘bouncing around’ the table. Participants were usually quite surprised to see me coming all the way from Canada to their remote villages and were often very enthusiastic to share their stories and answer my questions. For each interview, I first informed the participant of my research, then verbally asked for informed consent and finally for audio recording approval. In this thesis, participants have all been given a pseudonym to ensure their confidentiality.

4.3.4 Semi-Structured Interviews with Government Officials According to Dunn (2005: 80) semi-structured interviewing is “a form of interviewing that has some degree of predetermined order but still ensures flexibility in the way issues are addressed by the informant”. This method was used when interviewing government officials. It allowed me to not only learn about local agrarian reform and specific cultivation programmes but also to investigate the aid and relief strategies developed by the government for local populations in times of climate extremes. Semi-structured interviews provided an official ‘feel’ for local

52 Methodology Chapter 4 government officials – an important characteristic given that officials are accustomed to more formal styles of interviewing – but also maintained a certain degree of flexibility (Kitchin and Tate 2000). Prior to these interviews, I prepared a one-page summary of the main themes to be discussed, which informed the participant of the kinds of questions to be expected. Such themes included land and water resources management, impacts of extreme weather events, local government aid and relief organization.

4.3.5. Teaming Up With an Assistant: Practicalities, Advantages and Cross-Cultural Dilemmas As part of a collaboration between my supervisor and her Chinese peers in Kunming, a Master’s student from the College of Minority Nationalities Research at Yunnan University, Dingxiang, who had been doing fieldwork in Honghe Prefecture was chosen to work with me in the field because of her knowledge of and experience in my study area.23 The two of us formed a ‘team of researchers’, exchanging our insights on research methodology, fieldwork experiences, practices and knowledge, which proved beneficial for both of our research projects. In addition, she helped me gain access to the field and conduct interviews, and in exchange I covered all expenses in the field (food, transport and accommodation). Working as a team meant that the data collected throughout the field research would belong to both of us, a point I return to shortly. The fact that Dingxiang’s own research was about the construction of identity pertaining to one of the Hani’s subgroups helped us to establish sustainable connections with interviewees. Her sensitivity and interest towards minority nationalities in general, as a Han Chinese, rendered a very respectful manner of approaching the participants in the field, which is unusual as historically Han Chinese have usually considered minorities as less civilised and/or primitive (Fong and Spickard 1994). It not only made rapport with interviewees much smoother than if she had been unaware of certain traditions and customs but it also made participants feel comfortable with her and ready to share their knowledge with us. In addition, because she had conducted fieldwork the year before for her own research in Luchun County, she was used to being in remote areas of Yunnan and shared many stories about her experiences in the field area, which helped me in my adaptation to the environment. As part of China’s educational policies, minority nationalities are to learn Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua) at school as their first language as well as their ethnic language (Hansen 1999). The ethnic language is usually spoken at home on top of Yunnan’s local dialect (Yunnan

23 In 2011, Dingxiang, a Han Chinese from Jiangsu province, had been living in Kunming for seven years and was doing research in Yunnan’s remote areas with the Hani minority nationality for a year as part of her Master’s Degree at Yunnan University.

53 Methodology Chapter 4 hua). Dingxiang was able to understand the local dialects but could not speak or understand ethnic languages. When conducting conversational interviews with minority nationality farmers, Dingxiang or I asked questions in Putonghua, and interviewees were free to answer in the Yunnan local dialect or in Putonghua, which most interviewees managed to speak. In the interviewing process, Dingxiang acted as a facilitator in terms of understanding local dialects, as she was able to tell me what had been said using Putonghua. Note taking during the interview process was at first discrete to avoid scaring participants of making the conversation too formal, but increasingly became less discrete as Dingxiang took her notebook out at almost every interview. At first, I thought this might be too formal for participants, but with time I realised that note taking was often actually showing the participants that I valued their opinion. After testing this strategy, at times taking notes, at other times just listening, I realized that taking notes (half in English, half in Chinese) would encourage participants to talk more or would trigger interests in what I was writing about. Note taking in the field during interviews had another advantage for the post-interview debriefing with Dingxiang. As my notes taken during the interviews were more thorough than those written only post-interview, I was able to crosscheck information with Dingxiang, increasing the quality of my final data. This process also enhanced rigour in terms of realigning my aim and research objectives with Dingxiang for the following interview. After each day in the field, Dingxiang and I would both transcribe our notes in Chinese and English respectively and I would then translate Dingxiang’s transcriptions and combine them to my notes. Transcription and translation were two steps in the finalization of data collection, which needed to be done each day post-interview to make sure not to omit any detail. If we had any confusion over meanings and translation, these could be easily resolved immediately by discussing them together. Another advantage of transcribing and translating everything the same day as the interview was that it allowed us to reflect on the data collected, the method used and how it could be improved for the next day in the field. Although Dingxiang was a great help, according to her, my questions were sometimes too open, and she thought participants would not know how to answer them, so she would rephrase them but by doing so, tended to create leading questions. In addition, at times, there was one question she did not want to ask as she knew the participant would not know how to answer (such as: “what did you spend the money from last year’s harvest on?”). I nonetheless asked this question and found that some interviewees were able to explain their expenses, though not in a very precise way. Although problematic at the time, these issues were in the end positive as by debriefing with Dingxiang, we reworked and reflected on my questions along the way and agreed on a way forward by understanding local norms and notions of how money is

54 Methodology Chapter 4 managed in a household. Another cross-cultural dilemma was the fact that, according to my research assistant, research in China has no value if one does not collect the real names of participants. Within my ethics certificate (Appendix 1), I had agreed to keep my records anonymous and safe. As a compromise situation, even though my research assistant insisted to ask the names of participants, I never recorded them.

4.4. DATA ANALYSIS Building on qualitative data from participant observations and interviews in the field, I conducted thematic coding analysis. According to Auerbach and Silverstein (2003: 35): “The central idea of coding is to move from raw text to research concerns in small steps, each step building on the previous one”. These small steps allow the researcher to reduce the amount of data, organize it, create searching aids and finally analyse the data (Cope 2005). My field preparation allowed me to develop a priori codes corresponding to my research objectives and themes. These a priori codes consisted of analytic codes that are referred to by Cope (2010: 283) as “themes the researcher is interested in or that have already become important in the project”. I used these codes in the first phase of thematic coding. As I started coding, a posteriori codes also emerged from the data. These a posteriori codes included descriptive codes, such as themes as they were stated by participants and directly linked to a particular topic of interest (ibid). Analytic codes also emerged from the data as themes that I had interest in but had not thought of before the field (Clifford and Valentine 2010, Cope 2005). After the first round of coding, 68 codes emerged from the data, both a priori and a posteriori. In my second round of coding, I grouped the 68 codes into six main themes, namely: (1) rural livelihoods and access to resources, (2) past and present agricultural practices, (3) local government’s involvement in rural livelihoods, (4) climate related events and their impacts on livelihoods, (5) local government’s aid and relief operations, and (6) livelihood coping and adapting strategies to climate shocks. These six themes provide the foundations for the structure of my results Chapters 5-7.

4.5. RESEARCHING IN CHINA Even though foreign researchers are now allowed to conduct research in China, obtaining access to the field and gaining permission to conduct interviews in China remains, as Cornet (2011: 2) argues, “a difficult trek in the hierarchic maze of Chinese administration”. The following section discusses the challenges I faced to gain access to the field as well as the pros and cons of accessing the field via an official route.

55 Methodology Chapter 4

Following advice from my supervisor’s Chinese collaborators, I applied for a tourist visa and obtained a letter of support from one of my supervisor’s collaborators upon arrival in Kunming. Dingxiang and my supervisor’s collaborators both suggested that fieldwork would be much easier if I had the prefectural government’s authorization/certificate to conduct my research at the lower levels (county and village levels) of the Chinese administration. Dingxiang’s experience in dealing with this kind of authorization in the past allowed me to save time and gain access to local government officials who I would not have dared visit otherwise. By providing Dingxiang’s university’s research certificate and my letter of support, I obtained a red stamp from the Education Department of Honghe Prefecture Government in Mengzi on a letter that I had written stating the aim and the places of my research. Once this letter was officially stamped, getting access to specific villages to interview farmers usually consisted in five consecutive steps, described in Figure 4.2. These five steps required patience and constant negotiation with relevant local gatekeepers to access the field. This process presented challenges that had both beneficial and adverse effects on my research (discussed below).

Figure 4.2: Five steps to gain access to the field: from government officials to farmers As for the interviews done in more remote areas, we usually took a bus to the main village of the area where the lowest level of government is located and where it was possible to stay overnight. Once I had explained my research objectives to local government officials, one or several officials (in one instance, four) would drive my field assistant and I to the nearby villages and hamlets that they considered relevant to visit from what I had told them about my research.24 This direct involvement of local government officials in my research added a certain bias and layer of subjectivity to my sampling strategy that I discuss in Section 4.7. It is worth noting that these five steps did not apply for interviews undertaken in markets, to which

24 These villages and hamlets were not accessible by public transport; the furthest the public bus would go was the main township/town of the area.

56 Methodology Chapter 4

Dingxiang and I made day trips by bus to each site from Mengzi.25 The fact that we did not need to go through these five steps and that no officials were present during these interviews may have resulted in a more relaxed interview and access to less biased responses; this is subject to analysis in Chapters 5-7. Gaining access to the field through the local government opened a lot of doors for my fieldwork and eased a lot of logistical concerns, such as ground transportation to remote villages and also accommodation in villages. Indeed, with my field sites located in remote areas, same-day return trips were not possible to Mengzi, therefore local government officials arranged for Dingxiang and I to be hosted in the township’s main village, usually in local dorms, hospitals or schools. This allowed me to go to many very remote villages in a short amount of time, travelling by car with the guidance of one or more government officials. As Dingxiang and I would meet with government officials every day, I was also able to ask questions and consult governmental reports on the region about past natural disasters, agrarian change and the various programmes to ‘modernize’ agriculture, statistics on the specific villages and so on. When arriving in a village with officials in an official vehicle, I was usually very warmly welcomed by the locals who showed great hospitality, often inviting me into their homes for meals. However, these seemingly advantageous connections also had drawbacks. Once contact was established and rapport was built with officials from the township level of government, and local officials had agreed to take Dingxiang and I to villages for interviews, my fieldwork quickly became a sort of “jeep ethnography” as mentioned by Fiskesjö (2012: 18), involving “driving in government jeeps to communities singled out for research […] undertaking surveys and interviews, by using the powers of Chinese administrative apparatus to gather up informants for such purposes”. This was the case especially for villages of Hekou County: when I was in Yaoshan Township for a week, I was faced with various concerns and dilemmas, among which two are worth mentioning here, as I had to develop ways to counter their potential effect on my research. The first dilemma was that once I arrived in Yaoshan Township, local officials decided the places and most often the participants to be interviewed. In Yaoshan township (Hekou County), four young local officials working for the water resources department and the agriculture department would pick us up each morning. They would take us to villages that I had asked about, or ones that seemed relevant to my research, and in turn simultaneously fill their government official duties by checking on each village’s current situation. This meant that there was almost always a local official or a village committee member present, though not necessarily talking during interviews. At times, they acted as facilitators, at other times as

25 These five steps were applied in the case of the market of Xibeile Township

57 Methodology Chapter 4 obstacles to data collection. For instance, during an interview in Nanxi Town where one official was present, he only interfered in the conversation to add interesting details that the interviewee had not pointed out, which led to a very interactive group conversation. The opposite example worth noting occurred when I was interviewing a villager in Yaoshan but three officials kept debating the questions I asked and kept answering instead of letting the interviewee do so. To cope with the presence and/or interventions from officials, I found that asking the same questions again later on in the conversation by rephrasing them was useful to overcome this bias (Hay 2010, Heimer and Thøgersen 2006). That being stated, it is important to note that my research topic was not considered politically sensitive in Yunnan, hence my questions did not usually trigger problems for farmers to answer frankly. The second concern brought by this sort of ‘jeep ethnography’ was that the time these officials had spent with Dingxiang and I, had to somehow be repaid (Heimer and Thøgersen 2006). This implied that both of us were faced with the traditional ways of showing respect and gratitude to officials and were expected to join government officials in the ritual of drinking potent rice alcohol (often 35-45% proof) at almost every meal –including pre-interview meals such as lunch. As women, Dingxiang and I were able to avoid drinking at times, while at other times, we had to negotiate these situations to the best of our ability, such as only one of us toasting officials or requesting to drink something less strong, such as beer.

4.6. POSITIONALITY, POWER RELATIONS AND ETHICAL DILEMMAS The need to be reflexive about one’s own research and data collection is a way to account for one’s own influence on the research process. This process further allows for an examination of the different power relations and ethical dilemmas encountered in the field between the researcher, the field assistant and interviewees. Each of these actors brings their origin, gender, age, ethnicity and background experience in the construction of knowledge (Rose 1997, Kitchin and Tate 2000, Clifford and Valentine 2010). As stated by Rose (1997: 306), “the need to situate knowledge is based on the argument that the sort of knowledge made depends on who its makers are”. In this section, I review my several positionalities during my fieldwork in Yunnan and likewise present the multiple power relations within the data collection process. My own background in Chinese studies and the fact that I lived in China for three years in the past facilitated the adaptation process one has to go through when going to a foreign country. However, as I had lived in urban areas my entire life, including my previous time in China, I was not used to living in rural areas. I was aware that coming to do field work in China and interviewing farmers could be difficult, given my position as a 27-year old, single, white, female, French Masters student studying in Canada. However, I very quickly discussed with

58 Methodology Chapter 4 my field assistant the fact that I brought my own values into the field and how I needed to adapt to local values in order to understand and approach my interviewees both respectfully and efficiently. This reiterates the famous saying: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” also mentioned by a field assistant in Turner’s discussion (2010). As Dingxiang had been through the same process a year before when conducting her fieldwork, I could rely on her experience. It is important to discuss how Chinese and foreign researchers are seen in China. In the framework of China’s minority nationalities identification programme, launched in the early 1950s, ethnographers were hired to investigate minority nationalities at the household level in order to identify them and unite them to the Han majority (Chapter 3 – Section 3.3). This investigation on the classification of minority nationalities was for them, intrusive and threatening to their identities, therefore imposing the researcher’s power. Indeed, as argued by Heimer and Thogersen (2006: 82): “Justified or not, due to the state’s long established tradition of intruding into the lowest levels of society, the fieldworker (Chinese or foreign) is vested with a special authority and power, and placed in a recognisable role as a researcher or investigator.” That being said, when Dingxiang and I had to meet with officials, they would often appear cautious at first when replying to my questions, but once the ice was broken, they would loosen up and invite Dingxiang and I to dinner. In Yaoshan Township, the four government officials who accompanied us to my field sites were the same age as us, which made interactions easier than with older government officials. From inquiring about my research to discussing our cultural differences, our relationships quickly became new friendships, as we all had something to learn from each other. The fact that I speak Chinese helped the process, as I could communicate with most interviewees in Putonghua (Mandarin) and directly build rapport with them rather than always going through Dingxiang. Most of the women I interviewed would systematically ask my age and whether or not I was married and always wondered how it was possible to not be married at 27. I would explain how traditions were different in my country and this discussion was a way to build rapport and trust with them. I am sure that if I had been a male researcher, I would not have been able to build such a quick rapport with female interviewees. As a female, I first thought it would be difficult to interview male farmers and government officials, however my field assistant worked to ‘break the ice’ between us, introducing me to each interviewee, and making interactions with men easier than expected. While Dingxiang’s ability to build rapport with minority nationality farmers was excellent, there were a few occasions when I found interviewees were not as receptive as they might have been. On these occasions I surmised that Dingxiang was showing too much ‘power’ in asking questions and showing the knowledge she had as a Master’s student at the most famous local university. Towards the end of my field

59 Methodology Chapter 4 season, I left Dingxiang at her field sites and went back to Mengzi on my own. In order to consolidate some of my data collected at the beginning of summer, I revisited some local markets. When approaching potential participants, they were either very opened to discuss with me (offering me a seat next to them behind their stall) or the other extreme, were too surprised to see me there and scared to speak to me. These reactions make me think that perhaps at times, I could have had more informal discussions with participants than I actually did when I was with Dingxiang, who brought a certain ‘power of the researcher’, while I could sometimes still be seen as a foreign tourist at first. Overall this combined approach of working with a research assistant in remote areas helped facilitate rapport, especially with officials; and later, following up interviews on my own, helped triangulate some of my general findings. As part of being reflexive about one’s own research, one must not forget the positionality of one’s research assistant. As Edward & Temple (2002:6) state: Like researchers, interpreters bring their own assumptions and concerns to the interview and the research process. The research thus becomes subject to ‘triple subjectivity’ (the interactions between research participant, researcher and interpreter), and this needs to be made explicit. Rigorous reflexivity in research where researchers are working with interpreters requires an exploration of the social location of the interpreter. As a Han Chinese from Jiangsu province, Dingxiang influenced the way minority nationality farmers responded to questions adding a layer of subjectivity and bias to the data collected. For instance, when she asked follow-up questions, it was according to her own interpretations of what the interviewee had said, rather than mine. However, as Dingxiang and I spent the summer doing fieldwork together, we became good friends and increasingly on the ‘same page’ regarding my research goals as a whole, hence these follow up questions were increasingly similar to what I would have asked anyway. In sum, my different positionalities – with state officials, when interviewing farmers and with my field assistant, Dingxiang – are important to consider as they all influenced my access to valuable information.

4.7. CHAPTER CONCLUSION In this chapter, I presented the methods I used to conduct this research, describing my field sites, sampling strategies, field methods, climate data as well as field data analyses. I then addressed the challenges posed by doing research in China and the advantages and drawbacks of taking the official route to data collection. I suggest that it is important to be aware of the implications of ‘going official’ and that the researcher must maintain flexibility. Finally, I reflected on the different positionalities affecting my fieldwork and the power dynamics involved in the field. With these multiple methods in mind, I now turn to the results of these analyses in Chapters 5 to 7.

60 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5 – STATE INCENTIVES FOR AGRARIAN CHANGE AND IMPACTS ON LIVELIHOOD

In this chapter I address my first research objective, namely: to examine the importance of cash crops and related subsidies in Honghe Prefecture and their impacts on Han and minority nationality livelihoods As rural populations in Honghe Prefecture experience an agrarian transition. Section 5.1 presents an analysis of agricultural change in four townships of Mengzi and Hekou counties. The most dramatic observed change in cultivation patterns at these four sites was the shift from planting a variety of semi-subsistence crops to a greater reliance on cash crops in large part due to state incentives, which vary by crop and location, as analysed in Section 5.2. I then focus in Section 5.3 on farmers who engage in state-sponsored cash crops and examine the subsequent changes in the role of and access to the five types of capital. Finally, in Section 5.4 I conclude with four case studies of households who made the switch to cash crops. In these case studies, I examine how access to the five types of capital has shifted as households started investing in cash cropping, using asset pentagons to visually represent households’ asset portfolios.

5.1. FROM SUBSISTENCE TO CASH CROPPING: AGRARIAN CHANGE Important land use changes are occurring in the four rural township regions being studied here, which can be argued as being part of a broader agrarian transition sweeping across mainland and peninsula Asia, defined in Chapter 3 – Section 3.1 (Bernstein and Byres 2001, Rigg 2001, Fegan and Ghee 1992). Livelihoods are being drastically altered as farmers are increasingly moving from subsistence and semi-subsistence agriculture to cash crop production (Caouette and Turner 2009: chapter 2, Bouahom et al. 2004), a process which began in Yunnan with rubber and banana crops in the late 1980s as well as tobacco crops in the late 1990s. In this section, I first present a macro-scale interpretation of agricultural change in Honghe Prefecture since the 1990s. Then, in Sections 5.1.2 and 5.1.3, I narrow the focus to the four townships studied in Mengzi and Hekou and examine newly introduced cash crops, their location and time at which they were adopted.

5.1.1. The Contemporary Agrarian Situation in Honghe County As explored in Chapter 3, Section 3.1, the agricultural practices that are visible today in Honghe did not appear overnight. After 1980, when Yunnan Province started to provide incentives for farmers to switch to cash crops thanks to subsidies, areas cultivated with rice were consequently reduced. However in the 1980s rice growing productivity had increased with the average yield per mu rising from 150 kilograms to 300 kilograms per mu thanks to new

61 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 technologies (Honghe Prefecture Government 1994). At the prefecture level, it is worth noting that Honghe saw a 40 per cent decline in food crop production between 1997 and 2001, while at the same time recorded a 12 per cent increase in cash crop production, such as tobacco (Honghe Yearbooks 1998-2002). The area devoted to cash crop cultivation increased by two per cent between 1997 and 2004, while the food crop cultivated area was further reduced by 26 per cent over the same period (Honghe Yearbooks 1998-2002). This shows an increasing trend of cash crop cultivation, further examined in Section 5.2, with the State offering incentives to farmers via each county level government. Of the 63 farming households that I interviewed, representatives from only four households reported subsistence farming as their sole livelihood strategy, with rice and maize being the staple crop (see Category ‘g’ in Table 5.1). These individuals explained that food gained beyond their subsistence farming either comes from relatives or is bought at the market with money earned while working on-farm for other farmers, or is borrowed using formal or informal loans. Among these four farmer interviewees, two are Yao, one is Yi and one is Han. The two Yao (one man; one woman) and the Han woman are elderly individuals either living alone or with their spouse, while the Yi farmer is the young father of two children. Not only do all four have very limited access to arable land, from as little as 0.2 to 10 mu per household, due to the division of land among family members, but they are also located in upland areas where irrigation is often inadequate.26 Their access to resources is made even more difficult because they all live over 50 kilometres from the closest village (Mr. Mei; Mrs. Zhou; Ms Dong; Mr Huo; July 2011). All other households, as shown in Table 5.1, have a proportion of their agriculture in cash crops (state-sponsored, non-state-sponsored, or a mix of both). Among the 63 households surveyed, two-thirds (44 households: 22 in Mengzi, 22 in Hekou) engage in state-sponsored cash crop cultivation. Among these 44 households, just under half (21) also undertake non-state-sponsored cash crops to diversify their income; while 23 engage solely in state-sponsored cash crops. While cash crop farming represent their main activity, farmers tend to keep, when possible, a small plot of land near their house to cultivate food crops. Whether these new sources of income from cash cropping improve farmers’ livelihoods is a question I discuss in Section 5.2 after exploring the state’s incentives to switch to cash crop cultivation.

26 As mentioned in Chapter 3 Context, the average land area per capita ranges from 1.95 mu to 2.14 mu in the four townships (0.13 ha to 0.14 ha).

62 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5

Table 5.1: Categories of livelihood options among the 63 households representatives interviewed in Mengzi and Hekou counties27

5.1.2. Agricultural Change in Mengzi and Hekou Counties In the late 1990s, Yi, Hmong and Han farmers in Lengquan Township located between 1630 to 1766 meters above sea level in Mengzi County, used to cultivate maize, upland dry rice, garden peas and buckwheat. Of the 14 farming household members interviewed in Lengquan, 13 still cultivate maize as a subsistence crop and for livestock and five, of which four belong to Yi and one to Hmong minorities, now grow upland dry rice, as opposed to paddy rice in the past. Other subsistence crops, such as buckwheat were given up for cash crops in the late 1990s. Among the 14 farmers interviewed in Lengquan Township, eight currently cultivate state-sponsored cash crops. In 1998, 98 of the 613 households were engaged in tobacco cultivation on a total of 1,100 mu (73 ha) of land area in Xinglong village, Lengquan Township (Mr. Mu, farmer, 04/07/2011).28 Other state-sponsored cash crops that have replaced food crops include mulberry trees for sericulture and sugarcane initiated in 2002 and 2009 respectively (ibid.). In the mountainous township of Xibeile of Mengzi County (1,900 to 2,049 meters above sea level), Yi farmers used to cultivate upland dry rice and maize as subsistence crops. As Xibeile is fairly poor and remote compared to Lengquan, it is only in 2007 that the local government introduced tobacco, apple trees, and later walnuts, as cash crops (Mr. Fei, official, 23/06/2011). Of the 13 households interviewed in Xibeile, ten still cultivate maize and only two grow upland dry rice. Nine have switched to tobacco as their main cash crop along with small amounts of maize (farmers, Xibeile, July 2011). To the south of Mengzi County, in Hekou County, the remote township of Yaoshan is located at an average 790 meters above sea level (ranging from 426 to 1246 meters). Yao farmers moved from growing paddy rice and maize for subsistence purposes to rubber trees and pineapples introduced by the local government. In the late 1990s, high water-reliant banana plants (in the early stage of growth) replaced almost all drought-resistant pineapples due to

27 Interviewed farmers first tended to talk about the most financially important cash crops they grew and these were generally those sponsored by the state. I then asked if they cultivated other cash crops and/or subsistence crops to gain a complete inventory. 28 Lengquan Township was home to 613 households in 2010 (2659 people) (Source: http://www.ynszxc.gov.cn/)

63 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 higher profit potential. Nowadays, only one of the 12 Yao farming households interviewed still grows paddy rice on a small plot of land, and almost all households cultivate maize for subsistence and livestock feed (Mr. He, 14/07/2011). While the majority of Yaoshan interviewees grow bananas, two households cultivate rubber and seven are still engaged in pineapple cultivation for cash purposes. In this mountainous township, cash crops farmers do not have sufficient land to grow food crops other than maize, except for Mr. He, which reveals the lack of arable land. Located at a far lower elevation (130 to 260 meters), households interviewed in Nanxi Town, Hekou County belong to Han, Zhuang, and Hmong minority nationalities and face a very humid climate. Nanxi’s arable land is located at this low altitude but also in nearby mountains. Before the early 1990s, all farming households in Nanxi used to grow paddy rice, maize, vegetables as well as upland dry rice in mountainous areas and wild edible herbs gathered in the forest. Medicinal herbs from the forest were also harvested for family use. In the early 1990s, pineapples, rubber trees, cedar trees and banana plants were also cultivated on a very small scale. In the late 1990s, as in Yaoshan Township, banana plants quickly replaced pineapples. Today, among the 13 households interviewed, eight still cultivate maize for food and livestock consumption; only one cultivates rice and seven grow vegetables as subsistence purposes. All households grow banana plants and four also cultivate rubber. However, watermelon cultivation under greenhouse promise higher profits, and will soon replace bananas, even though they are a more labour intensive crop (farmers, Nanxi, July 2011). As initial dates of cash cropping conversion vary highly among my four field sites, Table 5.2 indicates the dates (2nd column) of cash crop introduction in each township and the changes in subsistence crop cultivation since 1990. Table 5.2: Changes in agricultural practices over the past 20 years in Honghe Prefecture

In sum, this switch first occurred as early as 1994, in the most accessible, lowland areas of Nanxi Town, where Zhuang and Han farmers live. Located in the uplands and inhabited by Yi

64 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 and Yao farmers respectively, Lengquan and Yaoshan Townships first introduced cash crops in the late 1990s. Recently they were connected to the Kunming-Hanoi expressway, which now facilitates wider accessibility to markets. In the more remote and poorer upland township of Xibeile, inhabited by Yi farmers, cash crops were only introduced in 2007. Although these townships belong to the same prefecture, temporal gaps in switching to cash crops remain considerable and palpable in the field with an advanced experience visible in Nanxi Town. I argue that these gaps are linked to ethnicity and remote locations of Yi, Hmong and Yao and proximity of Han and Zhuang to the township municipality, thus facilitating access to local government (discussed further in Section 5.4).

5.2. STATE INCENTIVES PERTAINING TO CASH CROPS IN MENGZI AND HEKOU COUNTIES There are numerous state incentives to encourage farmers to switch from subsistence-based agriculture to cash cropping with the aim of improving rural development and reinforcing agricultural industrialization. Here I explore the subsidies offered by state-owned companies to farmers for the purchase of agricultural inputs in Mengzi and Hekou counties. These reveal the State’s influence on farmers’ livelihood decisions and the extent to which cash crops have become a major feature in farmers’ livelihoods in the past 15 years in ensuring their food security.

5.2.1. Flue-Cured Tobacco – Mengzi County As the world’s largest producer of tobacco (FAO, 2012; data for 2010), China’s tobacco industry falls under the administration of two agencies: the Chinese National Tobacco Company (CNTC) and the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA). Established in 1981 and 1982 respectively, their common aim is to promote a “unified leadership, a vertical administration and a monopoly management of the tobacco industry” (National Development and Reform Commission 2005: online, see also: Zhou 2000, China Central Government 2005, China Tobacco 2011).29 The STMA is duplicated at the provincial, prefecture, county and township levels.30 Its mission is a legal one: to regulate the tobacco industry through the application of the Tobacco Monopoly Law. The CNTC is also duplicated at the provincial, prefecture and county levels with subsidiary tobacco companies (Zhou 2000). The CNTC’s role is to decide on the allocation of production quotas for each province, to manage tobacco production and distribution, to control marketing channels and to provide seeds as well as

29 Before 1981, the state monopolies were relaxed (Peng, 1996). 30 In 2000, there were 31 provincial TMAs (Tobacco Monopoly Administration), 300 prefecture and city branches and about 1800 county/city branches (Zhou, 2000).

65 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 technical guidance to farmers (Zhou 2000, Peng 1996, Teh-wei Hu et al. 2008). The CNTC subsidiary companies are responsible for profits and losses and operate separately from local governments (ibid). Because local governments are responsible for collecting a special tobacco leaf tax from county level tobacco companies among other taxes, they are usually keen to attract tobacco companies as tax revenues from tobacco leaves are proportionately high compared to other industries’ investment returns (Zhou 2000, Teh-wei Hu et al. 2008). Indeed, tobacco is one of the seven highest profit-margin primary products in China (from 8 to 31 per cent), others being fishery and forestry products for example (Zhou 2000, Caixin 2011). Initially taxed at 31 per cent of the gross purchasing price of tobacco leaves (in 1996), parts of this tax were then removed, reducing it to 20 per cent in 2005, but still represented 10 per cent of Yunnan’s provincial government revenue that same year (RMB1.11 billion or USD 172 million) (Caixin 2011, Peng 1996). In Lengquan and Xibeile townships, Mengzi County, the cultivation of flue-cured tobacco was first introduced in the mid to late 1990s and early 2000s (Mr. Fei, govt, Xibeile, 23/06/2011; Mr. Mu, farmer, Lengquan, 04/07/2011). Flue-cured tobacco is a low water-reliant cash crop grown in the highlands of Yunnan, and harvested once a year. As a rain-fed crop, it is usually planted in April and harvested in June or July. The leaves are harvested and flue-cured by farmers in a flue-curing barn using charcoal (see Figure 5.1). Flue curing exposes leaves to heat in order to dry these without exposing them to smoke. Farmers then sell the dried leaves to the county level tobacco company (Mr. Fei, official, Xibeile, 23/06/2011).

Figure 5.1: Tobacco barn in Xibeile Township (Source: Author, 2011) When tobacco was introduced in Lengquan and Xibeile townships, both the local government and the county level tobacco company provided farmers with a range of incentives,

66 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 mainly financial, to entice farmers to start cultivating tobacco. In order to increase tobacco development in Xibeile Township, the government initially distributed undeveloped land to specifically grow the crop (Mr. Fei, govt, Xibeile, 23/06/2011). At the initial stages of production, Lengquan’s local tobacco company provided a RMB100 per mu subsidy (USD16 per 0.06 ha) as well as seeds, fertilizers and plastic film to cover young crops and ensure soil moisture at early stages of growth (Mr. Mu, govt, Lengquan, 04/07/2011). Farmers also received a subsidy of RMB2,000 to build water reservoirs near tobacco land, used to irrigate crops at the beginning of the growing process, or whenever rainfall is insufficient. After the first year of crop development, the tobacco company subsidized fertilizers at half the usual retail price (ibid.). In addition to the local company’s subsidies, the local government of Xibeile subsidized half of the cost of the flue-curing barn construction, ranging from RMB400 to RMB500 per barn (Mr. Pi, farmer, Xibeile, 07/07/2011), while the tobacco company in Lengquan subsidized barn construction with RMB1000 per barn (Mr. Mu, official, Lengquan, 04/07/2011). Farmers can approach technical advisors, appointed by the local tobacco company in each village, for assistance on technical details during the entire cultivation process (Mr. Sun, technical advisor, Xibeile, 06/07/2011). The technical advisors (one per village) are villagers selected by the local tobacco company due to their early involvement in the given cash crops, they receive training on cultivation techniques in accordance with CNTC’s requirements, plant disease and pest prevention (ibid.). In return for these multiple subsidies, local tobacco companies often ask farmers to sign contracts guaranteeing the company a minimum quality. 31 To facilitate and ensure the uniformity of tobacco quality, the company raises seedlings that are then sold to farmers (Mr. Mu, official, Lengquan, 04/07/2011). In some villages in Xibeile Township, the seeds were initially distributed according to a household’s capacity – its human capital or available labour force (Mr. Fei, govt, Xibeile, 23/06/2011). Harvesting tobacco leaves requires farmers to pay attention to low quality leaves, which have to be removed from the harvest for the crop to be successfully sold. To make sure farmers do not harvest low quality leaves, the company makes available a ‘disposal pit’ near tobacco fields, and specifically ask them to extract bad leaves before going on to flue-cure them. To increase farmers’ attentiveness, in return for each equivalent mu of bad leaves, farmers receive RMB40 (USD6/ha) (Mr. Mu, govt, Lengquan, 04/07/2011). Farmers are not only guaranteed that their tobacco harvest will be purchased by the tobacco company – if it meets the tobacco company’s production requirements – but they

31 This was the case in Lengquan Township, but not in Xibeile Township (Mr. Mu, govt, Lengquan)

67 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 also benefit from price protection; from RMB4 per kilogram minimum to RMB20 per kilogram maximum. Among the 28 households interviewed in Mengzi County, half (13) produce tobacco. For these tobacco growers, the average net income is RMB1,000 per mu (USD157), resulting in an income ranging from RMB10,000 to RMB20,000 (USD1,570-3,140) per household in the two townships. For ten of these 13 households, tobacco is their only cash crop and therefore their only source of income (farmers, June-July 2011).

5.2.2. Sericulture: Mulberry Silk – Mengzi County China is the world’s largest producer of silk (FAO, 2012; 2010 data). China’s silk industry is governed by a large state-owned company called China National Silk Import & Export Corporation (CNSIEC). This state-owned company is also established at the provincial and county levels, much like the Tobacco Monopoly. In 2006, the 11th Five Year Plan of the Central Government introduced a national “East Mulberry Shifting West” (东桑西移, dong sang xi yi) project with the aim of turning western provinces, including Yunnan, into an “important natural silk production, processing and export base in China” (Yunnan Foreign Affairs Office 2007). In 2002 and 2003, the local government bureau of Lengquan Township, Mengzi County, introduced sericulture as part of a national reforestation programme launched in 1998 (Natural Forest Protection Programme; see Chapter 3 – Section 3.1.1). From mulberry cultivation to silkworm rearing, cocoon production and silkworm egg production, sericulture is a labour intensive industry and requires specific skills at each stage of production (Rani 2006). Mulberry trees are drought resistant and produce leaves five to six months after plantation, which can then be harvested every year for 12 to 15 years (Rani 2006). However, it is important to note that the yield of mulberry leaves is greater if irrigated rather than rain-fed (ibid). Silkworm rearing usually takes place in an open shed, located either near the mulberry tree fields or outside farmers’ houses (see Figure 5.2). Rearing occurs from April to August when the mulberry trees are growing (Mr. Hu, technical advisor/farmer, Lengquan, 30/06/2011). The silkworms feed on mulberry leaves and form larva by spinning cocoons around themselves (Rani 2006). Cocoons are formed from May to December and the silk is extracted from the cocoons (Mr. Chao, official, Lengquan, 24/06/2011). In order to successfully cultivate silk, one needs high temperatures and good ventilation in the open shed during the cocooning stage (Rani 2006). While farmers in Lengquan Township meet those requirements, Xibeile Township is located too high to allow for sericulture to take place.

68 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5

Figure 5.2: Beds for silkworm rearing in an open shed, Lengquan Township (Source: Author, 2011) In order to encourage farmers to engage in sericulture, the county level branch of the Monopoly provides a subsidy of RMB260 per mu of mulberry trees planted (USD40 per mu) and a RMB100 subsidy per bag of fertilizer, leaving RMB60 per bag to be paid by farmers (Mr. Hu, technical advisor/farmer, Lengquan, 30/06/2011). Mr Hu, a farmer living in Shanzui village, Lengquan Township, received a month’s training in order to become the technical advisor on sericulture in the village. He in turn trained other villagers on how to breed silkworms and grow mulberry trees in the village’s public sericulture plot, which was first managed by the company and then by himself (ibid.). In order to ensure good quality, the Monopoly raises worms’ eggs for eight days in Shanzui village’s public sericulture cultivation area and then provides them for free to silk growers. Since it is a monopoly in, farmers are guaranteed to sell their harvest to one purchaser, but only if they respect the company’s labour- intensive cultivation requirements (ibid.). Since 2003, 70 per cent of Shanzui Village’s farmers are engaged in sericulture and raise on average three and a half beds of silkworms. Mr Hu continued to explain that farmers make around RMB2,000 per bed of silkworm per month and can harvest continuously for five months, creating an income of RMB35,000 a year ( Mr. Hu, technical advisor/farmer Lengquan, 30/06/2011). While Shanzui village farmers make the most of sericulture by selling their harvest to the state-owned company, farmers living in remote Xinglong Village, Lengquan, grow mulberry trees only to take advantage of the subsidy (RMB260 per mu) and do not harvest fruits nor leaves or bother with the labour intensive process that involves sericulture (Mr. Mu, govt, Lengquan, 04/07/2011). While this gap in farmers’ engagement in sericulture

69 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 appears to be due to their location and lack of access to a technical advisor for such a labour intensive crop, I find that this could also be seen as a way for Yi and Hmong farmers of Xinglong’s remote village to show their resistance to the government’s involvement in their livelihoods.

5.2.3. Apple Trees – Mengzi County China is also the world’s largest producer of apples (FAO, 2012; 2010 data). The local government bureau of Xibeile Township introduced the cultivation of apple trees in 2007, also as part of the NFPP launched in 1998. Apple trees can be cultivated in the highlands and their low water reliance makes them ideal for a high elevation township like Xibeile where the weather is cold and dry. The trees are planted in February and apples can be harvested two years later, and then annually, in October and November (Mr. Fei, govt, Xibeile, 23/06/2011). Apple trees are usually planted on undeveloped land, formerly either forest or mountainous land. To encourage farmers to reforest undeveloped land with apple trees, the local government subsidizes the cost of each tree sapling by RMB2 (USD0.3). Farmers bear the other half of the cost of the saplings. The local government also offers free fertilizers and plastic film to cover young trees (Ms. Chen; Mr. Huang, farmers, Xibeile, 07/07/2011). Among the 14 interviewees from Xibeile Township, four had started planting apple trees in 2007, 2009 and 2010. The farmers who had already harvested apples mainly sold them in Mengzi City’s markets. Although they did not wish to discuss income earned, I suspect that it was because harvest had not actually been that successful.

5.2.4. Walnut Trees – Mengzi County Although China is also the world’s largest producer of walnuts (FAO, 2012), these were introduced by Lengquan and Xibeile governments only recently in 2007. In Lengquan Township, a ‘walnut cultivation area’ of 3,000 mu (200 ha) was established in 2010 to serve as a model farm for local farmers (Mr. Mu, govt, Lengquan, 04/07/2011). Walnut trees take two years to grow before they start producing walnuts and are usually planted in June or July and harvested in October or November (Mr. Fei, govt, Xibeile, 23/06/2011). The model farm in Lengquan Township is used as a training centre for farmers already growing or willing to grow walnut trees. The local government also built a water reservoir nearby. This farm, established in 2010, is a way for the government to show how farmers can profit from walnut cultivation and is expected to become a centre for high yielding, quality walnuts in the near future. In addition, the local Lengquan Township government subsidizes pesticides and fertilizers (Mr. Chao, govt, Lengquan, 28/06/2011). In 2008, seven village committees started growing walnut trees in Lengquan Township and should all have harvested

70 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 for the first time in 2010. However as of summer 2011, only one household in Lengquan had been able to harvest walnut seeds, revealing weaknesses in the training received to cultivate walnut (ibid.). In Xibeile, walnut growers do not have access to a model farm. However the local government has subsidized farmers between RMB2-3 (USD0.32-0.48) per tree sapling since 2007 and provides technical assistance during the growing process, mainly to prevent diseases (Mr. Fei, govt, Xibeile, 23/06/2011). Xibeile walnut growers tended to have a very small plot of land dedicated to walnut trees near their house, hence relying on other cash crops, such as tobacco or apples as their main source of income and sometimes walnuts were consumed at home (Mr. Fang, Mr. Huang, farmers, Xibeile, 06/07/2011).

5.2.5. Sugarcane – Mengzi County The final cash crop that I observed in Mengzi County is sugarcane. 32 The cultivation of sugarcane was first introduced in 2009 in Lengquan (Mr. Mu, govt, Lengquan, 04/07/2011). Sugarcane is usually planted between December and March and harvested the following year from December to January (Mr. Chao, govt, Lengquan Township, 28/06/2011). In 2011, the Lengquan Township government introduced a three-year programme to cultivate sugarcane over a total area of 14,650 mu (976 ha). According to the Lengquan government’s analysis, sugarcane production could reach 50,000 tonnes and generate a profit of RMB15 million (USD2.3 million) by 2013 (Lengquan Township 2011). As opposed to other cash crops, in Lengquan Township, the local government supports a private sugar refinery who offers incentives for farmers to cultivate sugarcane: first, in terms of agricultural inputs, the sugarcane refinery provides peasants with one ton of seeds and a 50 kilogram bag of composite fertilizers that farmers have to pay back once the sugar cane is successfully harvested and sold (Lengquan Township 2011). Second, for each additional mu of sugarcane cultivated, farmers are eligible for a RMB20 (USD3.17) discount on the purchase of seeds, as well as a RMB30 (USD4.76) subsidy for fertilizers. Other subsidies include RMB30 (USD4.76) per mu for the purchase of plastic film to cover the crops and maintain moisture at the early stage of growth (ibid). Third, farmers cultivating sugarcane on former rice paddy fields are given an additional RMB100 (USD15.86) per mu, to encourage this transition. In the case of dry and sloping land, farmers with more than 50 mu of such land receive a subsidy of RMB30 (USD4.76) per mu to cover crop irrigation costs (ibid). Fourth, sugar refineries fix the purchasing price of sugarcane according to quality, ensuring protection of farmers’ income. There are two different quality standards: RMB230 (USD36) per ton for an ordinary grade,

32 China was the world’s third largest producer of sugarcane in 2010, after Brazil and India (FAO, 2012).

71 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5

RMB250 (USD39) per ton for a fine quality grade (Lengquan Township 2011). Sugarcane growers only bear the cost of cultivation; once harvested, the sugar refinery pays for transportation (ibid). Finally, technical advisors from the sugar refinery regularly visit farmers to provide technical guidance and check on the crops (Mr. Mu, govt, Lengquan, 04/07/2011). In 2011, 80 households engaged in sugar cane cultivation in Xinglong Village on a total area of 760 mu (50 ha) with a planned first harvest in November 2011 (ibid.). Among the two townships of Mengzi studied here, I find that these five state-sponsored cash crops are better implemented in Lengquan Township than in Xibeile, probably due to their earlier introduction but the remoteness and high poverty of farmers living in Xibeile Township also play a role in the state’s lower involvement.

5.2.6. Bananas – Hekou County Along with rubber, discussed in Section 5.2.7, banana cultivation was first introduced in the mid-1990s and was widespread by 2000 in both Yaoshan and Nanxi Townships as farmers decided to grow bananas within the framework of the programme on tropical crop industry development (Mr. Pang, govt, Yaoshan, 20/07/2011).33 To grow, banana plants need to be irrigated during the initial three months, after which the plant has accumulated enough water for the last seven months of annual growth. Bananas can be harvested ten months after the plant is sown. According to agricultural department officials in Nanxi township, banana plants are suited for tropical climates and should be planted below 600 meters for better results (Mr. Sheng, govt, Nanxi, 22/07/2011). The banana industry is one of Hekou County’s core agricultural industries and represents one of the most important sources of income for farmers in Nanxi and Yaoshan. Converted rice paddy fields in the mountainous area (50,000 mu / 3,333 ha) of Yaoshan Township are one of the main banana production areas of Hekou County (Yaoshan Township Government 2011). In 1997, Nanxi Town had 1,000 mu (66 ha) planted with banana plants producing 2,000 tonnes of bananas (Nanxi Town Government 2008). Ten years later, the cultivated area increased to 60,000 mu (4,000 ha) and production to 180,000 tonnes (ibid). In 2007, bananas represented 70 per cent of the GDP for Nanxi Town (ibid). When banana plants were first introduced as a cash crop, there were no subsidies offered by the local government of Yaoshan (Mr. Pang, govt, Yaoshan, 20/07/2011). Groups of farmers started cultivating bananas by taking out loans of RMB5,000 to RMB15,000 (USD780 to USD2,340) (ibid.). In 2009, the government supported the creation of a cooperative formed by banana growers in Yaoshan Township that provide technical training, a unified management

33 In 2010, China was the second largest producer of bananas worldwide, after India (FAO 2012).

72 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 system and technological expertise to new banana growers. It also stabilizes the price of bananas from RMB0.1 to RMB0.2 (USD0.02 to USD0.03) per 500 grams. Through this cooperative, farmers can immediately sell their entire harvests to one buyer (ibid.). The situation is different in Nanxi Town however, where the local government subsidizes the purchase of banana plant trunks by providing RMB3 (USD0.5) per trunk, leaving the rest (RMB2 – USD0.3) to be paid by farmers. In addition, farmers in both townships mentioned that after natural disasters, the local government may provide half the price of the plant’s trunk (RMB2.5) to help farmers replant banana plants, depending on the impacts’ severity. Among the 24 households interviewed in Nanxi and Yaoshan Townships, all grow bananas. Net income generated through selling bananas is on average RMB10,000 (USD1,586) per 1,000 banana plants in both Yaoshan and Nanxi Townships (farmers Yaoshan and Nanxi, July 2011). However, farmers in Nanxi complained about the price fluctuation for bananas and a handful of farmers had already started switching to what they considered more stable crops, such as greenhouse watermelons, with the help of loans (see Section 5.2.8) (Mr. Tang, Zhuang farmer, Nanxi, 20/07/2011). This price instability in Nanxi may be the reflection of the lack of a government cooperative system to stabilize the price, such as the one implemented in Yaoshan Township.

5.2.7 Rubber – Hekou County Hekou County is the second largest rubber production base in Yunnan after Xishuangbanna (Hong Kong Trade Development Council 2011: online). The rubber industry is also part of the reforestation policy initiated in 1998 by the central government Large scale rubber planting started in the early 1990s in Nanxi Town and in 1995 in Yaoshan Township (Mr. Pang, govt, Yaoshan, 20/07/2011; Mr. Sheng, govt, Nanxi, 22/07/2011). Since 2001, farmers sell their harvest to rubber processing plants owned by the State. In this region, rubber trees take seven to eight years to grow and rubber can then be harvested every year for 35 years (Mr. Han, govt, Nanxi, 20/07/2011). According to rubber growers in Nanxi, rubber can be tapped from April to November (Mr. Shao, 21/07/2011). The total investment per tree ranges between RMB120 to RMB180 (USD20 to USD30) over 8 years (ibid.). As was the case with bananas, groups of farmers started cultivating rubber by taking out loans ranging from RMB5,000 to RMB15,000 (USD593 to USD2,380) (Mr. Pang, govt, Yaoshan, 14/07/2011). In 2009, the government supported the creation of a cooperative formed by rubber growers in Yaoshan Township to provide technical training, a unified management system, technological expertise to new rubber growers as well as to stabilize the price of rubber. Through this cooperative, farmers can then sell their entire harvests to a single buyer at

73 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 once (ibid.). Because rubber has been cultivated for a while in this area, farmers talked less about subsidies and more about the post disaster relief programmes established by the local government following the 2009-2010 drought and the 2010-2011 cold spell. The relief programmes in Nanxi include a subsidy of RMB3 (USD0.48) per tree sapling with the remaining (RMB2 per sapling) paid by the farmer (discussed further in Chapter 7). Among the 24 households interviewed in Yaoshan and Nanxi, five were either starting or stopping cultivating rubber. Farming households that had started in the 1990s had tapped rubber for eight years until the 2010-11 winter season froze their trees which forced them to leave the land fallow for two years (Mr. Shao, 21/07/2011). Their average net yearly income had ranged from RMB20,000 to RMB30,000 (USD3,172 to USD4,760) for 500 trees (ibid.; Mr. Tang, Nanxi, 20/07/2011). On the other hand, farming households who had just started two years ago had been more impacted by the lack of irrigation due to the 2009-2010 drought and still had to wait six years for their first harvest on the trees they had managed to save from the drought (Mr. Ding, Yaoshan, 13/07/2011).

5.2.8. Watermelons – Hekou County In 2011, local governments in Yaoshan and Nanxi introduced the cultivation of watermelon in greenhouses in Niucang Village and Maduoyi Village respectively. This recent investment is part of Hekou County government’s push to ‘modernize’ agriculture. Watermelon is a labour intensive crop planted in greenhouses at the end of the winter season and then harvested every three months, three times a year, except during winter (Mr. Han, farmer, Nanxi, 20/07/2011). The initial investment in watermelon cultivation includes the construction of a greenhouse (around RMB14,000 or USD2,220) with the local government paying half the cost of the greenhouse to facilitate access to this livelihood option in both Yaoshan and Nanxi (farmers, Yaoshan; Nanxi, July 2011). Both local governments have established interest-free loans for farmers who do not have the initial funds required, which must be repaid within a year. In Yaoshan Township, the Women’s Federation funds female young entrepreneurs’ projects with interest-free loans of up to RMB50,000 (USD7,900) (Mr. Sheng, govt, Nanxi, 22/07/2011; Mr. Ding, farmer, Yaoshan, 13/07/2011). To further encourage farmers, the local government allocates a technical advisor for each village/township where farmers cultivate watermelons (Mr. Pang, govt, Yaoshan, 13/07/2011; Mr. Sheng, govt, Nanxi, 20/07/2011). In Maduoyi Village, drip irrigation is used to irrigate the crops, thanks to water reservoirs located outside the greenhouses, channelling water from the nearby river and also pumping groundwater from the nearby cement factory (Mr. Tang, farmer, 20/07/2011) (Figure 5.3).

74 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5

Figure 5.3: Drip irrigation for watermelon under greenhouse (Source: Author 2011) Of the 12 farmers I interviewed in Yaoshan Township, only two households have started watermelon cultivation, while Maduoyi Village in Nanxi counted three households with an overall area of 50 mu in 2011, which is to be extended to 600 mu in the coming two years (Mr. Han, farmer; Mr. Sheng, govt, 22/07/2011). According to watermelon growers in Nanxi the main incentive to grow watermelon is the stability of the price, compared to bananas (Mr. Han; Mr. Tang, farmers, 20/07/2011). However since this is such a new crop, its impact on livelihood sustainability has yet to be demonstrated.

5.2.9. Other State-Sponsored Cash Crops Pineapples were introduced in the early 1990s in Nanxi and Yaoshan, however most farmers switched to higher profit crops like banana and rubber in the early 2000s. Although pineapples are drought resistant crops with low water requirements, farmers in both Nanxi and Yaoshan explained that because the income from pineapples was low, with a purchasing price at RMB0.4 (USD0.063) per jin (500 grams), they preferred switching to higher valued cash crops (Mr. Cao, 20/07/2011; Mr. Ding, 13/07/2011). Although farmers have cultivated maize as a subsistence food crop for centuries, the local government of Xibeile Township sometimes provides farmers with hybrid maize seeds, even if farmers prefer saving their traditional seedlings due to their better taste and to the fact that hybrid seeds do not necessarily bring higher yields (farmers, Mengzi, July 2011). In Hekou County, farmers cultivating maize in Nanxi have recently received subsidies from the local government to buy new seed varieties sold at the agro-technical station (no mention was made of whether these seeds were high-yielding varieties or genetically modified). Perhaps the local

75 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 government provides these seeds to maintain maize cultivation to ensure enough feed for livestock such as pigs, thereby increasing meat production, however, not enough details were gathered on this issue to ascertain that.

5.2.10. State Incentives Conclusion It is clear from this analysis that given the numerous incentives provided by either the local government or state-owned companies, state-sponsored cash crops have become a major feature of local farmer livelihoods in these two counties of Honghe Prefecture, and one of the major drivers of agrarian change. While some farming households have made the switch to cash cropping entirely, others have kept producing their subsistence food crops as well, either by choice or necessity. I find that most drivers to switch to cash crops enclose financial incentives. From providing farmers with subsidies for the purchase of agricultural inputs or for constructions of water reservoirs and curing barns, to subsidies for new areas of land and price protection, these incentives facilitate farmers’ access to financial capital and provide new livelihood opportunities. Cash crops being supported by local governments have tended to vary over time as these were informed of new opportunities by Yunnan officials, as different climate conditions have led to some crops being more successful than others, and through pure trial and error regarding the degree of farmer willingness to try a new crop, face pest problems, find input needs and so on. Notably, the distance between farmers’ villages and the closest township, where the local government providing these subsidies and extension services is located, influences access to cash cropping. The closer to the township farmers are, the earlier they transitioned to cash cropping, such as in Nanxi and Lengquan townships. Conversely, farmers located in remote villages, such as in Xibeile and Yaoshan townships and who belong to minority nationalities switched to cash cropping at a later date. Although in theory, these incentives may seem attractive for farmers, the basis of these farmer decisions regarding whether to trial a newly introduced state-sponsored crop or not rests a lot with the different access that farming households have to a range of capital types, as noted above and in the livelihood framework. I find that these cash crop developments mostly benefit local governments who not only receive high tax revenues but also generate local economic development from cash crop cultivation, and most importantly succeed in applying the central government’s conservation policies, namely the NFPP (Chapter 3 Section 3.1.3). The next section shifts from this analysis of state-supported inputs to examine the impacts of switching to cash crops for Han and minority nationality livelihoods in Honghe Prefecture.

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5.3. IMPACTS OF CASH CROP DEVELOPMENT AT THE HOUSEHOLD AND VILLAGE LEVELS The focus in this section is on farmers who engage in state-sponsored cash crops to answer the second part of my first research objective, namely, to analyse the impacts of switching to cash crops for Han and minority nationality livelihoods. I examine the changes – both positive and negative – in the role of and access to the five types of capital, namely natural, physical, financial, human and social, that occur in farmers’ livelihoods as they switch from subsistence food crops to cash crops. These changes can be observed at the household and the community levels and have both direct and indirect impacts. The decision to switch to cash crops is often synonymous with becoming involved in intensive or ‘conventional’ agriculture. This leads to higher production yields per hectare and greater financial profits for producers and other actors along the commodity chains. However positive this may appear at first glance, this switch to cash crops creates both positive and negative impacts at the household level and more broadly at the community/village level. In this section, I focus on each livelihood capital in turn, to gain a better understanding of how switching to cash crops can have positive and negative impacts on rural livelihoods to finally examine one of a sustainable livelihood’s outcome: food security to conclude on how its four dimensions, namely availability, access, utilization and stability, are impacted in non-crisis time (Chapter 2 – Section 2.3).

5.3.1. Impacts on Natural Capital There are two direct positive impacts of switching to cash crops for a farming household and community’s access to natural capital. First, thanks to cash crop development, access to water resources is facilitated through the subsidized construction of water channels and reservoirs for houses and agricultural land by the local government. This in turn increases the physical capital of a village overall, as mountain springs as well as river water sources are increasingly channelled through agricultural land and villages. In Lengquan Township, farmers Ms. Xiao and Mr. Hu explained that this improved access to water was far better than having to walk back and forth to the lake or pond of the main village to collect water in buckets. This had been the situation before the local government invested in reservoirs and iron and/or rubber pipes (Lengquan, 30/06/2011). Second, it is important to note that because of its mountainous landscape, Yunnan’s arable land area is scarce; the per capita arable land after household land redistribution ranges from 0.13 to 0.14 ha (1.95 to 2.14 mu – see Chapter 3). Therefore to begin with, farmers do not have access to wide areas of land to cultivate crops and need to maximize yields on available land. In the case of Xibeile, where the government allocated – undeveloped – land resources to grow more tobacco, turning to cash cropping represented an opportunity for

77 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 farmers to gain greater access to natural capital (tobacco growers, Xibeile, June 2011) (see Section 5.2.1). Despite the positive impacts noted above, cash cropping triggers a range of negative impacts upon natural capital. These impacts are felt both directly and indirectly at the household and community levels. First, in their drive for economic success and due to market pressures, farmers involved in cash cropping always strive to increase profits. A Yao farmer explained: “There are too many people here and not enough land” (Mr. Hui, Yao farmer, Yaoshan, 15/07/2011). As population increases and access to resources decreases, this lack of natural capital pushes some farmers to claim and appropriate undeveloped land that is neither protected by the state nor ‘owned’ by anyone. To do so, farmers from Xibeile, Yaoshan, and Nanxi townships noted that they had had to cut down the forest, destroying natural flora and fauna and resulting in the depletion of water resources (farmers, June/July 2011; official, Mr. Sheng, Nanxi, 22/07/2011). Mr. Sheng, a government official from Nanxi Town, aware of the growing negative impacts of investing in cash crops, complained (22/07/2011): There’s too little arable land area for the rapidly growing population and farmers want to develop their commercial cultivation to earn more [...] The main factor that dried the water sources is the vegetation and forest destruction that is quite serious here. Mr. Hu, a Han farmer from Lengquan reported that, like others in his village, he used to cultivate paddy rice but no longer does because of the lack of water; noting: “Today, more than 90 per cent of the villagers grow upland dry rice, because we don’t have the water that is needed to cultivate paddy rice” (30/06/2011). Although farmers did not explicitly mention it, they seemed to blame this water depletion as one of the consequences of the recent switch to cash crops. In addition to depleting water resources, reclaiming undeveloped forestland and vegetation destruction triggers soil erosion and increases the risks of landslides and floods (Mr. Hu, farmer, Lengquan, 30/06/2011; Mr. Cao, farmer, Nanxi, 20/07/2011). Third, as cash crops require chemical fertilizers and pesticides at greater input levels than traditional food crops – which relied more on organic fertilizers – to ensure agricultural output, these are greatly subsidized by local governments and state-owned companies (Yang 2006a). This increased quantity of inputs in turn affects long term soil and water resource quality. In the case of Hekou County, the ecological ramifications of large-scale banana monoculture are starting to affect farmers as they experience difficulties in maintaining production quality as the misuse of fertilizers and pesticides is increasingly reported (farmers; Hekou, July 2011). Fourth, in the case of Nanxi Town, the local government’s push to standardize the cultivation of certain crops in the 1990s in order to obtain uniform quality standards obliged the

78 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 entire town to specialize in one crop, banana, hence reducing diversity through mono-cropping. As Peng (1996) suggests, in his study on tobacco in the neighbouring Guizhou Province, the dependency of farmers on a single crop for their livelihoods enhances risks of loosing financial resources if crops fail for instance. Within the new Agricultural Modernization Programme introduced in 2011, Nanxi Town’s agriculture department would no longer encourage farmers to engage in banana production. This is happening for a number of reasons, among which soil and water resource degradation seem to stand out (Mr. Sheng, govt, Nanxi, 22/07/2011). As cash cropping was established since at least the year 1998 in all the townships studied, local governments have been able to analyse its longer-term impacts on natural resources over at least a decade and have started to act upon impacts understood to be negative. Reforestation, as defined locally, has been top of the agenda in each of the four townships, and local government officials reported that they are encouraging farmers to cultivate agro-forestry products such as mulberry trees, apple trees, walnut, eucalyptus, cinnamon and pomelo trees (government officials, Xibeile & Nanxi, June-July 2011). But as Mr. Fei, a government official of Xibeile’s local government explained to me (07/08/2011): The government does not support reclaiming undeveloped mountainous and forest land, but because there are no regulations against it, they can only encourage the plantation of fruit trees and make sure farmers take into account that these areas need to be reforested. One could argue however that the government uses the pretext of reforestation to actually develop monocropping within formerly forested areas. In sum, at the household level, the immediate impacts of cash crop expansion on local ecosystems and on access to natural resources appear to be positive, providing grants for easier access to water and land resources. However, over a longer time frame, farmers and local governments have begun to observe and experience the negative impacts of over-exploiting local ecosystems, resulting in land and water resource degradation as outcomes of unsustainable livelihoods. One has to wonder if these ecological concerns exist only for the crops first introduced in the 1990s, and hence it will just be a matter of time before other state- sponsored cash crops experience similar difficulties. Perhaps only time will tell.

5.3.2. Impacts on Physical Capital In Mengzi and Hekou counties, engaging in cash crop development has increased physical capital, both at the household and community levels. First, as part of rural industrialization and cash crop development, the construction of water reservoirs was subsidized in the late 1990s by the local governments. Water reservoirs allow farmers to reduce their time spent on water collection. In the case of tobacco cultivation, the government also subsidized the establishment

79 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 of a flue-curing barn per household while also providing equipment and tools. In turn, these flue-curing barns represent a long-term household commitment to tobacco cultivation, due to the financial capital they also had to invest. One could argue that this substantial investment may ‘immobilize’ or ‘trap’ the household into tobacco cultivation; once farmers invest in a barn they must sell tobacco to pay for it. Another ‘burden’ of engaging in cash crop development on physical capital is the need for more and constant agricultural inputs than ever before, dependent on access to financial, social and human capital. The increased cash incomes (financial capital) now available to farmers involved in cash crop production have in turn increased a range of household consumption. For some this has been a solution to previously unstable availability of food through the purchasing of food items, as well as providing the means to fulfil other immediate needs such as cooking oil, agricultural implements and to cover emergency costs such as health needs. For others, more conspicuous consumption has occurred, such as improvements to houses and the purchase of motorcycles. Physical capital, such as houses and agricultural implements, has thus been improved to varying degrees (farmers, Mengzi and Hekou, June-July 2011).

5.3.3. Impacts on Financial Capital When deciding to switch to cash crop cultivation, farmers cannot rely on state subsidies alone; they must also make private investments into their cash crops. From my fieldwork interviews I found that the decision to switch to cash crops brought about four core impacts on access to financial capital, among which, one is positive. First, when switching to cash crops, farmers must not only invest in agricultural inputs, but they also need to buy more food in the local market to replace that which they no longer cultivate. Physical and economic access to food is therefore dependent on financial capital to have the means to reach the local market but also to purchase food. Furthermore, agricultural inputs, such as fertilizers and pesticides, are usually required by the company buying the final agricultural products, which in turn increase overall costs of production and reduce financial capital stocks (Mr. Fan, farmer, Yaoshan, 12/07/2011; Mr. Mu, govt, Lengquan, 04/07/2011). Second, the funds for initial investments come from either high interest rate regular loans from the rural credit cooperative (six to nine per cent), or interest-free rate loans from the local government or the Women’s Federation. According to Mr. Fan, a Yao farmer from Yaoshan, in order to be eligible for these loans, one must provide evidence of a positive credit history or have someone acting as a guarantor, thus requiring a minimum social capital (12/07/2011). When neither is available, the alternative is to turn to relatives or friends to borrow money. The majority of farmers I interviewed who had switched to cash crops were

80 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 able to borrow from the rural credit cooperative for their initial investment in cash crops (farmers, Mengzi, 04/07/2011). Frequently I found that interviewees then became trapped in a cycle of repayments, or a system of rotating debt that meant that by the second year, they took out a new loan to pay back the initial one as their income had been too low to pay back both capital and interest. As Mr. Yu (21/07/2011), a farmer from Nanxi Town, investing in banana plants explained to me: “To pay back the loan, I borrow more money from friends or from the bank. Every year since 2003, I deal with reimbursement that way”. In this situation, as farmers depend on a successful harvest as their main source of income and for food security, they are more vulnerable to crop failures and to market instability. A lack of affordable access to financial capital through low or free interest rate loans is therefore an important hurdle for farmers involved in cash cropping. Third, regardless of state-subsidies, the high financial costs by local standards of initial investments, such as the costs of saplings, pesticides and fertilizers, mean that farmers usually invest in only one cash crop at a time, two at most. This considerably reduces the diversity of their cultivation and livelihood options. Once farmers concentrate their financial, human and physical resources like this, they no longer own the resources (seeds, tools, know-how), to invest in another livelihood option, such as other cash or food crops. In addition to reducing livelihood options, this approach also makes farmers more vulnerable in cases when the given crop does not meet harvest requirements or suffers crop failure due to climate variability. Having a whole village cultivate one or two cash crops may also result in a surplus of supply or an imbalance between supply and demand, which may contribute to market fluctuations. Mr. Tang, the Zhuang farmer from Nanxi explained: “Everyone shouldn’t get together to grow one same crop, because if everyone grows the same crops together, they will lose together, so it’s not good” (20/07/2011). Hence, in terms of ensuring a stable economic and physical access to food at the household level, taking on a low diversity of cash crops represents a risk. Finally, as explained in Section 5.2, farmers who invest in state-sponsored cash crops, such as tobacco, silk, sugarcane and rubber, have a guaranteed purchaser of their products – the state-owned company. This constitutes a reliable source of income if farmers successfully grow the crops according to the company’s requirements (Mr. Mu, govt, Lengquan, 04/07/2011; Mr. Pang, govt, Yaoshan, 13/07/2011). While some farmers manage to earn enough to ensure their daily food requirement, others just break even with their investment. Other farmers succeed in making enough profit to invest further, not only in the following season’s inputs, but also in physical capital, such as house renovations and motorcycles (see Section 5.3.2). These same farmers are able to invest year after year in cash production, as they have better access to loans and can save money to buy food.

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One could potentially suggest from these findings that cash crop production is creating new hierarchies in these villages. Those farmers with enough financial capital to initially invest in cash crops without getting into large debts appear to be able to reap the financial rewards, and continue to gain profits. Alternatively, those who go into debt to begin these operations are far less likely to break out of this cycle of debt, as returns are not great enough. This debt cycle is further compounded by extreme weather events, as will be discussed in Chapter 6.

5.3.4. Impacts on Human Capital The introduction of cash crops has had a number of short-term mixed impacts, both at the community and household levels in terms of gaining human assets. At the village level, developing cash crops has encouraged farmers to invest in further agricultural expansion. To do so, some farmers have taken up off-farm employment, as they require greater levels of financial capital for agricultural inputs and to purchase food they no longer grow. While certain farmers have tried working off-farm in other provinces for a few years, others seasonally alternate their livelihoods by working in the closest tin ore mines during the dry season and cultivate their land during the rainy season (Mr. Luo, farmer, Lengquan, 04/07/2011). I argue that this need for more financial capital temporarily and sometimes more permanently, drives young farmers – labour force – away from villages, leaving elderly alone to take care of the land, with increased labour burdens in their old age. At the individual and household level, cash crops have allowed access to a wider range of new skills. For instance, farmers adopting certain new cash crops have received training by technical advisors. In other instances, technical advisers are available in the local marketplace to allow villagers to ask questions about new cropping techniques (farmers; Mr. Hu, Lengquan, 30/06/2011; Mr. Sun, Xibeile, 06/07/2011). Yet, however useful it may be in theory to have access to a technical advisor, this person is sometimes found to be non-existent or helpless in regards to certain technical difficulties encountered by farmers. Wujia villagers, in Yaoshan Township, provided me with a clear example of this disconnect regarding the application of fertilizers on banana plants. In this case, banana growers “blindly” applied fertilizers with no knowledge of appropriate application quantities, which resulted in poor harvests or even crop failures and significant loss of financial capital (farmers, Wujia villagers, Yaoshan, 14/07/2011). One could argue that in terms of traditional ecological knowledge, switching from traditional subsistence food crops represents a loss in human capital in the longer term. Farmers who have learned the cultivation techniques of subsistence farming from their parents and grandparents are now switching to cash crops, learning new ways of cultivating. If there is a

82 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 need in the future to revert back to these crops and practices, precious traditional knowledge and skills will have been potentially lost. Indirectly, increased access to financial capital has also increased levels of formal education for the next generation, with parents increasingly able to pay for their children’s school education and accommodation in Mengzi or Hekou cities (farmers, Lengquan, Nanxi, June and July 2011). However, it is yet unknown if more educated generations will decide to stay in rural areas and develop their parents’ cash crop cultivation further or if they will prefer to migrate to urban areas, further fuelling China’s urbanization.

5.3.5. Changes in the Role of Social Capital in Accessing Resources Deciding to invest in cash crops implies that a farmer has initially heard of the given opportunity through social networks, customarily either from close friends and relatives (bonding social capital) or from local authorities promoting it (bridging and linking capital) (Mr. Hu, farmer, Lengquan, 30/06/2011). Among my interviewees, I find that engaging in cash cropping reinforces social ties among farmers as they share their respective experiences on cultivation techniques, government subsidies, company expectations and so on. This bonding social capital is enhanced when households rely on each other’s resources. Sharing resources, such as a buffalo to plough the fields, already occurred before switching to cash crops, and is continuing. Nowadays, helping each other regarding financial capital is increasing along with greater cash flow needs to be able to invest in cash crops. Asking each other to be guarantees to be eligible for a loan, or borrowing money from each other, requires a certain level of trust. According to my observations during two group interviews in Yaoshan and Nanxi, these shared experiences seem to have brought farmers closer together as they all face the same problems and challenges with new cash crops, rather than having increased competition over resources (observation, Yaoshan and Nanxi, July 2011). Although bonding social capital was found to be increased through the switch to cash crops in the more remote townships of Xibeile, Lengquan and Yaoshan, I found that the wealthier town of Nanxi farmers in their switch to cash cropping saw communal on-farm work reduced leading to more individualism. While social networks were previously organized around family, ethnicity, and common traditions and farmers’ collectives, the recent switch to cash crops has extended networks to local authorities; an example of utilising linking social capital. When possible, farmer households increasingly use such linking social capital to lever themselves out of poverty and negotiate access to more modern physical capital, such as ploughing machines in Nanxi Town. Even in the remote township of Yaoshan, Mr He, a Yao farmer, explained that increasing one’s linking social capital is made possible every week during the market day in

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Yaoshan village (14/07/2011). Each Friday, an advisor from the Yaoshan government is available at the market to receive farmers’ requests and complaints about their cash-crop livelihoods. This bottom-up approach allows farmers to receive advice on how to grow cash crops but also to voice their concerns and negotiate access to discounted agricultural inputs, such as fertilizers and pesticides. However, one farmer reported that the advisor was not always up to date on technical issues for certain crops, while another one complained on the fact that the advisor did not hear his concerns (Mr. Hui, Yaoshan, 14/07/2011). Whether this is intentional or not, it further reveals the power local governments have in informing the powerless farmers about cash crop related developments and how these farmers’ state- sponsored cash crop endeavours are monitored by the State. From my interviews, I suggest that the switch to cash cropping has also triggered more marginalization for farmers living in isolated, remote areas, with very little social capital, highlighting one dark side of social capital: exclusion of outsiders. Farmers with low initial social capital tend to fail when switching to cash crops, as they do not have enough social ties or trust to share knowledge and resources with other farmers (Hmong farmer, Mr. Luo, Lengquan, 04/07/2011). Without strong social ties, it is almost impossible to have access to a loan from the government or other formal institutions. Farmers in these cases tend to have specific conditions that enhanced their marginalization, such as people living alone, the disabled and the elderly. As such, to gain financial capital, farmers living in remote areas in need of financial capital to further invest in cash cropping, either tend to work temporarily on- farm for other farmers, or borrow money from friends or relatives who have switched to off- farm employment in the closest city (farmers; Mr. Mei, Lengquan, 04/07/2011; Mr. Ying, Nanxi, 21/07/2011).

5.3.6. Conclusions on Impacts of Cash Crops on Access and Role of Five Livelihood Capitals In this section, I examined changes in the role of, and access to, the five livelihood capitals triggered by switching to cash crops. It seems that for farmers with a certain level of initial access to financial, human and social capital, switching to cash crops has increased access to all five types of capital assets and resources. However, for farmers who did not begin with initial good access to these capitals, switching to cash crops often triggered the loss of financial capital, through a system of rotating or cyclical debt. From the four field sites, Nanxi farmers seem to have the best initial access, while in the other three townships farmers seem to have to combine and trade-off different types of capitals. The next section presents four case studies – one in each township – to shed light on the impacts of switching to state-sponsored cash crops at the household level.

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5.4. CASE STUDIES ILLUSTRATING IMPACTS OF CASH CROP FARMING

5.4.1. Case Study 1: Mr. Hu’s Household, Han: Sericulture, Lily Flower Cultivation Mr. Hu is a Han farmer living in Shanzui Village, located just outside Lengquan Township village in Mengzi County (30/06/2011). His household includes six members: him and his wife and their two young kids, his mother and his uncle, affected by a congenital deaf-mute condition. Among the six members, three provide their labour in the fields. He was introduced to sericulture in 2003, when he was selected by the local government to take part in a month of training on sericulture to become the technical advisor for his village. Before 2003, Mr. Hu cultivated upland dry rice and maize on land near his house. His income had amounted to RMB2000 per year from selling rice and maize seeds and a few adult pigs at the local market. In late 2003, one of his friends introduced him to lily flower cultivation, a cash crop not sponsored by the state. To be able to invest in both sericulture and lily flower cultivation, he took a loan from the rural credit cooperative. He reclaimed undeveloped mountainous land as part of the reforestation program to plant mulberry trees, while partly converting his paddy rice and maize fields to lily flowers to keep a plot of land to grow maize for his livestock and to eat at home. Switching to cash crops increased Mr. Hu’s household’s access to natural, human and physical capitals. The access to knowledge and information he initially had regarding cash crop farming via bonding social capital was strengthened through his training in sericulture and enabled him to emphasize his linking social capital by enlarging his social network, while being introduced to more opportunities. This social capital was crucial in accessing more human, natural and physical capital and led him to considerably increase his financial capital. Figure 5.4 represents the access Mr. Hu’s household has gained to the five different types of capital. The orange line represents his household’s access when they were still cultivating maize and paddy rice, showing rather low access for all, except for medium initial access to social capital. The dark red line shows Mr. Hu’s situation in 2011, eight years after he made the switch to cash crops. Reclaiming undeveloped land was necessary in order to develop cash crops but natural capital is still limited; while his household’s relative access to the other four types of capital improved over the eight years.

Figure 5.4: Asset pentagon of Mr. Hu before and after 2003, when he switched to cash cropping34

5.4.2. Case Study 2: Mr. Ma’s Household, Yi: Tobacco Cultivation Mr. Ma is a Yi farmer living in Taqikou Village, located nine kilometres from Xibeile Township in Mengzi County and accessible by car via a winding mountainous road (06/07/2011). His household

34 My methodology to value a household’s asset base was adapted from an FAO report (FAO-Bishop- Sambrook 2005) to fit my research project’s realities on the ground. The five types of capital are valued using a scoring system from 1 to 5. Details of my methodology can be found in Appendix 5.1.

85 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 comprises six members: him and his wife and their two sons, one of whom is disabled and the other is married and has one child. Among the six household members, four provide their labour in the fields. For years, Mr. Ma cultivated maize as well as a small amount of rice as subsistence crops, but not enough to feed the family. He mentioned to me: “the rice doesn’t grow here, because there’s not enough water and elevation is high (2,049 meters)”. In 2005, with other farmers in the village, Mr. Ma started bartering maize for rice and vegetables with people coming from neighbouring Wenshan Prefecture and Guizhou Province for the low value and good quality of maize.35 Before this trade, they used to eat baogufan (包谷反), a mix of rice and maize cooked together. This trade has allowed them to eat white cooked rice and replace rice cultivation for more maize to feed livestock, or to sell. In 2007, Mr. Ma started state-sponsored tobacco cultivation on 5 mu (0.3 ha). Agricultural inputs were sold by the county level tobacco company, with fertilizers subsidized by the state at half the price of that sold in the market, hence easing access to financial and physical capital. From previous experience, Mr. Ma also uses organic fertilizers. In 2010, his income from tobacco reached RMB5,000 (USD790) for 5 mu. That same year, he extended the area for tobacco cultivation to 10 mu (0.6 ha). Switching to cash cropping has given his household wider and easier access to natural and physical capitals, extending their land to 19 mu. While being able to reinvest RMB3,000 in fertilizers for the 10 mu of tobacco, the majority of Mr. Ma’s income comes from selling adult pigs for RMB20,000, which he argued was exceptional for the village. Income from tobacco was proportionately minor compared to what he gained from livestock sales. In Figure 5.5, Mr. Ma’s household’s access to the five capitals when they use to only cultivate maize and rice shows rather low access to all five, except for medium initial access to social capital. Indeed, bridging social capital allowed his household to engage in bartering maize for rice and vegetables. Only three years after he made the switch to cash crops, Mr. Ma’s access to assets improved. Opting for trading maize instead of cultivating rice allowed him to focus on maize for raising livestock as a livelihood option, granting more access to financial capital used, in turn, to invest in more physical capital (such as food from Xibeile market, house renovation, a motorcycle and the purchase of agricultural inputs). This shows that switching to cash crops – in this case tobacco – is not necessarily providing greater access to capital immediately and can take more than three years to show benefits. Had Mr. Ma’s household not had access to rearing livestock as a livelihood option, they would have only made a net profit of RMB2,000 (RMB5000-3000) in 2010 and an estimated 8,000 RMB net potential profit with 10 mu of tobacco the following year.

Figure 5.5: Asset pentagon of Mr. Ma before and after 2007, when he switched to cash cropping

35 One kilogram of maize is given in exchange for one kilogram of vegetables; two kilograms of maize are traded for one kilogram of rice.

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5.4.3. Case Study 3: Mr. He’s household, Yao: Bananas and Other Non State-sponsored cash crops Mr. He is a Yao farmer living in Wujia village located 7 kilometres north of Yaoshan Township in Hekou County (14/07/2011). He lives with his wife and 16 year-old son. He also has two married daughters who have moved to their husbands’ villages. Mr. He is the Chief36 of Wujia village’s 45 households. With 1.5 mu (0.1 ha) of arable land on his land certificate, he uses 1 mu to grow maize to feed pigs and the rest for subsistence paddy rice on terrace fields. He manually ploughs these rice fields, and mentioned to me: “People with more land have better life conditions”. In the 1990s, Mr. He claimed undeveloped land where he planted 1,000 state-supported banana plants. He recently planted non state-sponsored cash crops including anise and pineapples as well as pomelo trees, but these have not been harvested yet. Mr. He invests RMB10,000 in fertilizers and pesticides per year to ensure his banana plants grow free from plant diseases. However, his income from bananas only reaches RMB10,000 when drought conditions are severe, resulting in just breaking even with no profit. Other sources of income include money from selling medicinal herbs collected by his wife and himself in the forest and sold in Yaoshan market where they go by motorcycle. In the following asset pentagon (Figure 5.6), the orange line represents Mr. He’s household’s access to the five types of capital when his only livelihood option was to cultivate paddy rice and maize for livestock. It is characterized by a fairly low access to natural and financial capital. When Mr. He’s household switched to banana plants cultivation in the late 1990s, he accessed undeveloped land, which allowed him to increase their sources of income (dark red line in the figure). The remoteness of Wujia village makes access to social capital difficult and despite being the village Chief, bridging or linking social capital is still limited, as reflected in the cash crops Mr. He decided to grow (none of which are state-sponsored). Although increased access to natural capital enabled Mr. He’s household to gain slightly more financial assets, it still is not sufficient to gain higher access to social or physical capital. Mr. He hopes to gain more income from other cash crops, namely anise, pomelos and pineapples once these are ready for harvest.

Figure 5.6: Asset pentagon of Mr. He before and after 1999, when he switched to cash cropping

5.4.4. Case Study 4: Mr. Jiang’s household, Hmong: Bananas and Other Non State- sponsored cash crops Mr. Jiang is a Hmong farmer living in Mayanhe village, 45 minutes away by car from Nanxi Town in Hekou County (21/07/2011). Mr. Jiang lives with his wife and her mother; they have three kids who are all in Nanxi’s boarding school. Among the six members, only three work in the fields. In 2002, Mayanhe villagers moved from their former village located high in the mountains to the present location right beside the river for two main reasons. First, in their former village location,

36 Village chiefs (cunzhang 村长) are appointed by and report to the local township government.

87 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 electricity was not available and second, by settling near the river and the road leading to Nanxi Town, farmers knew they would have better access to markets and be able to sell more bananas. The local government of Nanxi subsidized building materials to build new houses, such as tiles, bricks and stones. Mr. Jiang noted: “Moving down here made our lives easier”. Before 1995, his household used to cultivate maize and paddy rice as subsistence food crops, and pineapples in small quantities. At that time, they also used to plant cedar trees and harvest medicinal herbs from the mountain. In 1995, he started cultivating state-sponsored bananas and has 6,000 plants today. Today, Mr. Jiang no longer cultivates rice or pineapples, but grows non state-sponsored pomelo and cinnamon trees in addition to state-supported banana plants. His access to information about new crops has increased since the Mayanhe community moved from the highlands to the lowlands, hence increasing his bridging social capital as he has extended his social network to other lowland villages close to Mayanhe (see Figure 5.7). In 2010, Mr. Jiang took a microcredit loan of RMB20,000 that he was able to pay back the following year thanks to income from selling bananas; a significant feat. In terms of accessing human assets, Mr. Jiang has acquired new skills in terms of appropriate fertilizer and pesticide applications for banana plants, pomelo and cinnamon trees. Mr. Jiang’s overall access to capitals is likely to increase in the future when pomelo and cinnamon are also harvested.

Figure 5.7: Asset pentagon of Mr. Yu before and after 1995, when he switched to cash cropping

5.4.5. Case Studies Conclusion These four case studies reflect the variety of access that farmers deciding to take up cash cropping have to a range of capital types; these results can be nuanced in terms of ethnicity, location and timing. At the household level, ethnicity appears to be correlated to remoteness and thus access to resources. In these four field sites, farmers who live in the most remote and mountainous locations belong to Yi, Hmong and Yao minority nationalities, while those living close to the county city belong to the Han majority or are Zhuang lowlanders.37 The Han household located in Lengquan (Case study 1) has had balanced access to the five types of capital since he switched to cash crops; whereas the other three households, (Yi, Yao and Hmong minorities) who all live in more remote areas, have had more irregular access to a range of capitals since they switched to cash crops. At the township level, it seems that the closer farmers are to the township village, the more diversified their livelihoods as this proximity also

37 Differences between lowland Zhuang and other highland minorities are discussed in Chapter 3, Section 3.4.

88 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 facilitates access to subsidies, loans and microcredit. Indeed, Lengquan and Nanxi townships have a greater proportion of farmers engaged in a mix of food crops, state-sponsored and non- state-sponsored cash crops than in Xibeile and Yaoshan. This can be explained by the fact that access to state-sponsored cash-cropping in Lengquan and Nanxi was available as early as the mid-1990s while farmers from Xibeile and Yaoshan only partly converted to cash crop cultivation in the late 1990s and in some cases, as recently as 2007. This early switch allowed farmers in Lengquan and Nanxi to gain access to more skills and to share their experiences among farmers, hence leading to a greater livelihood diversification today. In the more remote townships of Xibeile and Yaoshan, switching to cash crops did not immediately bring more profit. Indeed, other livelihood options, in the case of Mr. Ma, rearing livestock to sell, and collecting and selling medicinal herbs for Mr. He helped support their livelihoods and new cash crop development, which reveals longer-term decisions to keep diverse livelihood options and these farmers’ awareness of the potential failure of state- sponsored cash crop. I argue that the earlier farmers were introduced to cash crops, the more diversified their livelihoods are today.

5.5. CHAPTER CONCLUSIONS This chapter shows that farmers in these four townships of Honghe Prefecture who turned to cash crop production have substantially altered local agrarian patterns as well as their household’s livelihood portfolios and livelihood strategies. In this chapter, I drew upon concepts from sustainable livelihoods and food security to address my first research objective, namely, to examine the importance of cash crops and related subsidies in Honghe Prefecture and their impacts on Han and minority nationality livelihoods, as rural populations in Yunnan Province experience an agrarian transition. First, I find that incentives from the government for cash cropping are mostly financial ones and have helped farmers to access a range of financial (loans and subsidies), social (technical advisor links and local know-how), and human capitals (agricultural skills, schooling for children). At the same time however, the picture has not been rosy for all farmers who have made this switch. Indeed, cash cropping necessitates greater cash inputs, leading to increasing debt levels for some, while the negative environmental consequences of these new crops have already begun to be felt, and will likely worsen in the future. Second, I argue that it is clear from these results that in these rural areas the five types of capital are closely interdependent. In the four case studies, good initial access to social and/or financial capitals were important assets for the development of cash crops, while human capital was also seen as a positive factor when switching to cash crops, both in terms of skills

89 State Incentives for Agrarian Change and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 5 and labour force. Sericulture and watermelon for instance, are both complex labour intensive agricultural activities for which access to human and physical capital is conditional on farming households’ access to financial and/or social capital. In terms of ensuring food availability and stable economic and physical access to food, switching to cash crops seems to have improved access to affordable food although often unstable due to market fluctuations and other shocks and trends. Finally, while most farmers who have adequate access to the five types of capitals decide to develop cash crops, others decide to develop them partially to resist the government’s involvement in their livelihoods. In one instance, farmers took advantage of the subsidy without actually taking care of their mulberry trees once planted, so as to keep the money and avoid the labour intensive sericulture. A handful of farmers also mentioned that some state-sponsored cash crops were not worth investing in (watermelon in Nanxi) and criticized their supposedly low profit rate (farmers, Nanxi, July 2011). Along with farmers’ resistance and critiques of the state’s involvement in farmers’ livelihoods, local officials have started to realise that this cash crop development could also be a cause of local environmental degradation (govt, Nanxi, July 2011). However, through this acknowledgement, they only reiterated the dilemma between local enrichment and environmental conservation without taking any action as yet. In sum, the switch to cash crops may be seen as a new opportunity for those farmers with comparatively strong initial asset portfolios to increase their financial capital and ensure sustainable and food secure livelihoods. However, other more remote, minority nationality farmers who initially have weaker access to a range of capitals experience greater risks which hinder their modest livelihoods and environment, already vulnerable to external shocks.

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CHAPTER 6 – CLIMATE DATA ANALYSIS AND IMPACTS ON LIVELIHOODS

In this chapter I address my second research objective on the occurrence of climatic events during the past 40 years in Honghe, namely: to assess how extreme weather events affect these farmers’ livelihoods. This research objective has three sub-objectives. A) To analyse how climate has changed over the past 40 years in Mengzi County according to climate data, specifically regarding increased frequency of extreme weather events and variability. In order to address this sub-objective, I present an analysis of precipitation and temperature data for Mengzi County in Section 6.1.1.38 B) To evaluate how empirical data from the field and other sources corroborate climate data. This second sub-objective leads me to triangulate climate data results with four different sources to enhance the validity and rigour of analysis in Section 6.1.2. (Denzin 2009, Berg 2001). This analysis reveals the increased variability and severity of extreme weather events in Honghe over the past 15 years. C) To examine the impacts of drought, floods and frost on Han and ethnic minority livelihoods and on the environment in rural Honghe Prefecture.39 To deal with this final sub-objective, I analyse the direct and subsequent impacts of droughts, cold spells and floods on farmers’ livelihoods in Section 6.2. I find that the impacts differ for each type of event and that they are influenced by location and crop type. It is worth noting that peer-reviewed articles have been published on climate change in Yunnan province from a quantitative perspective (Zongxing et al. 2012, Fan et al. 2010), but it is only since 2009 that climate change impacts on farmers’ livelihoods and their crops have been investigated (Su et al. 2012, Zongxing et al. 2012, Fan et al. 2010, Zhongyan 2009). I find that this reflects the recent rising concern on climate extremes and their impacts on farmers’ livelihoods in Yunnan and the resulting importance of investigating it further.

6.1. THE IMPORTANCE OF EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS IN MENGZI

6.1.1. Precipitation and Temperature Extremes in Mengzi County Since 1973: Yearly and Monthly Resolution Climate Data Analyses In this section I interpret the climate data over the last 40 years in Mengzi at yearly and monthly resolutions to meet sub-objective A). First, a quantitative analysis of annual total precipitation trends since 1973 shows a slight decreasing trend at the yearly resolution over the

38 Climate data for Hekou County was only available until 1993. As this research focuses on more recent events, the climate data analysis was conducted for Mengzi only and could not be interpolated to Hekou as the mountainous relief of the region may omit local variations and microclimates. 39 Please refer to Chapter 1 for the definitions of these three types of extreme weather events.

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1973-2011 period with an approximate reduction of seven millimetres per year (Figure 6.1).40 Worthy of attention are the years 2003, 2004, 2009 and 2010 that show rather low precipitation. Only the years 2009 and 2010 coincide with accounts from farmers on the ground reporting that these two years saw persistent drought.

Figure 6.1: Annual total precipitation over the 1973-2011 period (raw data compiled from GSOD, 2012). Note: The year 1999 had insufficient precipitation data to be included here. Second, annual average temperature data trends from 1973 (Figure 6.2) show a notable approximate one Celsius degree increase since the year 2000 when comparing the yearly average deviations from the long-term average temperature. It is worth noting that over the whole period, the two hottest years are 2009 and 2010, two years that saw heavy drought according to farmers. This one degree Celsius increase could also be the result of rapid urbanisation of Mengzi City, however this could not be verified, as the exact location of the weather station and surrounding environment cannot be depicted by satellite imagery.

Figure 6.2: Yearly average deviation from long-term average temperature in Mengzi City over the 1973-2011 period (raw data compiled from GSOD, 2011) Moving from the yearly to monthly resolution allows my analysis to focus on the months and seasons that contribute to the overall decreasing rainfall and rising temperature

40 Years presenting gaps in the data are: from 1964 to 1973, 1999. See Chapter 4 for Methodology

92 Climate Data Analysis and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 6 trends.41 The aim of this variability analysis is to detect months during which changes are occurring and determine whether these months coincide with the crop-growing season, for instance by prolonging the dry season. As highlighted in Chapter 4, the monthly variability analysis was conducted by examining two variables.42 First, by examining the number of anomalously dry and wet months per decade over the 1973-2011 period, there is a clear overall reduction in anomalous wet months from the first to the last decade recorded (Figure 6.3). 43 As for anomalous dry months, there is a notable increase in the last decade, 2003 to 2011, when compared to the decade from 1973 to 1982. These two trends corroborate the long-term annual trend that precipitation has decreased over the 1973-2011 period.

41 Seasons are interchangeably referred to as dry and wet seasons and winter and summer seasons according to the crop-growing season. Dry or winter season starts from November to March and wet or summer season from April to October, the latter being the crop-growing season (cf. Chapter 3 on the region’s climate). 42 First, the number of times over the 40-year period each month of the year records anomalous precipitation and temperature (see Figures 6.3 and 6.4 below), where an anomalous dry month is defined as a month with total precipitation equal to or more than 25 per cent below the long-term average; and an anomalous wet month is defined as a month with total precipitation equal to or greater than 25 per cent above the long-term average. See Chapter 4 – Methodology. The second analysis focuses on the monthly long-term average and its standard deviation (Figure 6.5). 43 First decade from 1973-1982 is presented in the blue line, while the last decade from 2003 to 2011 is presented in the purple line on the graph (Figure 6.4).

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Figure 6.3: Anomalous wet and dry months per decade over 1973-2011 in Mengzi County (raw data compiled from GSOD, 2012) These two overall trends can also be observed at the seasonal scale. Both the dry and the wet seasons have seen less anomalous wet months and more anomalous dry months from 2003 to 2011 when compared to the 1973-1982 decade. As anomalous dry months are of main concern in the Mengzi area, I focus my analysis on how these correspond to important months for farmers’ crop cultivation (Table 6.1 below). From 2003 to 2011 (purple line in Figure 6.3), there has been an increase in the occurrence of anomalous dry months during the dry season, but also in the middle of the wet season. While the former shows an increase in the severity of the dry season, the latter reveals higher rainfall variability during the months of June and July that are supposedly very wet months in the middle of the crop-growing season; these anomalous precipitation and temperature trends per season may bring about more vulnerable livelihoods. As for anomalous temperature over the 1973-2011 period, the overall annual increase is confirmed here with an increase in anomalously warm months and a decrease in anomalously cold months in the last decade (purple line in Figure 6.4). This increase is mostly found during

94 Climate Data Analysis and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 6 winter months. Winters in the last decade have tended to show more anomalous warm months than the opposite compared to previous decades.

Figure 6.4: Anomalous, warm and cold months over 1973-2011 in Mengzi County (raw data compiled from GSOD, 2012) From the raw data, anomalous warm months are seen during Winter 2010, which could have worsened heavy drought conditions. As for anomalous cold months, they appear in the raw data in Winter 2011, which could have enhanced cold spell conditions (see Section 6.1.2). Summer temperatures do not show anomalies – apart from the month of May in the 2003-2011 period – revealing that temperature during summer months stays around the monthly long-term averages. As a second way to examine monthly variability, I compare the monthly standard deviations. As seen on the left graph of Figure 6.5, rainfall monthly standard deviations show rather large intervals, with the months of May, July and November standing out.

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Figure 6.5: Monthly long-term average precipitation and temperature and their respective standard deviations (+/-) over the 1973-2011 in Mengzi County (raw data compiled from GSOD, 2012) The right side of Figure 6.5 shows temperature monthly average and standard deviation. Unlike precipitation, intervals are fairly small for most months, which shows that monthly average temperatures over the 1973-2011 have followed the long-term average. Nonetheless, higher standard deviations are found during some of the winter months – from December to March – and in May. This suggests that temperatures are more variable in the winter months, thus probably exposing farmers’ livelihoods to potential cold spells, increasing their vulnerability to livestock deaths or withered crops. It is worth noting that the month of May, which is the first month of the crop-growing season, shows high variation in both precipitation and temperature, which could have important crop impacts as seedlings like rice are usually transplanted in April and May (Pandey, Bhandari and Hardy 2007b). Table 6.1 presents the results and compares the two monthly variability analyses highlighted above. From these monthly resolution analyses, the dry season stands out as being more susceptible to variation both in terms of temperature and precipitation, while the beginning and end of the growing season also respectively show temperature and precipitation variations. These results reveal an increased occurrence of anomalous precipitation and temperature and a fairly high variability at the time of the year when farmers need appropriate conditions to both transplant and harvest their crops. This increases vulnerability for their livelihoods as their crops may be exposed to such variability.

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Table 6.1: Distribution of monthly anomalous occurrences and variable months over the 40-year period, from 1973 to 2011 in Mengzi County (author, 2012)

While these two monthly analyses show an overall increased variation of precipitation and temperature at the monthly level, these seasonal and monthly results may still hide subtleties as to whether or not these variations happen concurrently at finer time resolutions. Therefore the next analysis focussed on the daily time resolution by counting the days, per month and then per year, when precipitation and temperature fall above or below a certain criteria indicating extremes, that may reveal a drought, flood or cold spell event if happening over consecutive days (Chapter 4 – Section 4.2.2). The following section details the daily data analysis conducted according to specific events reported by farmers in Mengzi County.

6.1.2. Triangulating Sources: Farmers’ Accounts and Secondary Data I now turn to address my second sub-objective, namely: To evaluate how empirical data from the field and other sources corroborate climate data. As this research covers a 40-year period, conducting a daily data analysis over the entire period was not realistic. Furthermore, from qualitative fieldwork, it became clear that farmers were most concerned with extreme weather events that had occurred during the last five years, from 2007-2011. People’s memories do not appear to go back much further when it comes to extreme weather events, unless there are links to an important personal event. Hence, I chose to conduct a daily analysis from 2000 to 2011 for specific periods of the year noted by farmers as periods prone to extreme weather event. Unlike in the yearly and monthly analyses for which I only used climate data from GSOD, the quantitative daily data analysis is first inferred by farmers’ qualitative reports of extreme weather events and then triangulated with three secondary data sources. Examining the last ten years since 2000 not only allows me to take into account the recent increase in temperature and the slight decrease of precipitation since 2000, highlighted in Section 6.1.1; but it also allows me to include enough potential ‘normal’ years to compare with the farmer reported extreme years. I use triangulation of sources to enhance the validity of this climate data analysis and to corroborate (or not) my findings from both the quantitative and qualitative data. This triangulation allows me to demonstrate how consistent the climate data is to what

97 Climate Data Analysis and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 6 happens on the ground and how significant these extreme weather events have been for farmers in the last few years since 2011.

6.1.2.1. Prolonged Drought in 2009-2010 Starting with qualitative interpretations, when asked whether extreme weather events had increased in frequency over recent years in Mengzi’s rural areas, farmers and government officials in mountainous Xibeile Township, located at 2,000 meters above sea level, explained that their area had long been prone to water shortages, but that the drought impacts in 2010 had been worse than in the past. A government official from Xibeile explained: “Xibeile Township has always been a place suffering from water shortages, so each year there is a drought, but the one in 2010 was one of the most severe” (Mr. Fei, 23/06/2011). Farmers in Lengquan Township also highlighted the fact that the 2010 drought had been the worst in the last 10 years at least, adding that. in terms of magnitude, this drought was particularly persistent because of its long duration. As Mr. Hu noted: “we only had rain at the end of May-early June” (Han farmer, Lengquan, 30/06/2011). While Xibeile Township was not specifically mentioned in newspaper reports at that time, Lengquan Township and Mengzi were reported as being hit by a severe drought lingering since September 2009 and triggering serious water shortages (Zheng 2010, InKunming.com 2010, Haining 2010, Porter 2010). Other local newspapers declared 2009-2010 the driest spring and summer seasons in 100 years in Yunnan province, and reporting that the Yunnan Meteorological Bureau had issued a “Red” warning for drought44 (Yin 2010, InKunming.com 2010, CCTV 2010, China Meteorological Bureau 2010b). Furthermore, Nature as well as the Beijing Review reported that the Yunnan 2010 drought was one of the worst in many years. Interestingly, the former pointed out deforestation and poor water management as the main factors worsening and prolonging heavy drought conditions, while the latter mentioned the lack of maintenance of Yunnan’s water infrastructure (Qiu 2010, Yin 2010, Liu 2010, Lan 2010a). As the climate data analysis at the daily resolution is inferred by farmers’ reports on extreme weather events, to quantitatively evaluate how prolonged and severe the 2009-2010 drought was compared to the normal dry season, I examine the daily precipitation and temperature during the months of April, May and June from 2000 to 2011. I do so because according to farmers, the drought lasted from October 2009 to June 2010 and extended the usual dry season of three months. As mentioned above, interviewed farmers were concerned with the early start of the dry season and seemed to be alarmed by the unusual prolongation of

44 The “Red” warning for drought is defined by the China Meteorological Bureau as an extended period of extreme drought with an occurrence of one in more than 50 years, and when a whole district sees more than 60 per cent of its crops impacted. “Red” is the highest warning level after “Yellow” and “Orange”.

98 Climate Data Analysis and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 6 the drought until June as they had been impatiently waiting for rain since April. Because the months from April to June mark the beginning of the growing season, this period is a crucial period for farmers’ livelihoods. As underlined in Chapter 4, this climate data analysis was divided in three stages, resulting in three levels of results and graphs. First, examining the past ten years of daily data from Mengzi weather station through three drought indicators shows an increase in the average number of coincided rainless and hot days over April, May and June in 2010 compared to the previous four years (see green line on Figure 6.6). Although, the number of rainless days over these three months in 2010 does not show signs of extreme drought when compared to the same three months in 2009, the year 2010 may still be significant if there are consecutive rainless days over the usually scheduled planting season. Finally, the average number of days with temperature recorded above one standard deviation reached its peak for these three months in 2010, which can put additional strains if these hot days coincide with rainless days (Pandey et al. 2007a, Nebraska Lincoln University 2006).

Figure 6.6: Days per year recording drought conditions over April, May and June from 2000 to 2011 in Mengzi County (raw data compiled from GSOD, 2012) Second, to understand which of the three months has contributed most to the 2009-2010 prolonged drought compared to the last 10 years, I examine only one of the criteria above, namely the number of rainless days in April, May and June per year from 2000 to 2011 (Figure 6.7). This figure reveals clearly that rainless days in May have increased over the 10-year period (see red column and trend line), which confirms the year after year extension of the dry season and explains the increasing severity of the drought impacts stated by farmers at the start of the crop-growing season.

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Figure 6.7: Average number of days per year recording drought conditions over April, May and June from 2000 to 2011 in Mengzi County (raw data compiled from GSOD, 2012) Third and finally, I focus on the daily precipitation and temperature raw data of these same three months but for the year 2010 only in Table 6.2, to observe if the rainless and hot days coincide and if they are consecutive. As mentioned above, farmers may experience more severe drought conditions when rainless and hot days coincide (Nebraska Lincoln University 2006). Early April 2010 shows many gaps in the precipitation data – that may also be interpreted as ‘0’ mm – during which the temperature is higher than normal while towards the end of April rather low precipitation prevails (Table 6.2). In May 2010, there are 14 days when temperatures rise above one standard deviation that are divided in two periods of five and nine consecutive days; these two hot periods coincide with rainless days almost perfectly. The month of June 2010 shows similar results as the month of May 2010 but with even more consecutive rainless days over three 3-day periods in the month. These results thus corroborate farmers’ accounts of a continuation of the severe drought conditions in May and June 2010, which delayed them in planting their seedlings in time for the growing season. Table 6.2: Rainless days and hot days highlighted for the months of April, May and June in the year 2010 in Mengzi (raw data compiled from GSOD).45

45 Table 6.2 shows rainless days in brown and hot days in red; blank cells mean that there was no report made that day but can also mean that there was no precipitation.

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The quantitative data published by the local governments of Honghe and Mengzi, reported the 2009-2010 drought as affecting 28 per cent of Honghe’s population, and causing crop failure over 18,600 ha and RMB235 million (USD37 million) of direct economic loss within Mengzi County (Honghe Prefecture Government 2010). On the other hand, at the macro scale, the global disaster database did not report the 2009-2010 Yunnan wide drought, which is probably because they consider the severity in terms of number of human deaths as opposed to material livelihood impacts (EM-DAT 2010). In sum, farmers, the local media and the local government frequently reported the severity and the extension of the 2009-2010 drought. The climate daily data analysis also indicated a prolonged drought in 2010 compared to previous years with consecutive and coincided rainless and hot days in the months of May and June especially.

6.1.2.2. Cold Spell Of Winter 2010-2011 From qualitative interviews, farmers and local government officials living in rural areas of Mengzi have started to feel the impacts of a new type of extreme weather events in recent years, namely low temperature (diwen 低温) and cold spells (hanchao 寒潮) during winter months from October to March. Farmers in Mengzi reported very low temperatures during winter 2010-2011. For instance, in June 2011, a Han farmer from Lengquan Township explained:

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“This year, we had very low temperature and lost one batch of silkworms cocoons. Mulberry trees were also affected by the cold“ (Mr. Hu, 30/06/2011). In addition to drought, farmers in Lengquan Township reported they also suffer the consequences of cold spells due to the high altitude they live at, but that 2011 was very serious compared to the previous years (Mr. Mu, 04/07/2011). In Xibeile Township, a Han farmer and government official reported that in March 2011 the low temperature affected half of the garden peas he planted before Chinese New Year and reduced harvest initially due in late spring (Mr. Bing, 07/07/2011). A cold spell was reported in the local newspapers for seven districts of Honghe Prefecture where the temperature fell by an average of six to eight degrees Celsius within 24 hours on March 14th 2011 (China Weather 2011). The same newspaper reported that the provincial meteorological bureau had issued a “Blue” cold spell early warning, corresponding to temperature dropping by eight degrees Celsius or more down to four degrees Celsius or less over 48 hours paired with fresh breeze and affecting two or more regions simultaneously (ibid., China Meteorological Bureau 2010a).46 The climate data analysis at the daily resolution is inferred by farmers’ reports on extreme weather events. To quantitatively evaluate how the temperature dropped below average during winter 2010-2011 and how it compared to previous winter seasons I examine the daily temperature from October to March since 2000 to 2011. This daily data analysis is divided in three steps. First, the average number of cold days in the past ten years indicates a moderate increase in the number of cold days in the winter 2010-2011 compared to the past 10 winter seasons (see Figure 6.8). To further confirm this increase in cold days, the winter with the highest number of very cold days (two standard deviations below the average) was experienced during the Winter 2010-2011.

46 According to China Meteorological Bureau (2010), a cold spell is declared when temperatures drop by 8°C or more within 48 hours and fall below 4°C and when the wind speed reaches level 5. Out of the four different levels, “Blue” cold spell warning corresponds to the least level of severity of cold spells in China; as the level of severity increases, the colour code is changed to “Yellow”, “Orange” and finally “Red” as the most severe.

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Figure 6.8: Days recording cold temperature by winter season from 2000 to 2011 in Mengzi County (*Winter season is from October to March included) (raw data compiled from GSOD, 2012). Second, in order to understand which month in winter contributes the most to cold spell conditions, Figure 6.9 shows the number of days per month with temperature one standard deviation below the average from October to March. This also depicts the months that are highly variable across the ten-year period. According to Figure 6.9, the months of January and March show increased numbers of extreme temperature over the past 10 years. On the other hand, the number of cold days has decreased in December, which confirms a high variability from one month to the next during winter, and may increase crops’ vulnerability to climate.

Figure 6.9: Days with one standard deviation below the average temperature during winter in Mengzi County (2000-2011) (raw data compiled from GSOD, 2012) Third and finally, I focus on the raw daily data from each month of Winter 2010-2011 in Table 6.3 to observe how the low temperatures correspond to what is defined as a cold spell in China. In Table 6.3, January 2011 and March 2011 both show two potential cold spells, with

103 Climate Data Analysis and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 6 temperatures dropping by eight degrees Celsius over 48 hours and stabilizing around four degrees Celsius for three to five days. The month of March – reported in the local news – shows the most severe with a 10.8°C drop from March 14th to 15th (Table 6.3). These results confirm news reports as well as some of the cold spell periods reported by farmers in Mengzi County. It is worth noting that both Lengquan (1,600 m) and Xibeile (2,000 m) are located at a higher elevation than Mengzi County’s weather station (1,300 m), hence the higher probability of these to be subject to greater impacts from cold spell than the weather station’s surroundings. Table 6.3: Days with temperature falling one and two standard deviations below the average. Winter 2010-2011 in Mengzi (raw data compiled from GSOD, 2012) (colour coding: blue: 1 standard deviation; blue and bold: 2 standard deviations below the average)

In 2012, Mengzi City’s Meteorological Bureau released a report on climate impacts in 2011, including a cold spell over Mengzi County in March 2011, and specifically mentioning Xibeile Township as one of the most impacted area (Mengzi 2012, Mengzi 2011). The report indicates that Xibeile reached its lowest temperature (1.1°C below zero) during three days happening twice within two weeks and saw six to ten centimetres snowfall on March 17th 2011 (Mengzi 2012, Mengzi 2011). From the EM-DAT disaster database, the reported cold spell covered the neighbouring provinces of Sichuan and Guangxi that were affected by icy rains forcing the evacuation of 58,000 people in January (EM-DAT 2010). It is possible to assume that this event could have also extended to some part of Honghe, close to Guangxi border in east Yunnan.

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The results of this triangulation reveal the relevance of each set of climate data and show that while quantitative climate data do cover some parts of the story happening on the ground, it is only at the daily resolution. This further supports the need to perform detailed analysis of climate data at daily time resolutions to verify indications given at the yearly and indications given at the yearly and monthly levels, as well as information from affected people and other secondary data in order to understand the magnitude and severity of extreme weather events on farmers’ livelihoods.

6.1.3. Conclusion on the Importance of Extreme Weather Events in Mengzi Since 1973 Berkes’ (2007) observation of Inuit communities’ point of view about climate change perception at the local level corroborates my findings that one cannot rely on long-term annual average to understand climate impacts on local populations. Indeed, this climate data analysis of Mengzi at the yearly resolution suggests an overall increase in temperature and decrease in rainfall over the 40-year period from 1973 to 2011, but does not necessarily reveal that the local climate has become more variable since 1970. The results at the monthly resolution show an overall increase in monthly precipitation and temperature variability, concentrated over the dry season and over the months of May and June, a crucial period in the crop calendar (Table 6.1). The monthly analysis thus gets closer to the daily analysis results but still omits nuances. These are captured by the daily analysis and are mainly temporal nuances within months, such as less predictable consecutive days of both extreme precipitation and temperature, that reveal extreme events such as the prolonged drought of 2009-2010 as well as the cold spell of 2010-2011. In conducting this multiple resolutions’ analysis, I agree with Berkes’ (2007: 290) statement, that “[…] no single level is the ‘‘correct’’ one for analysis. Climate change cannot be understood at the global level alone, just as it cannot be understood at the local level alone.” The fact that the extremes embedded in the daily data analysis were discussed by farmers, shows that empirical and secondary data corroborate the results from the climate data analysis, and confirms that triangulation of multiple data sources succeeds in enhancing validity in climate variability analysis and reinforces Berkes’ statement.

6.2. IMPACTS OF EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS ON HAN AND MINORITY NATIONALITY LIVELIHOODS IN HONGHE PREFECTURE I now turn to the last sub-objective namely, to examine the impacts of drought, floods and frost on Han and ethnic minority livelihoods and on the environment in rural Honghe Prefecture. To do so, I analyse the impacts of different extreme weather events identified by farmers in

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Honghe Prefecture – namely drought, cold spell and flood – on their livelihoods.47 I find that these events not only hinder farmers’ access to the five types of capitals that partly compose a sustainable livelihood, but also oftentimes affect food availability and trigger unstable economic and physical access to food – three dimensions of food security. These findings reveal the degree to which farmers have become vulnerable to climate variability in recent years.

6.2.1. Drought Impacts As mentioned in Section 6.1, variability in precipitation levels has increased since 1973. According to farmers interviewed, the abnormal lack of precipitation in 2009 and 2010 affected their livelihoods more severely than in the past. As Mr. Xie, a Yao farmer noted: “In the past, before 2010, there was some extreme temperature and drought, but impacts were not so serious” (Yaoshan, 14/07/2011). The direct impacts of a drought are caused by water shortages (see Figure 6.10). Water shortages affect farmers via three aspects, namely, farming, livestock rearing and household daily activities, all of which are of prime importance to farming livelihoods. Subsequent impacts affect farmers’ overall livelihoods. These direct and subsequent impacts from drought are detailed below.

Figure 6.10: Direct and subsequent impacts from drought in Honghe Prefecture (author, 2011) Of the three livelihood aspects directly affected by drought, the most important is the impact of water shortages and soil moisture deficits on farmers’ land. Water shortages directly impact households’ access to natural capital. In rural Honghe Prefecture, crops are mostly rain fed; farmers rely on precipitation to grow crops and seldom manually irrigate them. Water

47 Although, I focus my research on the impacts of climate variability, it is essential to also acknowledge that farmers’ livelihoods may also be affected by other external trends and shocks that play a role in their access to resources, such as population pressures, individual household access to land over generations, number of male and female children.

106 Climate Data Analysis and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 6 shortages combined with higher temperatures during the dry season increase the deficit of soil moisture and inhibit crop growth, hence considerably reducing crop yield. As mentioned in Section 6.1, the drought was prolonged to the month of June in some areas of Mengzi. This lack of rain delayed the start of the growing season, with crops then harvested later than usual. It is possible to consider the impacts of soil moisture deficit on farming as either a) direct, resulting in reduced crop yield and withered crops; or b) more broadly, resulting in economic loss, food price increases and food insecurity as subsequent impacts (see Figure 6.10). First, a lack of rainfall as well as anomalous temperature lasting for seven consecutive months during the 2009-2010 drought, resulted in reduced crop yields and withered crops. Indeed, crops planted between August and April, including maize, rice, lily flower, soybean, tobacco in Mengzi and banana plants in Hekou, grow during the dry season, and are hence affected by prolonged and severe droughts during that period. In Lengquan Township, a Hmong farmer reported, “during the 2010 drought, all maize and upland dry rice crops died” (Mr. Luo, 04/07/2011). Not being able to harvest their food crops triggers subsequent impacts, such as low food availability. Farmers’ ability to stay food secure until the following harvest season is therefore a challenge as discussed in Chapter 7. Second, while a reduction in food crop yields for own consumption poses direct threats to a household’s food availability, reduced cash crop yields considerably reduce a household’s financial capital, affecting cash income and resulting in overall unstable economic access to food. For example, Mr. Hu (met in the first case study - Section 5.6.1), who plants lily flowers from August to December and harvests them the following June, lost 70 per cent of his planned harvest because of the 2009-2010 drought (Lengquan, 30/06/2011). Instead of making about RMB20,000 (USD3100), his income was cut to RMB6,000 (USD950). Likewise, a Yi farmer in Xibeile Township, saw his soybean yield reduced by half due to the severe drought conditions, cutting his net income from soybean also by half from RMB6,000 (USD950) to RMB3,000 (USD475) (Mr. Pi, 07/07/2011). Income from tobacco crops was also reduced by several thousand RMB (RMB2,000-4,000 or USD315-630) for several farmers living in Xibeile Township (Ms. Cheng, Yi farmer, 07/07/2011). Planted in April, tobacco crops need to be irrigated in the first few weeks of growth, while leaves are harvested in June and July. In Nanxi Town, banana plants were affected by the drought as they are planted in October and harvested a year later. As Mr. Xiong, a Hmong farmer from Nanxi explained: “During the 2010 drought, irrigation water was insufficient so the output of bananas was reduced by half” (21/07/2011). In Yaoshan Township, Mr. Ding, a Yao farmer explained that rubber trees in his village were affected by drought during the years of growth preceding the first harvest, reducing the amount of rubber available to tap (13/07/2011). These subsequent

107 Climate Data Analysis and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 6 impacts affect a household’s overall livelihood: for subsistence farmers who need to buy food because their food crops have withered, food prices are inflated due to lower local supplies, increasing instability of access to food. Mr. Ma (met in Case study 2 in Section 5.6.2), a Yi farmer from Xibeile Township, explained “during the drought, the price of vegetables was higher than usual”. As for cash crop farmers, reduced crop yields or withered crops diminish financial capital, which in turn prevents farmers from buying food and increases their risk of becoming food insecure. In both cases, food is available mostly from markets as food crops have withered, what drives these farmers in food insecurity is the unstable economic access to food. As well as reduced crop yield, loss of income and risk of food insecurity, soil moisture deficit may also halt farmers’ activities when they have no access to water whatsoever. In Xibeile Township, three farmers explained that because of the drought, they could not cultivate their crops and had nothing to do, resulting in a waste of human capital (06/07/2011). In addition to soil moisture deficit, water shortages also raise concerns for livestock both in terms of water and feed (e.g. maize) needed for survival. One Yi farmer in Lengquan Township reported that the 2010 drought had little direct impacts on daily water needs at his home and on his crops, “however water usually dedicated to livestock was insufficient” (Mr. Mu, 04/07/2011). This increases the risk of losing livestock, a physical and a financial livelihood asset. Indeed, as farmers lack access to resources to sustain their livestock, the risk of livestock dying becomes higher, leading to further economic loss. Finally, drought conditions trigger water shortages in the home. Water reservoirs located outside houses and used to store water for daily uses, do not hold enough water for seven dry consecutive months. While farmers in Lengquan Township and Nanxi Town reported that they had enough water for daily use during the drought, farmers from Yaoshan Township explained that in some villages water stress was not only experienced on the land but also at home. Mr. He (met in Case study 3 in Section 5.6.3) a Yao farmer from Yaoshan explained that water was at times insufficient in their village thus affecting access to natural capital needed for their daily activities, such as cooking food. In sum, prolonged drought conditions, such as those experienced by farmers in 2009- 2010 in rural Honghe Prefecture, reduce access to natural, physical, financial and human capital but also destabilize access to food. Yi, Hmong, Yao, Han and Zhuang farmers in the four field sites were equally impacted by the 2009-2010 drought, confirming the wide extent of the drought. My interviews revealed that drought impacts are mostly experienced at the individual and household level, rather than at the community or village level. Indeed impacts from

108 Climate Data Analysis and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 6 drought are concentrated around farming, livestock rearing, as well as a household’s daily activities, all of which compose the core of farmers’ livelihoods.

6.2.2. Cold Spell Impacts As analysed from the climate data for Mengzi County in Section 6.1, the frequency of extremely low temperatures has increased over recent years during winter months especially. Accounts from farmers in both Mengzi and Hekou counties confirm that cold spells impact their livelihoods, reduce their access to resources thus affecting their food security. Within rural livelihoods, cold spells mainly affect farming activities. These impacts, detailed in Figure 6.11 are grouped as direct and subsequent impacts below.

Figure 6.11: Direct and subsequent impacts of a cold spell in Honghe Prefecture (author, 2011) As mentioned in Section 6.1, a new type of extreme weather event has emerged since 2008, which is characterized by low temperature and cold spells (farmers, Hekou County, July 2011; GSOD 2012). Direct impacts from a cold spell consist of lower or no harvest due to freezing crops. A Yi farmer Mr. Mu explained, “in addition to droughts, farmers also suffer from cold spells, mainly because of high altitude; half of the potatoes cultivated in the village withered last winter” (Lengquan, 04/07/2011). Another farmer in Lengquan, Mr Hu, reported that the cold spell from the past winter had killed one batch of silkworm he was raising (30/06/2011). Interestingly, government officials at the local level disagreed over the impacts of the cold spell on crops. One government official from Xibeile Township asserted that the cold temperatures do not impact crops, as these are not transplanted in winter (Mr. Fei, 06/07/2011). While this may be true, another government official from Xibeile mentioned that the cold spell still had impacts on fruit trees that grow all year long, such as plum and peach trees (Mr. Bing, 06/07/2011). These impacts ranged from reduced yield to withered crops at the highest

109 Climate Data Analysis and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 6 elevation. As noted above, farmers were very aware of direct impacts from the cold spell, as winter crops such as potatoes were affected, which the first official seems to have overlooked. In Yaoshan Township, a Yao farmer explained that in 2010, instead of normal winter weather patterns from November to February, cold weather lasted until April (Mr. Pang, 12/07/2011). This prolonged winter prevented some farmers from harvesting bananas in the summer as crops had withered in winter. Mr. Pang argued: “because banana plants are a tropical crop, they do not tolerate extreme cold, snow or frost; they just die” (ibid.). For others, the long winter deferred the harvesting season from the usual month of July to October, as banana plants had frozen and not grown tall enough in the usual period (farmers, Yaoshan, 12/07/2011). In Nanxi Town, impacts from cold temperature were also felt, even in the low elevation areas, such as in Maduoyi village (131 meters above sea level). A government official from Nanxi Town explained that in both 2008 and 2011, cold temperatures were responsible for reduced banana yields or harvest failure (Mr. Han, 20/07/2011). In 2011, the unusual cold temperature also hit rubber plantations, so much so that “most of the trees froze to death” (ibid.) (Figure 6.12). Mr. Tang, a Zhuang farmer from Nanxi reported that two to three year-old rubber trees were more affected by the cold than mature rubber trees (20/07/2011).

Figure 6.12: Dead rubber trees between Yaoshan and Nanxi (Source: Author, 2011) These impacts on crops from the 2010-2011 cold spell amplified impacts from drought from the previous year. Another Zhuang farmer added: “Last year the first half of the year was too dry and the second half was too cold” (Mr. Ying, Nanxi, 21/07/2011). These direct impacts on natural and physical capitals have subsequent impacts on financial and human capital. Mostly banana growers, Yaoshan and Nanxi farmers explained that subsequent impacts of a cold spell were economic losses and food insecurity. Indeed, they lost their main source of income in 2010 and 2011 due to the drought and cold spell. Mr. Pang from Yaoshan explained “areas above 600 meters elevation get more impacts from low temperature and drought whereas

110 Climate Data Analysis and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 6 areas below don’t as much” (ibid.). Mr. Song, another Yao farmer from Yaoshan, complained that he made no income in 2010 because of the drought and the cold spell and added that 2011 had seen another cold spell affecting their crops in the winter (14/07/2011). In Nanxi, Mr. Tang, a Zhuang farmer reported his total loss induced by the cold spell amounted to RMB300,000 (USD47,000) in one year because he spent money to plant 100 mu (6.6 ha) of banana plants that were then hit by the cold spell of winter 2010-2011 (20/07/2011). Primarily growing bananas, Nanxi and Yaoshan farmers are no longer subsistence farmers cultivating vegetables because “it is too hot here for vegetables to grow”, as noted by a Hmong farmer from Nanxi (Mr. Xiong, 21/07/2011). Therefore, when these farmers see their cash crops destroyed, their main source of income is considerably reduced, causing strains on their households’ economic access to food, thus on their food security. In short, like drought events, periods marked by low temperature affect farmers’ livelihoods, especially at the household level. Indeed, a cold spell reduces crop yield or freezes crops completely, reducing natural, physical, financial and human capital of one’s livelihood resulting in unstable economic and physical access to food. While cold spells equally impacted Yi, Hmong, Yao, Han and Zhuang farmers, location seemed to be an important factor. Located at a higher elevation, one would think that farmers in Mengzi County would bear more impacts from cold than those living in the lower elevated county of Hekou, however it seemed to be the opposite – although it might also be that farmers from Mengzi focused on discussing impacts from the worst event; drought in their case. The fact that Hekou County was more affected by the cold spell may therefore reveal that banana plants, largely cultivated in the area, may no longer be suitable for the supposedly tropical climate of the area.

6.2.3. Floods Impacts In Hekou County, located along the Red River, farmers reported severe impacts from floods in the past ten years, with negative impacts on their livelihoods. Within Honghe Prefecture, farming location plays a role in the magnitude of impacts of different types of climatic events. Hekou County is located so close to the South East Asian zone that it benefits from a tropical monsoon climate as compared to Mengzi County, but this has recently resulted in heavy flooding (See Chapter 3, Section 3.3.3). While floods directly affect two fundamental aspects of farmer livelihood, namely their farming activities and their household daily life and infrastructure, subsequent impacts relate to economic loss, detailed below (see Figure 6.13).

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Figure 6.13: Direct and subsequent impacts from floods in Honghe Prefecture (author, 2011) As mentioned in Chapter 1, direct impacts of flooding events vary according to the type of land affected. Farmers interviewed made the distinction between a river flood (hongshui 洪

水) and a mountain torrent (shanhong 山洪) (see Figure 6.14). In fact, crops grown near rivers are as affected by flooding events as those located at the foot of a mountain or in a valley.

Figure 6.14: Flooded fields in Lengquan after a mild mountainous torrent (Source: Author, 2011) On the one hand, Mr. Shao, a Zhuang farmer living in Nanxi Town explained: “In July 2011, the Maduoyi River rose and flooded our entire greenhouse. It affected the growth of watermelon, we lost about RMB6,000 (USD950)” (21/07/2011). Mr. Shao’s house and land are located close to the river; hence his household is vulnerable to river floods. He added that their land was the only area affected by this event, emphasising the potential risk of his location. On the other hand, in Hekou County’s mountainous areas, floods increased soil erosion triggering landslides and mud-rock flows. Fields, as well as houses and roads located in narrow valleys

112 Climate Data Analysis and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 6 are considered to be high-risk areas and may get buried under the water and/or mud. This was the case in Gehua Village, in Nanxi Town during the summer 2007 when “heavy rain triggered a landslide and a mud-rock flow. Farmland was buried under the landslide and the mud, and the houses stricken by cracks and fissures which are still visible today,” said Mr. Cao (Dai farmer, 20/07/2011). Living in the same village, Ms. Deng reported: “in 2007, the mountain torrent destroyed our land near the river and a fishpond” (Han farmer, 20/07/2011). Floods like these reduce farmers’ access to natural capital as their land is out of use, but also decrease access to physical capital like roads and houses when damaged or destroyed. In 2008, Mr. Tang living in another village of Nanxi Town saw heavy precipitation that “flooded the cement road, water kept flowing from the top of the mountain down to the road and below” (Zhuang farmer, 20/07/2011). Road blockings also hinder social capital as farmers from remote villages are stranded in their villages. The main subsequent impact of flooding events is that farmers lose considerable opportunities to sell their cash crops as these events reduce yield or destroy crops under the mud. As Mr. Han, a Zhuang farmer explained: On August 9th, 2008, the Nanxi River in Maduoyi rose, rain falling led to mud-rock flow from the top of the mountain and provoked a landslide in the banana plantation. About 10 mu of farmland located at the foot of the mountain was flooded, the road was also flooded and damaged (20/07/2011). Mr. Han, along with other farmers in Nanxi Town equally impacted by floods, described important economic losses resulting from landslides. Most of the farmers impacted from floods were Han and Zhuang farmers inhabiting the lowlands of Hekou and near the river, hence their higher vulnerability to floods. In sum, while impacts from drought and cold spell mainly affect households, impacts from floods occur at both the household and community levels. A flood may damage individual houses and destroy crops, but it can also destroy public infrastructure such as roads linking remote villages to the main township village or county city. In this case, lowland Han and Zhuang in Nanxi villages were the ones mostly affected by the river and moutain floods. Farmers living in remote areas can be stranded in their village, as road degradation and landslide risk prevent them from accessing the main village market to sell their goods. These impacts on public infrastructure further increase household’s income losses and reduce physical and financial capital. Furthermore, flooding events occurring in remote areas decrease farmers’ access to social and human capital, as they are not able to connect to the closest community that could potentially provide them with more resources.

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6.3. CHAPTER CONCLUSIONS In this chapter, I focused on my second research objective and its three sub-objectives. In Section 6.1.1, I visually presented annual and monthly climate data analyses from 1973 to 2011 and found that there has been an increase in extreme temperatures and precipitation since 2000. As these long-term averages only indicated trends, triangulating climate data at the daily resolution together with empirical data from farmers’ accounts as well as with four secondary sources on extreme weather impacts confirmed and enhanced results from the climate data alone (Section 6.1.2). Not only farmers have been hit by more severe drought and flooding events in recent years than in the past, but they are now subject to cold spells, a new concern for farmers and their crops. I argue that this further confirms that extreme weather events have been increasing over the past decade in both severity and variety. This suggests that triangulating empirical and climate data is useful to help catch the realities in the field but also scientifically shows that important variations are happening in the local climate. Had I not conducted this climate data analysis, I would not have been able to conclude this from farmers’ account only. Conversely, if I had only conducted the climate data analysis, I would not have understood on-the-ground realities and how extreme weather may or may not impacts rural livelihoods. Finally in Section 6.2, I analysed impacts of these three types of extremes and showed that all three events decrease farmers’ access to natural, physical, human, financial and social capitals, hence destabilizing access to adequate source of food. As argued in Chapter 5, location determines farming households’ access to resources. As such, I drew on concepts from vulnerability to climate variability to argue that farmers’ location also determines a households’ vulnerability to climate shocks. Impacts from drought seemed to be the main concern of farmers living in Mengzi County, while farmers from Hekou County were equally concerned with drought, cold spells and floods, which reveals Hekou’s more vulnerable environment to climate shocks. In exploring the types of impacts from these three extreme weather events on farmers, I find that the extent of direct and subsequent impacts from drought is greater than in the cases of flooding and cold spell events on farmers’ livelihoods. A drought not only affects farming activities, but also livestock rearing and household daily activities. Subsequent impacts from these three aspects of a livelihood range from economic loss, labour shortages, and higher food prices, all contributing to food insecurity. Furthermore, drought impacts unfold over several months due to a slow rate of onset and leave farmers and their lands with few options but to wait for rain. Although cold spells and floods affect household farming activities, their impacts are far more sudden than a drought as these two types of extreme weather events share a fast

114 Climate Data Analysis and Impacts on Livelihoods Chapter 6 rate of onset. Economic losses due to reduced crop yield or destroyed crops manifest immediately and trigger unstable access to food. In addition to crop yield reduction, flooding events also trigger broader impacts, including destruction of public infrastructure. Therefore, location, farming activity as well as timing of events influence farmers’ vulnerability to climate shocks, but also their ability to cope and adapt to these shocks. The next chapter discusses aid and relief provided by the local government and the diversity of coping and adapting strategies adopted by farmers to maintain their resilience to shocks.

115 Government Aid and Farmers Coping and Adapting Strategies Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7 – GOVERNMENT AID AND FARMER COPING AND ADAPTING STRATEGIES

In this chapter I direct my attention to my third research objective, namely, to investigate government disaster relief organization and the coping mechanisms Han and minority farmers employ in the face of climate shocks. In Section 7.1, I analyse the hierarchical structure and decision-making of the local government’s disaster relief operations. Then I examine the outreach of relief and aid operations during the recent extreme weather events in the four different townships of my study. In Section 7.2 I then analyse the strategies that farmers adopt to face the adverse impacts of these different extreme weather events. These strategies, in the form of coping and adapting mechanisms, are used to maintain adequate access to the five types of livelihood capitals, ensure household food security and reduce vulnerability to climate variability. In Section 7.2.3, I discuss the efficiency of the State’s aid and disaster relief to farmers.

7.1. GOVERNMENT RELIEF OPERATIONS Drawing on semi-structured interviews conducted with government officials at the prefecture and township levels allows me to better understand the State’s role in managing extreme weather events in terms of prevention, aid and relief operations as well as reconstruction.

7.1.1. Hierarchy and Organization of Aid in Times of Disaster and Post Disaster At the national level, the Chinese government has established the Emergency Management Office of the State Council, which is responsible for four organisations. Each organisation corresponds to one of the four main types of disasters, namely natural disasters, industry accidents, public health emergencies and social security emergencies (Shi Peijun et al. 2007). The National Committee for Disaster Reduction manages natural disasters. This National Committee is then duplicated at the provincial and prefectural levels and includes members from the relevant government bureaus (ibid, Mr. Xu, govt, Mengzi, 29/06/2011).48 While the Disaster Relief Committee supervises emergency response plans, it is the Ministry of Civil Affairs at the local level that operationalizes the plan on the ground. The Civil Affairs Bureaus

48 The departments and bureaus involved at different levels of government, in the Committee for Disaster Reduction are: Department of Public Communication (Propaganda), Committee for Development and Reform, Finance Bureau, Civil Affairs Bureau, Land resources Bureau, Housing and Township Construction Bureau, Public Health Bureau, Industry Information Committee, Forest Bureau, Water resources Bureau, Education Bureau, Technology Bureau, Security Bureau, Environmental Protection Bureau, Transportation Bureau, Agriculture Bureau, Trade Bureau, Earthquake Bureau, Security Check Bureau, Electricity Bureau, Statistics Bureau, Meteorological Bureau, Supervision Bureau, Audit Bureau, Local Red Cross, Local Power Supply Bureau, China Telecommunications Bureau, Local Army Division.

116 Government Aid and Farmers Coping and Adapting Strategies Chapter 7 at all levels of government are in charge of designating a disaster information officer, who serves as a mediator between the higher levels of government and the local people affected. When a natural disaster occurs, disaster information officers from the local Civil Affairs Bureau evaluate the disaster conditions and inform their counterparts at the county and provincial levels about the given disaster, as well as the impacts already noticed and reported by local people (Mr. Xu, govt, Mengzi, 29/06/2011). Once this information is passed on to higher-level officials of the Prefecture Committee for Disaster Reduction, the latter officials assess if the disaster conditions and impacts have reached the level required to launch an emergency response plan (Bai 2009).49 If so, the prefecture level officer will write a memo, sent by email to the county level officers approving the launch of the emergency response plan at the county level (ibid.) (Figure 7.1). Once in operation, responsibilities and duties of the emergency response plan are divided and put into effect among townships and villages by the local Civil Affairs Bureau. The prefecture and the county level Disaster Relief Committee commands coordination, ensures each step of the plan is respected at each affected location and finally reports to the local media about the situation (Mr. Xu, 29/06/2011). The local Civil Affairs Bureau (minzheng ju – 民政局) distributes aid and relief to the most severely affected people in priority and continuously reports to the Disaster Relief Committee at the higher level of government until the Committee declares that the emergency response plan can be suspended (Mr. Xu, 29/06/2011). Once suspended, an evaluation of the disaster’s impacts, recovery and reconstruction begins, led by the relevant departments of the local governments. To contextualise these actions in Honghe Prefecture, in the next section, I analyse the responses implemented by the local Civil Affairs Bureaus during and following the recent drought, cold front and flood.

49 A report on Emergency Management in China indicates four levels of disasters: Level 1, extremely serious, over 30 fatalities, needs escalate to the state council; Level 2, serious, between 10~30 fatalities, escalate to province level; Level 3, major incident, 3~10 fatalities, escalate to city level; Level 4, small case, less than 3 fatalities, escalate to local level (Bai, 2009).

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Figure 7.1: Disaster Relief Operations in Honghe Prefecture (Author 2012)

7.1.2. Disaster Relief Operations During and After Recent Disasters in Honghe Prefecture Disaster relief operations were most recently implemented during the cold spell of winter 2010- 2011 and the year before, during the 2009-2010 drought in both Mengzi and Hekou counties. In addition to these two extreme weather events, inhabitants from Hekou County also experienced a flood and subsequent landslides in summer 2008, after which the local government implemented disaster relief operations due to the severity of the landslides impacts. Accounts of disaster relief operations from government officials are analysed below by type of event and divided in two categories, namely immediate relief and longer-term prevention measures, to determine if these are adequate or not to help sustain local livelihoods. Disaster relief operations during the 2009-2010 drought consisted of both short-term help and long-term infrastructural improvements. In Lengquan Township, the local government’s head argued that it was of utmost importance to ensure that there was enough person-power to deliver material resources, such as water and food in the villages most affected by water shortages (Mr. Ji, govt, 28/06/2011). In Xinglong Village of Lengquan Township, Mr. Mu, the local village Chief reported that each household had received 2.5 kilograms of rice as well as mineral water during the drought period (04/07/2011). The poorest households also received two bags of noodles. Rice and water distribution seemed to be determined according to the number of people per family or severity of impacts (farmers, Lengquan, 04/07/2011). During this same 2009-2010 drought, Xibeile Township government delivered water to one large pond fulfilling domestic and agrarian water needs. Five kilograms of rice and cooking oil were also distributed in the villages of Xibeile Township on the basis of the number of people per household (Mr. Fei, govt, 23/06/2011). Specific drought relief funds were distributed to

118 Government Aid and Farmers Coping and Adapting Strategies Chapter 7 disabled farmers and the poorest households. Moreover, Xibeile’s government received goods donated by private companies and redistributed them within villages. Alongside providing food, water and material resources, the local government of Xibeile encouraged farmers to continuously save water (ibid). While the Civil Affairs Bureau closely led disaster relief operations in Mengzi County, their counterparts in Hekou County provided farmers living in Yaoshan Township, with five kilograms of rice during the 2009-2010 drought, but no water was delivered. The Yaoshan government also advised farmers on how to deal with disasters and sustain their livelihoods, including advice on how to save water (Mr. Pang, 12/07/2011). In Nanxi Town, the Civil Affairs Bureau provided between 10 to 25 kilograms of rice and 15 litres of cooking oil to each household, as well as water where it was most needed during the drought period (Mr. Han, 20/07/2011). In addition to food and water distribution, Nanxi’s government also implemented a post-disaster subsidy to help farmers recover from the loss of their banana plants, which had withered with the drought. They provided farmers with half of the purchasing price of banana seedlings, leaving farmers to absorb the remainder of the costs (RMB2.5 = USD0.39) (ibid.). In 2010, these short-term measures were complemented by longer-term actions to help mitigate future droughts and adapt farmers’ resilience to longer dry seasons. The disaster relief director at the prefectural level in Mengzi, explained that following a drought, the local governments are to organise prevention measures for future droughts (Mr. Xu, 29/06/2011). These measures mostly concern infrastructural improvements, but also involve prevention campaigns, knowledge transfers on how to mitigate disaster impacts as well as mitigation awareness (ibid.). In Lengquan Township such measures included the construction of 1,000 water reservoirs (Mr. Ji, 28/06/2011). The construction of water reservoirs was subsidized by the local government who paid RMB2,000 (USD 315) per farming household and per reservoir. Furthermore, the Lengquan government organised the construction of 15 dikes to facilitate livestock’s access to water (Mr. Ji, 28/06/2011). Finally, the local government has planned to build ponds in the areas above 1,700 meters to enable water distribution to two or three villages, meeting their daily needs at home and in the fields. One could argue that the local government of Nanxi Town provided more aid than in Yaoshan Township during the 2009- 2010 drought. This may reveal Yaoshan’s lack of financial means to provide more aid or the greater vulnerability of Nanxi to climate variability during that period. Hence maybe this town was given more funds from the Hekou government. The local government’s emergency response to the winter 2010-2011 cold spell was reported on by farmers and government officials more frequently in Hekou County than in

119 Government Aid and Farmers Coping and Adapting Strategies Chapter 7

Mengzi County. This may reveal a higher level of impact of the cold spell on local livelihoods, and thus a greater need for relief operations in Hekou than in Mengzi County. In one of the villages of Yaoshan Township, government officials reported that after an inspection of the cold spell impacts, they allocated 40 kilograms of rice to 28 households, which had an absence of income due to the withering of their crops (Mr. Pang, govt, 12/07/2011). In other villages in Yaoshan, the government provided five kilograms of rice after the cold spell as compensation for crop losses (Mr. Lin, govt, Yaoshan, 14/07/2011). In Nanxi Town, the government offered farming households a one-time provision of between 10 and 16 kilograms of rice. The quantity received depended on local government assessments of the impacts severity in each (Mr. Han, govt, 21/07/2011). In addition to food distribution, another immediate relief operation was to provide subsidies to help farmers recover their withered cash crops. Following the cold spell in Nanxi Town, the local government subsidized banana and rubber tree saplings by providing RMB3 (USD0.47) and RMB2.5 (USD0.39) respectively; leaving RMB2 (USD0.31) and RMB2.5 (USD0.39) to be paid by farmers (Mr. Han; Mr. Tang, govt; farmer, 20/07/2011). Disaster relief operations conducted by local government in Honghe Prefecture during the 2010-2011 cold spell were solely for immediate and short-term relief. As cold spells are sudden and usually short extreme weather events, local governments focused on providing food and cash crop subsidies to recover withered crops. However, they did not implement any long-term prevention actions, such as advising farmers to make sure the soil around the plant is moist when frost is expected (as moist soil retains heat). Among the extreme weather events that occurred in Hekou County from 2000 to 2011 are floods, subsequent landslides and mud-rock flows. As discussed in Chapter 6, impacts from flooding are sudden and hit a community as a whole by both damaging infrastructure and degrading land and water resources. In 2008, when floods and landslides impacted farmers’ crops in Hekou County, Yaoshan’s government provided immediate relief in the form of subsidies for the purchase of new seeds so that farmers could replant crops that had been submerged (Mr. Pang, govt, 12/07/2011). Another form of immediate relief was monetary compensation. In Xibeile Township, Mr. Fei from the local government explained that when an area is hit by extreme weather events, the Civil Affairs Bureau investigates the severity of the impacts before defining a standard of compensation and sending money to the most affected people (23/06/2011). Housing insurance may cover the costs incurred by disasters, but if it does not, affected farmers may benefit from a compensation defined by the Civil Affairs Bureau (Mr. Fei, 23/06/2011). However this compensation money varied among places and seemed to be received by the poorest households.

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In Nanxi Town, after a natural disaster has impacted infrastructure, the local government is responsible for setting up a housing allowance. The amount given is determined according to each household’s economic and financial conditions, and the allowance provides farmers with a portion of the funds necessary to rebuild or renovate (Mr. Xu, govt, Mengzi County, 29/06/2011). However the allowance does not always cover for all the costs associated with house construction. Indeed, Mr. Cao (20/07/2011), Gehua Village’s Chief in Nanxi explained that the 2008 flood had impacted most of his village’s houses: While the government can provide a part of the money to rebuild or repair their house, farmers will have to take care of the rest, but at the moment they don’t have the money so they still live in houses that are impacted by the landslides. Without the means to invest in housing reconstruction materials nor to move houses, farmers still face high vulnerability to flooding and landslides. As for public infrastructure affected by floods and landslides, after the 2008 flood that flooded Nanxi Town’s market and clogged water channels, the local government immediately organised the cleaning up by investing RMB1 million (USD157,000) (Mr. Sheng, govt, Nanxi, 22/07/2011). In addition to immediate relief operations, the Hekou County government also decided on long-term measures to diminish impacts from future flooding. In Yaoshan Township, one village is earmarked for relocation, as it is currently located in a high landslide risk area. The relocation of the villagers as well as the construction of new houses have been organised by the local government (Mr. Pang, govt, 12/07/2011). As another preventive measure, the government of Hekou County has purchased housing insurance for each household at RMB6.5 (USD1.02) per year value covering up to RMB10,000 (USD1,570) of damage triggered by natural disasters (Mr. Xu, govt, Mengzi, 29/06/2011). Farmers can also decide to purchase additional housing insurance which entitles them to up to RMB20,000 (USD3,140) in damage coverage (ibid.). As flood impacts trigger more sudden and long-term impacts on infrastructure more than sudden cold spells or prolonged drought, most of the disaster relief operations are focused on maintaining or reconstructing affected roads, bridges, pipes and houses. Lessons learnt from disaster operations also serve other departments, as is the case of Nanxi’s agricultural department which plans to implement new cash crops resistant to drought and cold to avoid future crops failures engendered by climate shocks (Mr. Sheng, Nanxi, 22/07/2011). They are also looking for further water sources as some have now dried up. When I asked if they realised the potential consequences of water source depletion in an originally water rich region of China, officials recognised that there is an important need to prevent future water shortages (ibid.). Whether the search for new water sources will be conducted in a sustainable manner remains to be seen.

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Some disaster intervention measures were not applied during the three disasters mentioned above, but were discussed by the disaster relief director of Mengzi County and are worth addressing here to show the extent of the means local governments have in these circumstances. Following a natural disaster, Mr. Xu, an official in Mengzi County explained the government may also:  Cover medical treatment costs for sicknesses triggered by a natural disaster,  Cover half the costs of medical insurance (80 per cent of medical costs can be claimed),  Give farmers more access to microcredit,  Provide free technical guidance in regards to crop replanting as well as fertilizers and pesticides,  Provide technical skills training for off-farm work – such as in local mines (tin ore, coal), business and so on – to farmers whose land is too damaged to replant crops,  Launch prevention campaigns (29/06/2011). In sum, natural disaster relief operations (in red in Figure 7.3, p.124) led by the government at the local level take two different forms according to the type of extreme weather events, namely immediate and structural. The structural relief operations enhance farmers’ access to physical, natural, human and social capital, while immediate/short-term relief operations aim at restoring access to natural and financial capital. Although these measures seem to represent a lot for farmers, it is not always the case, as I discuss their efficiency in Section 7.3 after reviewing the coping and adapting strategies farmers adopt on top of the government aid and relief.

7.2. LIVELIHOOD COPING AND ADAPTING STRATEGIES I now analyse the livelihood strategies adopted by farmers affected by droughts, cold spells and floods identified in Chapter 6. Adopted within certain time frames, I distinguish between immediate coping strategies (Section 7.2.1) and longer-term adapting strategies (Section 7.2.2). I analyse how these coping and adapting strategies contribute to enhance or reduce farmers’ access to the five types of capital and maintain their resilience and food security. These strategies are illustrated in green on Figure 7.3 (p.124).

7.2.1. Coping Strategies As mentioned in Chapter 6, extreme weather events restrict farmers’ access to resources and different types of capitals. Coping with extreme weather events is an immediate reaction to this restriction of access (Morton 2007). In the face of extreme weather events, coping is synonymous with surviving, thus saving resources and minimizing losses. During the 2009-2010 drought, water shortages affected three aspects of farming household’s operations, namely land irrigation, livestock needs and home use (noted in Chapter

122 Government Aid and Farmers Coping and Adapting Strategies Chapter 7

6). Coping successfully with water shortages not only allows farmers to cook and maintain good health to maintain an adequate work force in the fields; but it also allows them to sustain continuous access to natural capital as soil nutrient cycling, plant growth, and animal lives can be maintained. For these purposes, two farmer coping strategies at the household level stand out. First, the most common coping strategy to offset water shortages is to save and re-use water. As Mr. Ping, a Yi farmer from mountainous Xibeile (21/06/2011) explained: “during the drought, the government provided water, but it was not enough, so we still had to save and re- use water to have enough at home and for livestock”. In Xibeile Township, farmers from Taqikou complained that there was nothing to do but focus on livestock; they explained that saving water for livestock was their main concern to minimize livestock death that are then to be sold. While water seem to be mostly saved and re-used for both home and livestock uses in Mengzi County and Yaoshan Township, the same strategy is followed in Nanxi Town, but to provide water for land irrigation. Mr. Han (Zhuang farmer ;govt, 20/07/2011) explained: “During the drought, the Maduoyi river dried up, therefore we relied on water already used for shower and washing, and saved it in buckets to then irrigate the crops”. As a second strategy to cope with water shortages, farmers from Lengquan, Xibeile and Yaoshan reported that they walked further to the next village to collect water and bring it back in their village on a donkey’s back or in a buffalo cart. Mr. He, a Yao farmer from a remote village in Yaoshan Township explained “when we don’t have enough water, we go to another water source located much further” (14/07/2011). In Lengquan Township, in 2010, Mr. Mu, a Yi farmer, saw farmers from the five nearby villages come to his village to collect water from the only reservoir that had water left out of the usual four reservoirs in his village (04/07/2011). In order to fulfil these coping strategies, farmers make significant use of their physical and human capitals to access water and bring it back to their village. Although this could have created conflicts between villages, farmers asserted that it was fine, which revealed close ties and positive bonding social capital among the several communities. Hmong villagers from Mayanhe located in Nanxi Town went to the nearest river to collect water and transported it by donkey to their land up in the mountains and stored the water in a reservoir they dug to then irrigate banana crops (Mr. Xiong, Hmong farmer, 21/07/2011). The different purposes of saving water reveals that minority nationalities primarily save water for their own survival and livestock’s, while Han and Zhuang farmers primarily save water for their cash crops. Although this may be due to the types of crops adopted, I argue that it shows a difference in prioritising livelihoods options partly due to the initially low access to resources that minority nationalities have versus Han and Zhuang farmers.

123 Government Aid and Farmers Coping and Adapting Strategies Chapter 7

Impacts identified in Chapter 6 show that both drought and cold spells share some broad impacts on livelihoods, one of which is the imbalance of the four dimensions of food security triggering a threat to farmers’ sustainable livelihoods.50 Indeed, during a prolonged drought, food supply becomes unstable resulting in difficult economic and physical access to food. Coping with food insecurity in times of drought and after a cold spell demands a higher level of access to human, financial and social capitals. I find that coping mechanisms vary among farmers and farming activities. As cash crop farmers must purchase the food that they no longer cultivate, they rely on savings to do so. During extreme weather events farmers explained that they had to save on both food and money. Saving on food means eating less than usual to make the food stock they have last longer than usual (Mr. Hua, Han farmer, Mengzi, 21/06/2011). Oftentimes, farmers who reported having to save on food were the ones complaining that food relief provided by their local government was insufficient. A Han farmer living near Nanxi Town explained that in the last two years his family was able to eat through the drought, thanks to loans from the Rural Credit Cooperative of Nanxi (Mr. Tian, 20/07/2011). However, if farmers have a bad credit history, they have to turn to relatives and friends to borrow money in order to maintain access to food and other daily expenses (Mr. Lin, Yao farmer, 14/07/2011). Semi-subsistence farmers who were still cultivating food crops, and who had managed to save some food from previous harvests were able to rely on their stock during the 2009-2010 drought (Mr. Lin, Yao farmer, 14/07/2011). Mr. Ku, a Yi farmer from Lengquan reported that because his water reservoir at home had gone dry, he could only wait for rain to fall and accumulate in the reservoir and he saved food from previous harvests to support his family in the meantime (24/06/2011) (Figure 7.2).

Figure 7.2: Water reservoir outside a Hmong farmer’s house (Source: Author, 2011)

50 The four dimensions of food security are: food availability, economic and physical access to food, food utilization and the stability of these three dimensions over time (Lovendal 2004, Schmidhuber and Tubiello 2007); see Chapter 2, Section 2.3.2

124 Government Aid and Farmers Coping and Adapting Strategies Chapter 7

In the cases of semi-subsistence farmers who did not have enough food stocks, they used money gained from their previous cash crop harvests to purchase food in the market. However, Mr. Ma, a Yi farmer from Taqikou Village in Xibeile Township reported: “during the drought, the price of vegetables was higher than usual, so we could only buy less” (06/07/2011). In times of drought, these same farmers develop other strategies to ensure food is available and accessible. Farmers from the same community in Lengquan decided to share harvests, thus relying on positive bonding social capital. Alternatively, in Xibeile, a Yi farmer (Mr. Zhao, 07/07/2011) who was selling apples and garden peas at the local market explained: “because my family is not well off, we collect wild edible herbs from the mountains and they replaced the vegetables that we could not cultivate”. In sum, I find that farmers (mostly semi-subsistence) who use their indigenous knowledge (human capital) to find wild edible herbs in the forest that compensate for food shortage are mostly Yi Hmong and Yao farmers in the remote village of Lengquan, Xibeile and Yaoshan townships. Other cash crop farmers find access to bank loans and microcredit or use savings to afford food are usually Han and Zhuang farmers, located closer to township villages. While semi-subsistence minority farmers in remote areas are concerned with food shortage, farmers who only grow cash crops and who live close to the government seem to be concerned with economic losses, again, revealing a gap in access to resources between minority nationalities and Han and Zhuang farmers. Economic losses represent the most notable broad impact that farmers faced during both the drought and the cold spell between 2009 and 2011. Strategies put in place by semi- subsistence and cash crop farmers to cope with economic losses involve securing adequate access to social, financial and human capital. Cash crop farmers affected by extreme weather events and subsequent economic loss coped in different ways depending on the magnitude of the impacts on their crops. It is worth noting that one of the outcomes of any natural disaster is the increase in commodity prices as supplies run short. This can have positive and negative impacts on farmers.51 During and after the 2009-2010 drought, cash crop farmers from Mengzi and Hekou who had sufficient harvest to sell said they earned equal or greater financial capital by selling their crops at a higher price than during a year without extreme weather events and saw their annual profits stabilize or increase. As Ms. Cui (09/08/2011), a farmer selling in Mengzi market explained, “during the 2010 drought, half a kilogram of potatoes sold for RMB2-3 (USD 0.31-0.47), this year (2011)

51 Semi-subsistence farmers with little access to financial capital and crops affected during natural disasters find themselves in a difficult situation where they have insufficient money to afford food (see Coping with Food Insecurity, Section 7.2.1.2)

125 Government Aid and Farmers Coping and Adapting Strategies Chapter 7 it’s worth a few mao (USD 0.016 cent).” While this is the case for some cash crop farmers, others who do not manage to harvest enough to sell in the market had to rely on other sources of income. Semi-subsistence farmers living on their own or in remote villages benefit from remittances from their children who work in the city and earned a normal income during the years of drought and cold spells. Ms. Liu, a Yi farmer, explained that her son would send her some money occasionally from his income earned at a motorbike repair shop in Mengzi City (19/06/2011). In addition to remittances, with maize being a relatively low water-reliant crop and the main feed for livestock, semi-subsistence farmers raising pigs could rely on income from selling livestock. These farmers thus prioritised providing feed and water, ensuring that animals could be sold at a reasonable price and offset losses incurred by the withering of other cash crops. Selling crops at a higher price, receiving remittances and focusing on livestock to offset farmers’ economic losses on a short-term basis are therefore the three most commonly implemented coping strategies to deal with economic loss.

The ability of farmers to implement coping strategies (in green on Figure 7.3) when faced with extreme weather events differs across locations and ethnicities. Among my interviewees, there seem to be a divide in the purposes behind coping strategies. While cash crop farmers living in less remote areas have easier access to loans, their coping strategies consisted mostly of saving their crops as the rest was already guaranteed. Whereas semi-subsistence farmers living in more remote areas adopted coping strategies that first involved reducing their household’s saving capacity and second looking after their crops. This divide reflects the difference in livelihood priorities among these farmers, linked to access to resources but also to cultural differences between Yi, Hmong and Yao minority nationalities and Han and Zhuang farmers. In addition to coping on a short-term with water shortages, food insecurity and economic loss, adapting to extreme weather events is important to stabilize long-term access to livelihood assets, maintain food security and reinforce resilience to climate extremes (Morton 2007, World Bank 2010). I turn to these adapting strategies next.

126 Government Aid and Farmers Coping and Adapting Strategies: Chapter 7

DIRECT IMPACTS ON FARMING, SUBSEQUENT IMPACTS ON COPING STRATEGIES ADAPTING STRATEGIES LIVESTOCK, HOUSEHOLD DAILY LIFE LIVELIHOODS

Focus on livestock

NO or LESS LABOUR FARMERS Work o!-farm

(a) CASH CROPS DRY & DIE Buy vegetables and other food in the market OR Less money to buy food LOWER YIELD Save money => Buy less food to eat => Food security issue Government Actions ECONOMIC LOSS Take a loan / microcredit to invest in cash crops

Ask relatives for money to invest in cash crops Causes Government provide food (rice) further Sell low yield at a higher price Consequence on poor farmers though !!! Government provide water for land in Save water village common reservoirs Save food (saving on previous harvests) Buy vegetables and other food in the market Government provide box of Trade maize for rice mineral bottled water (a) FOOD CROPS DRY & DIE DROUGHT OR FOOD INSECURITY Government provide food (rice) LOWER HARVEST Dig wild edible herb from the forest

Take a loan / microcredit to a!ord food

Ask relatives for money to a!ord food

Walk further for water

Dig a water reservoir near the land (a) LESS WATER FOR LAND USE to store rainwater and water brought by donkey from other reservoir

Re-use water used for daily activities for land irrigation

(a) WEAKNESS OF LIVESTOCK HIGHER RISK OF DEATH Walk further for water for livestock

Walk further for water Impacts from: (a) LESS WATER FOR DOMESTIC USE (SHOWER/COOKING) Fix a rubber tube to channel the water from another mountain source Dig deeper in the well to get more groundwater

THREAT TO FOOD SECURITY Save food (b) CROP LOSS Ask relatives for money OR LOW CROP YIELD ECONOMIC LOSS Take a loan / microcredit

THREAT TO FOOD SECURITY Save food (b) CROP FIELD BURRIED UNDER Ask relatives for money FLOODS LANDSLIDE/MUD ECONOMIC LOSS Take a loan / microcredit

Ask relatives for money

ECONOMIC LOSS Take a loan / microcredit (b) HOUSES & ROADS DAMAGED Construction of a trench/gulley to control the ﬂoods and prevent landslide

UNSAFE HOUSEHOLD CONDITIONS Household relocation

Take a loan / microcredit

ECONOMIC LOSS Ask relatives for money (c) NO OR LOW COLD SPELL HARVEST Save money and buy less food to eat => Food security issue

Buy vegetables and other food in the market FOOD INSECURITY Save food

TIME

Figure 7.3: Farmers’ Coping and Adapting Strategies When Faced by Drought, Floods and Cold Spell (Author, 2012) Government Aid and Farmers Coping and Adapting Strategies Chapter 7

7.2.2. Adapting Strategies Adapting strategies (in yellow on Figure 7.3) correspond to a farmer’s will and ability to become more resilient to climate variability on a longer-term basis than immediate coping strategies. In this region of Yunnan I found that farmers’ adapting strategies are characterized by livelihood diversification. This strengthens the argument that extreme weather events can represent a driving force for farmers to diversify their daily strategies to ensure access to the five types of capital (Rigg, 2006; see Chapter 2). These adapting strategies vary according to local contexts and take the form of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ strategies. The former are essentially decisions taken by households themselves such as income diversification, while the latter are implemented with institutional help, such as structural improvements (World Bank 2010). First, in terms of ‘soft’ adaptation, during the long lasting drought of 2009-2010, some farmers decided to work off-farm to compensate for the fact that their fields could not be irrigated. As Mr. Qing, a researcher from the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences (19/06/2011) put it succinctly: “After extreme weather events happen, farmers look for a temporary job”. In Yaoshan Township’s Pojiao village, according to the village Chief Mr. Lin, (14/07/2011): “Forty people went to work off-farm in Hekou city and other nearby cities, such as Mengzi” representing 22 per cent of the local labour force.52 Working off-farm allows farmers to gain financial income to provide food for their families that can no longer cultivate their land due to persistent drought, or due to crops having been destroyed by floods or landslides. Working off-farm thus immediately enhances access to financial capital. Over time, this access can also increase access to natural, physical and human capitals as farmers can afford to invest in recovering their crops and pay for other expenses, such as a motorbike or education for children. Another form of ‘soft’ adaptation to increased climate variability was observed in Nanxi Town, where banana growers have decided to change their cropping strategy to overcome excessive price fluctuation. In 2011, farmers complained that in the past five years, banana crops had suffered from drought, cold spells and landslides. This climate variability has prevented farmers from experiencing steady banana harvests and incomes, instead being faced with very high market price fluctuations for their commodity. Mr. Tang, a Zhuang banana grower in Nanxi explained (20/07/2011): “The price of bananas is not stable, today I can sell half a kilogram for RMB2 (USD0.31) but tomorrow for only RMB0.2 (USD0.03)”. He further explained that together with other farmers, he had recently switched to growing watermelons in greenhouses, a practice introduced with subsidies by the local government: “I am gradually converting all my banana plots to greenhouses to grow watermelons, because the price is more

52 Calculated according to the 2010 population statistics in Pojiao Village (Hekou County, 2010).

128 Government Aid and Farmers Coping and Adapting Strategies Chapter 7 stable and it is not as vulnerable to climate as banana plants”.53 Mr. Tang hopes that this diversification will, in the long-term, offset his income losses from low banana harvests following the drought and cold spell, enhancing his access to financial, natural and physical capitals. Changing cropping strategy and trying new varieties with shorter seasons as an adapting strategy was also observed across the border in Ha Giang Province where upland communities were impacted by lingering drought (World Bank 2010). Second, in terms of ‘hard’ adaptation, in one of Yaoshan’s villages, located in a high- risk area for landslides and mud-rock flows, the rainy season oftentimes created a violent mountain torrent damaging fields and houses. In 2011, the village chief took the initiative to dig a gully to control and regulate the flow of future surges and prevent the heavy rains from triggering landslides and mud-rock flows (Mr. He, 14/07/2011). Structural improvements were also implemented during the 2009-2010 drought; as water reservoirs supplying the village went dry, the villagers set up a rubber tube to direct water from a mountain spring to the village (ibid.). These structural improvements enhance access to physical, natural and financial capital as they are built to provide more adequate access to resources for future weather extremes. Whether they are sustainable is another debate. Borrowing money is considered a coping strategy in terms of food shortage alleviation and as an adapting strategy in terms of crops and housing recovery. It evolves through two main channels. The first channel is to borrow money from relatives or friends. Using bonding social capital, farmers borrow money through informal channels to improve their living conditions and contribute to building a higher resilience to climate shocks through better housing infrastructure, irrigation materials as well as agricultural inputs for crops. For example, Mr. Shao, a Zhuang farmer from Nanxi, borrowed RMB190,000 (USD29,900) from his older brother to renovate his house after the flooding in 2008 (21/07/2011). When borrowing money from relatives or friends is not possible, farmers turn to the bank or entities that can provide microcredit and loans, such as the Women’s Federation or the Rural Credit Cooperative. Although the Women’s Federation offers interest-free loans, farmers and government officials alike explained that these are only granted to farmers undertaking agricultural entrepreneurial projects. Interest rates for microcredit offered by the Rural Credit Cooperatives are very high, ranging from six to nine per cent (Mr. Tian, Mr. Ying, Han and Zhuang farmers; Mr. Sheng, govt, Nanxi, 20/07/2011). Another type of loan distributed by the Rural Credit Cooperative comes in the form of poverty alleviation loans, which carry a two per cent interest rate, yet none of the farmers interviewed had gained access to these. Instead, most relied on high interest rate loans, which have for most resulted in farmers entering a cycle of

53 See Chapter 5, Section 5.3.3.

129 Government Aid and Farmers Coping and Adapting Strategies Chapter 7 rotating debt (Mr. Tian, Han farmer, Nanxi, 21/07/2011). While this seems acceptable when one knows that Nanxi farmers are generally wealthier than the rest of my interviewees, I suggest that Xibeile and Yaoshan townships could benefit from poverty alleviation loans as their inhabitants, who mostly belong to minority nationalities have low access to financial capital.

In sum, strategies farmers use to adapt to extreme weather events range from diversifying their cropping strategy to borrowing money to renovate their houses and build resilient infrastructures. While income diversification strategies tend to take place during prolonged drought as the slow rate of onset leaves more time to adapt, after flooding or landslide events farmers invest in structural improvements to reinforce their livelihoods’ resilience. In terms of location, farmers living in more remote villages and who belong to minority nationalities tend to engage in distress diversification measures, either by working off-farm or by just focusing on livestock. They do not have the option to create structural improvements unless these are provided free of charge by the government. Whereas farmers living in villages closer to township municipalities tend to use both progressive and selective diversification, namely working off-farm and changing cropping strategies, as well as structural improvements, such as building or renovating infrastructure to enhance their resilience. Again, I find that the same divide as for coping strategies is also notable here with adapting strategies. Indeed, farmers who saved water for their crops and took loans are the same farmers who diversify their cropping strategy as they have enough financial and human capital to do so. Whereas farmers who saved water for their home and livestock are the ones who go off-farm to gain access to more financial capital and provide food for their household. While some use their financial capital to further invest in cash cropping, the others search for more financial capital to sustain the bases of their livelihoods. Overall, adapting strategies help stabilize and temporally spread out access to financial capital, thus reducing food insecurity, but also help reinforce infrastructural resilience to climate extremes.

7.2.3. Sufficiency of the Governmental Aid and Relief in Question Despite the local governments’ efforts to provide relief and aid to farmers affected by extreme weather events, provisions of food and water were not always sufficient. Farmers explained that each household member eats at least 10 kilograms of rice per month. With the government providing from 2.5 kilograms to 25 kilograms of rice per household during or after an extreme weather event, most farmers complained that it was not enough to feed their family, stating that they had to save more food and/or rely on money from loans to purchase additional food. For

130 Government Aid and Farmers Coping and Adapting Strategies Chapter 7 instance, a Han farmer from Nanxi received 25 and 20 kilograms of rice during the 2009-2010 drought and the 2011 cold spell respectively, but noted that “both times, it was not enough, so we used money from the loan to buy more food” (Ms. Deng, 20/07/2011). During the same period, another Han farmer from the same village received only 10 and 20 kilograms during the same respective extreme events, clearly insufficient to feed the four members of his household (Mr. Tian, 07/07/2011). These same farmers also received cooking oil, but did not seem to find it as useful or necessary as rice. While some farmers suffered from severe water shortages at home and for land irrigation, one farmer explained that he had received boxes of mineral water although he was not experiencing such water shortages at home during the drought in 2009- 2010 and therefore did not need it as much as in other locations that did not receive any boxes of water (Mr. Yang, 07/07/2011). Some farmers also complained that they had to wait a long time once the reservoirs were built to receive the subsidies money that they had advanced to build the reservoirs. As a socialist country and given this approach to aid and relief described above, one would think that aid be distributed evenly to all farmers, but it seemed like each local government had different supplies and according to farmers’ accounts, the quantities received were either too small or inappropriate. These critiques from farmers reveal weaknesses in the coordination of the government’s relief operations and point to the current need for farmers to be highly self-reliant or able within social capital networks to fend for themselves.

7.3. CHAPTER CONCLUSIONS In this chapter, I addressed my third research objective, namely, to investigate government disaster relief organization and the coping mechanisms Han and minority farmers employ in the face of climate shocks. To do so, I analysed the government’s actions to relieve farmers from extreme weather events impacts (Section 7.1), as well as farmers’ coping and adapting strategies and the extent to which they find government aid sufficient or not (Section 7.2). Based on my findings, I argue that government aid was oftentimes short-term, based on immediate disaster relief, but was frequently found to be lacking, especially in the case of food provisions. In turn, farmers’ coping and adapting strategies identified in this chapter varied according to the type of event, farmers’ livelihood options as well as their location and ethnicity. In tackling the second part of this research objective, I pull out concepts identified within sustainable livelihoods, food security and vulnerability and resilience literatures to find that while both coping and adapting strategies are used during the drought events, only coping strategies are implemented after the cold spell. Longer-term adapting strategies mostly consist of structural improvements in the case of farmers impacted by flooding and landslides. This analysis thus builds upon work by Bouahom et al. (2004) who examined sustainable

131 Government Aid and Farmers Coping and Adapting Strategies Chapter 7 livelihoods in Laos and reveals how these farmers’ livelihoods are always dynamic and flexible, as access to the five types of capital is constantly re-negotiated to maintain resilience to external shocks and adapt to uncertainty and change (Berkes 2007). Although equally affected by extreme weather events, I find that minority nationality farmers in Lengquan, Xibeile and Yaoshan townships with initial low access to resources tend to use more distress diversification strategies first and then progressive diversification when faced with climate shocks. I also argue that the more remote farmers are, the more they are used to coping and/or adapting on their own and the more ingenious their strategies. In contrast, Han and Zhuang farmers close to Nanxi Town have more room for manoeuvre and tend to develop progressive and selective diversification strategies to protect and enhance their cash crops. As they are located closer to township villages they have increased access to aid and relief from the government, and therefore tend to develop fewer coping/adapting strategies on their own, relying heavily on the government. While highlighting these different coping and adapting mechanisms for each type of events, according to both short-term and long-term impacts, I find that farmers’ sustainable access to the five types of capital, food security and resilience to climate shocks is highly dependent on social, temporal and spatial variables, critiqued in Chapter 8.

132 Discussion and Thesis Conclusion Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8 – DISCUSSION AND THESIS CONCLUSION

In this final chapter, I build upon my three results chapters, to address my fourth and final research objective: to identify and analyse the ‘variables’ with the greatest influence on farmer livelihoods, specifically regarding access to assets and resources, household resilience and food security, among Han and minority nationality farmers who have adopted cash-crop agricultural approaches and who must concurrently cope with and adapt to extreme weather events. In order to fulfil this objective, I argue that it is imperative to consider spatial, social and temporal variables. I critique the role that these elements play in farmers’ livelihoods as they negotiate access to assets and resources, and attempt to maintain their household resilience and food security prior to, during and after extreme weather events. Based on my findings, I then discuss recommendations that could improve environmental conservation and help promote sustainable livelihoods in this region. Finally, I conclude with a review of my main findings.

8.1. Spatial, Social and Temporal Variables Influencing Farmers’ Livelihoods Building on Cutter et al.’s (2008) conceptual framework of vulnerability and resilience to climate variability, I argue that vulnerability and resilience are respectively defined as pre- and post-extreme weather event (see Chapter 2 – Section 2.2). Within the DFID approach to sustainable livelihoods, I focus on the concept of vulnerability, which is seen as a core element characterizing the states of and access to the five types of livelihood capitals. Moreover, I examine the ways in which farmers negotiate these forms of capital in order to reach food security. Building on existing work on vulnerability and resilience, my research demonstrates that spatial and social variables influence the vulnerability (pre-event; non-crisis) and resilience (post-event; crisis and post-crisis) of rural households in Honghe Prefecture and likewise that temporal variables come into play within post-event strategies. Spatial variables include location and farming activity, social variables pertain primarily to ethnicity, while temporal variables refer to the event’s timing, duration and rate of onset. In this section I interpret these variables, and how they affect Honghe Prefecture farmers’ access to resources over time prior to, during and after extreme weather events. I then follow up on the four case studies detailed in Chapter 5 to further interpret how farmers deal with the three identified variables at the household level. I argue that in ensuring a sustainable livelihood while experiencing adverse impacts from climate shocks, farmers have shown long- term flexibility. This is in agreement with Rigg’s (2006) critique of general sustainable livelihood literature that tends to ignore the importance of this element and his own argument

133 Discussion and Thesis Conclusion Chapter 8 of the centrality of flexibility to sustainable livelihoods. In addition, I find that because farmers are aware of their increasing vulnerability to climate shocks, linked to their location and ethnicity, they also prepare for the future by developing resilience. This follows Berkes’ (2007) argument that the lessons learned from ‘resilience thinking’ used to address uncertainty and change can help reduce a household’s vulnerability to climate shocks.

8.1.1. Spatial and Social Variables Influencing Non-Crisis Time Vulnerability Based on my results, it is clear that location plays a major role in determining the livelihood options available to a household in Honghe Prefecture, southern Yunnan. Indeed, as examined in Chapter 5, the ability of farmers to invest and succeed in state-sponsored cash crop development is influenced by farm location and distance to the nearest market – places where initial access to financial capital can be obtained through selling harvests or taking out loan from the bank. As farming households located in more remote villages started engaging in state-sponsored cash crop cultivation within the last ten years and as late as in 2007, my research has shown that the closer farming households are to township villages, the earlier they make a switch to state-sponsored cash crops. Along with location as a spatial variable, I argue that the social variable of ethnicity also stands out and influences farmers’ access to resources. The majority of the villages (ten out of thirteen) where I interviewed farmers were inhabited by Yi, Hmong and Yao minority nationalities and were located in remote areas of upland Mengzi and Hekou counties. With this in mind, it is important to consider ethnicity as a social inherent characteristic because it plays a large part in negotiating access to resources, especially in an officially labelled Hani-Yi autonomous prefecture, where 34 per cent of the population belong to minority nationalities. Maintaining such an autonomous status is of political importance to the central government, as it not only shows minority nationalities that the Beijing government recognizes their identity, but also legitimizes the State’s involvement in the villages. Furthermore, I argue that minority nationalities living in remote villages do not necessarily benefit from the expected self- determination and economic decision-making freedom supposedly granted by this status (see Chapter 3, Section 3.3). Farmers who belong to Yi, Yao and Hmong minority nationality, and who reside in remote villages in Lengquan, Xibeile and Yaoshan townships usually developed one or two state-sponsored cash crops at most and sometimes kept one subsistence crop – such as maize – to feed livestock and/or for home use. Once minority nationalities had switched to state- sponsored cash crops, if they did at all, they seemed to rely on cash crops that were subsidized by the State, while likewise incorporating some subsistence food crops on the side. On the other

134 Discussion and Thesis Conclusion Chapter 8 hand Han and Zhuang usually switched to solely cultivate cash crops.54 Yi, Hmong and Yao minorities’ overall lack of involvement in cash-cropping of any type, compared to the Han and Zhuang was not only due to their limited access to human and social capital for modern agriculture (inadequate knowledge of the cash crop and limited information from others), but also to the remote location of their land, as well as their lack of agricultural inputs needed to cultivate additional modern cash crops. As opposed to Yi, Hmong and Yao minority nationality farmers, Han and Zhuang farmers living in less remote villages in Nanxi Township developed non-state-sponsored cash crops to increase their crop diversity in addition to state-sponsored crops. This is partly due to the fact that they had better access to natural and financial capital, thanks to their adequate access to social and human capitals, as their villages are located close to the township village where the local government resides. The fact that these farmers were mostly Han or Zhuang minority nationality highlights that ethnicity is clearly linked to farmer location and confirms that minority nationality farmers in Honghe prefecture, as elsewhere in Yunnan and the Southeast Asian Massif, usually live in remote, upland areas and distance themselves from the State (Michaud 2006). Therefore ethnicity becomes closely linked to the types of agriculture practiced as well as the power farmers have, or do not have, in order to negotiate access to resources. As argued in Chapter 5, farmers who initially have good access to different capitals found switching to cash crops to be beneficial, while most Yi, Hmong and Yao farmers with weaker initial access decided to engage partly in state-sponsored cash crops to minimize financial risks and still be able to rely on food crops in case of bad quality harvest of cash crops. This suggests that vulnerability is a function of farmers’ location, ethnicity and their subsequent access to the five different capitals needed in order to succeed in farming activities and to ensure stable economic and physical access to food. However, this cannot be conceptualized as either systematic or “black and white”. These variables help to inform us about farmers’ antecedent conditions to climate shocks (such as initial access to resources and food). As such, this approach emphasises the usefulness of nuanced qualitative results and emphasizes Cutter et al.’s (2012) argument regarding the importance of a place-based approach in investigating vulnerability and resilience to climate change. Indeed, this approach allowed me to grasp the complexity of a socio- ecological system (SES), where farmers build their livelihoods and interact with the local government and their environment to address their vulnerability and become more resilient in the long-term.

54 Zhuang minority nationality individuals are considered to be lowlanders and acculturated to the Han majority (Michaud 2006) (see Chapter 3).

135 Discussion and Thesis Conclusion Chapter 8

8.1.2. Spatial, Social and Temporal Variables Affecting Crisis and Post-Crisis Resilience The antecedent conditions reviewed in the previous section determine the resilience patterns of farmers in times of and after a crisis. In Chapter 6, in analysing the impacts of three extreme weather events – drought, cold spells and floods – house and land location stood out as important factors for farmers to be more or less affected by certain extreme weather events. For instance, farmers living in Nanxi Township’s lowland villages located near the Maduoyi River are more vulnerable to river flooding than those located in Xibeile Township’s uplands, while villages located in the valleys of Yaoshan are more vulnerable to landslides triggered by heavy monsoonal rain. Farmers whose houses and crops are located above 600 meters above sea level are more affected by cold spells than those in the lowlands, thus putting additional strains on upland farmers already lacking access to certain capitals, especially financial, due to their remote location. In particular, farming households located in the uplands, who are faced with water shortages, triggered by a prolonged drought, highlighted how maintaining a strategic location is a critical element of their coping strategies, as it can serve to minimize long walks to the nearest village to collect water. Along with ethnicity as a social variable, another spatial variable influencing household resilience in the face of climate shocks is farming activity. Coping with food insecurity and economic loss is very much influenced by cropping strategies. When coping with and adapting to an extreme weather event, semi-subsistence Yi, Hmong and Yao farmers tend to use their human capital to save food and money or find wild edible herbs from the forest. On the other hand, Han and Zhuang cash crops farmers have more access to financial capital (savings; loans) and are able to afford food in the market. Indeed, in times of crises, Han and Zhuang farmers with higher linking social capital seem to negotiate access to more profitable cash crops to diversify in times of extreme weather events, while minority nationalities with less linking social capital take another trajectory and find off-farm opportunities to earn financial capital. Therefore I find that the type of farming activity, as a spatial variable, plays a major role in the ability to adapt one’s livelihood to extreme weather events. As noted in Chapter 2, Ingram (2011) emphasizes the need to know which food system activity is vulnerable as it points to the coping and adapting strategies needed to enhance food security in the face of climate variability. In addition to location and farming activity as spatial variables, I argue that among the characteristics of extreme weather events, the rate of onset, timing and duration of the shocks are three temporal variables that determine how farming households can cope and/or adapt to sustain their livelihoods. As seen in Chapter 7, when faced with drought in 2009-2010, farmers tended to first cope with water shortages, food insecurity and economic loss. As the drought

136 Discussion and Thesis Conclusion Chapter 8 lingered, farmers (mostly Han and Zhuang) who were able to gain sufficient access to social and financial capitals, then developed adapting strategies to stay resilient and food secure, such as diversifying cash cropping strategy. In comparison, when the 2010-2011 cold spell occurred, it had a fast rate of onset and lasted four days, during and after which farmers could only cope with economic losses and food insecurity triggered by the death of food and cash crops. Therefore, I find that the more sudden an event, the more drastic the impacts will be unless a careful policy of prevention and preparedness is put in place in order to help farmers. Depending on their long-term flexibility, ‘resilience thinking’ and actual access to resources, farmers will be more or less well positioned to sustain their livelihoods in times of and after a crisis (Berkes 2007, Rigg 2006). While government aid and relief operations seem to be standardized in theory, local officials and farmers on the ground reported various implementation measures, not always in line with planned measures (Section 7.2.3). As for prevention and preparedness, there did not seem to be much more than advice on ways to save water during drought, which suggests there is room for improvement. This highlights the complexity of China’s social and political structures that farmers need to deal with in times of crisis. This confirms the usefulness of a holistic approach to analyse households’ food systems and their coping and adapting strategies to climate shocks (Folke et al. 2002, Cutter et al. 2008, Ericksen 2008b, Ingram 2011).

8.1.3. Spatial, Social and Temporal Variables Among the Four Case Studies As a Han farmer, Mr. Hu managed to cope promptly with the drought by buying food in Lengquan market. His access to the market was facilitated by his proximity to both Lengquan Township’s main village and to the road and highway leading to Mengzi City’s numerous markets, less than an hour away from his home. Although he had adequate access to food to sustain his household, Mr. Hu complained about the duration and the timing of the drought encroaching upon the beginning of the growing season. As a cash crop farmer, Mr. Hu’s access to financial capital was limited during the drought because of low cash crop diversity. In the face of the long drought, he adapted by using loan money to buy more food, showing long-term flexibility. Access to resources, household resilience and food security were affected mostly by the prolonged drought’s bad timing for crop growth, while his location and ethnicity (via human capital and ethnic-based trust to gain a bank loan) strengthened his access to resources and reduced his vulnerability in non-crisis time. As opposed to Mr. Hu, Mr. Ma, a Yi farmer, who lives in the remote areas of Xibeile Township, has had less access to new cash cropping options due to his remote location, only starting cultivating tobacco in 2007. During the prolonged drought, Mr. Ma focused on short-term coping rather than adapting, as his access to resources and capitals was not adequate to engage in longer-term adapting strategies. Nonetheless, Mr. Ma’s multiple livelihood options including maize, livestock and tobacco allowed him to maintain a resilient livelihood by staying flexible and by focusing on maize cultivation for livestock and barter during this period. Therefore by maintaining a mixture of cash and non-cash livelihood options, Mr. Ma was able to ride out the drought. Perhaps one can thus argue that by being less vulnerable to extreme weather events initially, he was more flexible to stresses and shocks and did not need to engage in long-term adaptation strategies.

137 Discussion and Thesis Conclusion Chapter 8

Mr. He’s location in the remote, mountainous and high landslide risk area of Yaoshan Township has made this Yao farmer so vulnerable to flooding that he has taken the initiative to prevent flooding by investing in water pipe infrastructure, showing long-term adaptation to climate variability. The land he has access to near his house is limited so he claimed marginal land further down in the valley, also vulnerable to flooding and landslide impacts. As a semi-subsistence farmer, Mr. He has sustained a flexible and resilient livelihood approach as he both coped and adapted to the prolonged 2009-2010 drought by maintaining access to physical and human capitals, although his land location affected his access to natural and financial capitals. Finally, Hmong ethnic minority farmer Mr. Jiang’s case once again shows how location is of prime importance in access to livelihood options. Migrating from an upland village to settle in the lowlands near the river has improved his access to all types of capitals. His new lowland location enabled him to diversify his livelihood options through the cultivation of pomelo trees and maize as well as more state-sponsored banana plants. During adverse events, Mr. Jiang managed to stay resilient through the drought but was much more vulnerable when it came to cold spells and floods, both characterized by fast rates of onset, short and sudden impacts. Mr. Jiang stayed flexible and managed to deal with the 2010-2011 cold spell by combining his own coping strategies with help from his local government (10 kilograms of rice).

From interpreting these different variables among the four case studies, I argue that the more remote farmers are located, the more robust the coping and adapting strategies they develop and the more resilient their livelihoods are. This can in part be explained (perhaps ironically) by the fact that these remotely located farmers are outside the immediate radius of the local government, hence tend to rely on their traditional knowledge rather than relying on the government’s relief and aid to ensure the sustainability of their food system. On the other hand, Han and Zhuang farmers located closer to government’s offices tend to expect more government help in times of crisis. Likewise, more connected Han and Zhuang villages have quicker access to information about new farming activities and benefit more from government help during extreme weather events. Among these three variables – spatial, social and temporal – I find that farmers’ livelihoods are mostly defined by their location and ethnicity as they manage their access to resources and to various livelihood opportunities.

8.2. LIVELIHOOD DIVERSIFICATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION In the face of increased temperature and decreased precipitation since 2000, revealing more variability in terms of extremes (see Chapter 6, Section 6.1), farmers in Honghe Prefecture will need to persist in coping, but most importantly and essentially adapt in order to maintain resilient and sustainable livelihoods. In addition to higher climate variability, farmers also need to deal with increasing population putting more pressure on natural resources, especially on land and water resources (Chapter 6). I argue that farmers continue enhancing their livelihood diversification and remain flexible to positively adapt in the long-term. Combining several activities within one household was found to be beneficial as opposed to solely relying on cash

138 Discussion and Thesis Conclusion Chapter 8 crops. Cultivating stress-resistant cash crops, keeping a small portion of traditional food crops, focusing on livestock rearing, engaging in on-farm work within the community, and temporarily and seasonally working off-farm are livelihood options that can all be combined to diversify one’s income sources in case of external shocks. Concerns over increasing over-exploitation and degradation of land and water resources were reported to me during several interviews with farmers as well as government officials. Based on my findings, I argue that in the face of land resources degradation, in addition to the “Return Farmland to Forest” (Grain for Green) reforestation program explored in Chapter 3, policies to regulate access to undeveloped land on an eco-compensation basis could provide incentives for farmers to diminish deforestation and cultivate land sustainably. In addition, taking a bottom-up approach would be wise to more comprehensively understand cropping development and failures around new cash crops. In Hekou County where water is more abundant than in Mengzi, some villages have set up running water for each household with water meters, but these were not in use in 2011. I suggest that if farmers had to pay a small fee for water, this could help increase awareness and incentives to manage and save water at home and on land. Raising awareness about environmental conservation is already widespread in rural China via large propaganda posters and signs, however this is not always put into practice on the ground, as short-term economic incentives are often considered more valuable than long- term conservation.

8.3. THESIS CONCLUSION In this thesis I explored Han and minority nationality farmers’ livelihood options and strategies in non-crisis and crisis time in Mengzi and Hekou counties, Honghe Prefecture, Yunnan Province, southwest China. The aims of my research were first to examine the importance of cash crops and related subsidies for Han and minority nationality farmer households in Honghe Hani-Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan, China; second, to assess how extreme weather events affect these farmers’ livelihoods; and finally, to investigate the coping mechanisms they employ. After introducing my research in Chapter 1, I set the theoretical foundations of my thesis by outlining three bodies of literature – sustainable livelihoods, vulnerability and resilience to climate variability, and food security – that form my conceptual framework in Chapter 2. I then explored the environmental, political, economic and social context and introduced the livelihoods of minority nationalities of Honghe Prefecture in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4, I presented the methodology I used to conduct this research in the field and with climate data.

139 Discussion and Thesis Conclusion Chapter 8

These four chapters helped me frame the analysis of changes in agricultural land use and its impacts on access to resources to address my first research objective – to examine the importance of cash crops and related subsidies in Honghe Hani-Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan, China and their impacts on Han and minority nationality farmers livelihoods – analysed in Chapter 5. In the first section of Chapter 5, from interviews with both farmers and government officials, I discovered that the switch to state-sponsored cash crops was influenced by location, with villages located closer to the township transitioning earlier than those located in more remote mountainous areas. Thanks to this earlier access to cash cropping, these farmers had more diversified and resilient livelihoods. In the second section of Chapter 5, I focused on farmers who had switched to state-sponsored cash crops and found that this transition to cash crops was considered a positive move for these Han and Zhuang farmers who already had good access to a range of livelihood capitals as they lived closer to a township. In contrast, for farmers living in more remote areas with more marginal access to livelihood capitals, especially financial and social capitals, switching their livelihoods to solely cultivate cash crops was found to be a larger financial risk potentially leading to more vulnerable and food insecure livelihoods. Therefore, these farmers, mostly Yi, Hmong and Yao, decided to combine one or two state-sponsored cash crops with food crops and livestock rearing to reduce their overall vulnerability to shocks. Whether this decision was actually to not get too much involved with the State is also plausible. In Chapter 6, I turned to my second research objective – to assess how extreme weather events affect these farmers’ livelihoods. I first examined climate data from 1973 to 2011 and found that Mengzi County has experienced climate change, with higher temperature and lower precipitation levels in the last ten years. This change has translated into higher variability, bringing more extreme weather events detected at the monthly and daily resolutions. Triangulating daily climate data with empirical and secondary sources not only revealed the need and relevance to consider multiple angles of analysis to understand the local realities of climate change but also filled an important gap in the literature by analysing impacts of global climate change and variability at the local level. In the second section of this chapter, through interviews with Han and minority nationalities, I found that direct and subsequent impacts differed by event and their respective rates of onset, affecting farming, daily household activities and livestock rearing. In terms of being exposed to an extreme weather event, this analysis revealed that semi-subsistence farmers are not necessarily more vulnerable to climate shocks compared to state-sponsored cash crop farmers. In Chapter 7, I directed attention to my third research objective – to investigate government relief organization and the coping mechanisms farmers employ in the face of

140 Discussion and Thesis Conclusion Chapter 8 climate shocks. I first investigated the government’s aid and relief organization in theory, to then examine it through the four township governments of my field sites in times of and following natural disasters. Although one would expect to see a uniform system of aid in a socialist country like China, according to farmers and officials, it seems that there are some discrepancies in the distribution of aid in relation to location. In the second section of this chapter, I analysed farmers’ livelihood strategies and found that farmers use both immediate coping and long-term adapting strategies – oftentimes simultaneously – to face drought and floods, while they coped with rather than adapted to impacts from cold spells. I argue that distress diversification strategies are more commonly used in remote areas where minority nationalities have lower access to resources, whereas Han and Zhuang farmers develop progressive and selective diversification strategies as they benefit from higher linking social capital, which may open more options to gain higher financial capital. The conceptual framework that I designed in Chapter 2 has underlined these results chapters, allowing me to meet my research objectives. In Chapter 5, I used a sustainable livelihood approach to explore each township’s agrarian transition and its impacts on farming households’ access to assets and resources. In Chapter 6, I examined how extreme weather events affect one’s livelihood options and food security, using the dynamic framework from Cutter et al. (2008) of vulnerability and resilience to climate variability. Finally, in Chapter 7, I focused on the concepts of resilience as post-event situation and examined farmers’ consequent access to capitals through their coping and adapting strategies (Berkes 2007). The three results chapters have followed the structure of the three stages of Cutter et al.’s framework: antecedent conditions in Chapter 5, during the event in Chapter 6 and post-event resilience in Chapter 7. In sum, all the conceptual elements I used in this research involve dynamic and temporal elements, emphasising the fact that through time one’s livelihood can be sustainable when one stays flexible on the long-term to essentially adapt to climate variability and other external shocks. In this final chapter, addressing my fourth research objective, I drew out three significant variables, namely spatial, social and temporal, that emerged from the thesis’s three results chapters. These three variables, along with farmer flexibility and ‘resilience thinking’, appear to be core in determining whether farmers can sustain livelihoods in normal times but also when faced with climate shocks. In conclusion, agrarian change is rapidly altering the livelihood options for farmers in Honghe Prefecture. Numerous farmers have recently made the switch from cultivating subsistence food crops to state-sponsored and non-state sponsored cash crops. This is occurring concurrently with an increase in extreme weather events, notably drought, cold spells and

141 Discussion and Thesis Conclusion Chapter 8 floods, which are putting farmers’ resilience to the test. I have shown in this thesis that ethnicity, location, crop type and the duration of extreme events all impact the degree and means by which farmers cope with and adapt in the face of these events. Creating sustainable livelihoods is a demanding and complex day to day task when access to livelihood capitals can be severely limited emphasizing vulnerability and food insecurity, where local government support can at times be too late or too little, and where local indigenous knowledge can play a core role in maintaining flexible and resilient livelihoods. Finally, this thesis calls attention to the need for more studies combining qualitative and quantitative methods as well as micro-level ethnographies with macroscopic political analyses in order to allow for the sustainable use of resources by local farmers, contributing to their climate change adaptation without overwriting their local traditional knowledge.

142 Appendices

APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Ethics Certificate

143 APPENDIX 2 LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

Livelihoods- ID# Name updated Ethnicity GenderStatus Date Fieldsite City/Township County Elevation (m) Category- Results 1 001FMMr. Gao Yi M Farmers 19/06/2011 Market Yueyatang market,Mengzi Mengzi 1317 a) 2 002FMMs. Liu Yi F Farmers 19/06/2011 Market Yueyatang market,Mengzi Mengzi 1317 a) 3 003FMMr. Wang Han M Farmers 19/06/2011 Market Yueyatang market,Mengzi Mengzi 1317 a) 4 004FMMr. Hua Han M Farmers 21/06/2011 Market Caoba Mengzi 1283 a) 5 005FMMr. Ping & Ms. Pu Yi F Farmers 21/06/2011 Market Caoba Mengzi 1283 c) 6 001GXMr. Fei M Gvt_Cadres 23/06/2011 Xibeile Xibeile Mengzi 2029 7 007FL Ms. Xiu Han F Farmers 24/06/2011 Market Lengquan Mengzi 1654 f) 8 008FL Mr. Chang Yi M Farmers 24/06/2011 Market Lengquan Mengzi 1654 c) 9 009FL Mr. Li Han M Farmers 24/06/2011 Market Lengquan Mengzi 1654 e) 10 010FL Mr. Ku Yi M Farmers 24/06/2011 Market Lengquan Mengzi 1654 a) 11 002GL No name M Gvt_Cadres 24/06/2011 Lengquan Lengquan Mengzi 1650 12 011FM Mr. Tai Han M Farmers 26/06/2011 Market Dongjiao market,Mengzi Mengzi 1317 a) 13 012FMMr. Lu Han M Farmers 26/06/2011 Market Dongjiao market,Mengzi Mengzi 1317 a) 14 013FMMs. Meng Miao F Farmers 26/06/2011 Market Dongjiao market,Mengzi Mengzi 1317 a) 15 014FMMs. Kun Miao F Farmers 26/06/2011 Market Dongjiao market,Mengzi Mengzi 1317 c) 16 003GL Mr. Chao M Gvt_Cadres 28/06/2011 Lengquan Lengquan Mengzi 1650 17 004GL Mr. Zao M Gvt_Cadres 28/06/2011 Lengquan Lengquan Mengzi 1650 18 005GMMr. Shui M Gvt_Cadres 29/06/2011 Mengzi (Prefectural Gov)Mengzi Mengzi 1317 19 015FL Mr. Hu Han M Farmers 30/06/2011 Shanzui Lengquan Mengzi 1630 c) 20 016FL Ms. Xiao Han F Farmers 01/07/2011 Shanzui Lengquan Mengzi 1630 c) 21 017FL Mr. Liao Han M Farmers 01/07/2011 Shanzui Lengquan Mengzi 1630 c) 22 018FL Ms. Wa Yi F Farmers 01/07/2011 Shanzui Lengquan Mengzi 1630 f) 019FL/006GL23 Mr. Mu Yi M Farmers+Village committee 04/07/2011 Xinglong Lengquan Mengzi 1766 b) 24 020FL Mr. Pong Yi M Farmers 04/07/2011 Xinglong Lengquan Mengzi 1766 b) 25 021FL Mr. Luo Miao M Farmers 04/07/2011 Xinglong Lengquan Mengzi 1766 b) 26 022FL Mr. Ya Yi M Farmers 04/07/2011 Xinglong Lengquan Mengzi 1766 c) 27 023FL Mr. Mei Yi M Farmers 04/07/2011 Xinglong Lengquan Mengzi 1766 g) 28 024FL Mr. Feng Yi M Farmers + Business (our driver) 05/07/2011 On way back from LengquanLengquan (Xinglong) Mengzi -- f) 29 025FX Mr. Ma Yi M Farmers+Village committee 06/07/2011 Taqikou Xibeile Mengzi 2049 b) 30 026FX Mr. Xu Yi M Farmers+Village committee 06/07/2011 Taqikou Xibeile Mengzi 2049 b) 31 027FX Mr. Sun Yi M Farmers+Village committee 06/07/2011 Taqikou Xibeile Mengzi 2049 b) 32 028FX Mr. Fang Yi M Farmers+Village committee 06/07/2011 Taqikou Xibeile Mengzi 2049 b) 33 029FX Ms. Fu Yi F Farmers 06/07/2011 Taqikou Xibeile Mengzi 2049 b) 34 030FX Ms. Chen Yi F Farmers 06/07/2011 Xibeile main road Xibeile Mengzi 2029 c) 35 031FX Mr. Zhao Yi M Farmers 07/07/2011 Market Xibeile Mengzi 2029 a) 36 032FX Mr. Huang Miao M Farmers 07/07/2011 Market Xibeile Mengzi 2029 c) 37 033FX Mr. Pi Yi M Farmers+Village committee 07/07/2011 Market Xibeile Mengzi 2029 c) 38 011GX Mr. Bing Han M Gvt_Cadres 07/07/2011 Xiangtang Xibeile Mengzi 39 034FX Mr. Pu Yi M Farmers+Village committee 07/07/2011 Xiangtang Xibeile Mengzi 1915 b) 40 035FX Mr. Yang Han M Farmers 07/07/2011 Xiangtang Xibeile Mengzi 1915 b) 41 036FX Ms. Cheng Yi F Farmers 07/07/2011 Xiangtang Xibeile Mengzi 1915 a) 42 037FX Mrs. Zhou Han F Farmers 07/07/2011 Ganmaji Xibeile Mengzi 1900? g) 43 038FX Mr. Guo Han M Farmers+Village committee 07/07/2011 Ganmaji Xibeile Mengzi 1900? b) 44 014GXSunwen M Gvt_Cadres QQ Xibeile Xibeile Mengzi 45 012GYMr. Pang Yao M Gvt_Cadres 12/07/2011 Yaoshan Yaoshan Hekou 46 039FY Ms. Dong Yao F Farmers 12/07/2011 Dudian Yaoshan Hekou 813 g) 47 040FY Group/Village situation Yao F/MFarmers Group at lunch 12/07/2011 Dudian Yaoshan Hekou 813 b) 48 041FY Mr. Fan Yao M Farmers+Village committee 12/07/2011 Xiashuicao Yaoshan Hekou 857 b) 49 042FY Mr. Ding Yao M Farmers+Village committee 13/07/2011 Niutang Yaoshan Hekou 600 b) 50 043FY Ms. Zhu Yao F Farmers+Village committee 13/07/2011 Niutang Yaoshan Hekou 600 b) 51 044FY Mr. He Yao M Farmers+Village committee 14/07/2011 Wujiazhai Yaoshan Hekou 1246 c) 52 045FY Mr. Hui Yao M Farmers 14/07/2011 Wujiazhai Yaoshan Hekou 1246 b) 53 046FY Mr. Huo Yao M Farmers 14/07/2011 Wujiazhai Yaoshan Hekou 1246 g) 54 047FY Mr. Lin Yao M Farmers+Village committee 14/07/2011 Pojiao Yaoshan Hekou 425 b) 55 048FY Mr. Xie Yao M Farmers 14/07/2011 Pojiao Yaoshan Hekou 425 b) 56 049FY Mr. Song Yao M Farmers 14/07/2011 Pojiao Yaoshan Hekou 425 b) 57 050FN Mr. Han Zhuang M Farmers+Village committee 20/07/2011 Maduoyixiazhai Nanxi Hekou 131 c) 58 051FN Mr. Xun Zhuang M Farmers+Village committee 20/07/2011 Maduoyixiazhai Nanxi Hekou 131 h) 59 052FN Mr. Tang Zhuang M Farmers+Village committee 20/07/2011 Maduoyixiazhai Nanxi Hekou 131 c) 60 053FN Mr. Cao Dai M Farmers+Village committee 20/07/2011 Gehua Nanxi Hekou 266 d) 61 054FN Ms. Deng Han F Farmers 20/07/2011 Gehua Nanxi Hekou 266 c) 62 055FN Mr. Peng Dai M Farmers 20/07/2011 Gehua Nanxi Hekou 266 c) 63 056FN Mr. Tian Han M Farmers 20/07/2011 Gehua Nanxi Hekou 266 h) 64 057FN Mr. Ying Han M Farmers 21/07/2011 Maduoyixiazhai Nanxi Hekou 131 c) 65 058FN Mr. Shao Zhuang M Farmers 21/07/2011 Maduoyixiazhai Nanxi Hekou 131 b) 66 059FN Mr. Yu Zhuang M Farmers 21/07/2011 Maduoyixiazhai Nanxi Hekou 131 c) 67 060FN Mr. Xiong Miao M Farmers+Village committee 21/07/2011 Mayanhe Nanxi Hekou 280 b) 68 061FN Mr. Jiang Miao M Farmers 21/07/2011 Mayanhe Nanxi Hekou 280 c) 69 062FN Mr. Cai Miao M Farmers 21/07/2011 Mayanhe Nanxi Hekou 280 b) 70 007GNMr. Gui (agricultural dept) M Gvt_Cadres 22/07/2011 Nanxi Nanxi Hekou 113 71 008GNMr. Sheng M Gvt_Cadres 22/07/2011 Nanxi Nanxi Hekou 113 72 013GNMr. Zheng M Gvt_Cadres 22/07/2011 Nanxi Nanxi Hekou 113 73 063FMMr. Du NA M Farmers 07/08/2011 Market Qilong? Mengzi 1317 c) 74 064FMMr. Ye NA M Farmers 07/08/2011 Market Qilong? Mengzi 1317 a) 75 065FMMr. Wei NA M Vendors in the market 07/08/2011 Market Yueyatang market,Mengzi Mengzi 1317 76 066FMMs. Shen from Henan NA F Vendors in the market 09/08/2011 Market Yueyatang market,Mengzi Mengzi 1317 77 067FMMs. Cui from Hekou NA F Vendors in the market 09/08/2011 Market Yueyatang market,Mengzi Mengzi 1317 78 003R Mr. Qing NA M Researcher Kunming 1317

All participants were given pseudonyms to ensure anonymity Appendices

Appendix 3: Methodology for valuing the household asset base This scoring system is adapted from an FAO report (FAO-Bishop-Sambrook 2005). Valuing household asset base (a maximum of 5 points per asset base per household) Characteristics Scoring system Natural assets Low (up to 2 points) Middle (3 points) High (4-5 points) less than 10 mu (0.3- Land certificate (mu) 10-20 mu more than 20 mu 0.6 ha) represents a minority represents more than Reclaimed undeveloped land None compared to land land certificate's area certificate's area Rainfed area All Some None None or extremely Irrigated area Some Most small Physical assets household seeds, no seeds and fertilizers seeds, fertilizers and Inputs fertilizer (organic subsidized by the pesticides subsidized by fertilizer only) government or not the government or not Farm tools Basic chickens, pigs, buffalos Livestock None several chickens, pigs horse/donkey small house, sleeping medium size house, large house, furniture, mats, very minimal furniture Other household assets brick houses, TV, furniture (still has a mud/brick houses, TV, motorbike(s), truck TV), mud houses motorbike Financial assets Income per year less than 10000rmb 10000 - 20000rmb above 20000rmb through widely used none or through friends friends/relatives Access to credit through bank, credit and relatives through rural credit cooperatives cooperatives Remittances None limited significant various forms of savings Savings None limited (incl. Money, food...) some off-farm work Off-farm work None only off-farm work alongside on-farm work Human assets elderly, more than 70 50 - 60 years + young; middle aged (30-50 Household head: age/sex years old; Female Female & male years); Female & male household head household head household head Household size 4 - 6 members 6 - 8 members more than 8 members primary education; secondary school & Skills, knowledge limited skills literate; above; semi-skilled literate; skilled poor health caused by better access to health- poor nutrition & Health threats afford local remedies care facilities sanitation; cannot pay health insurance afford treatment Use of hired labour No limited extensive Social assets Bonding, bridging, Social capital Bonding only Bonding and bridging linking Access to knowledge & info Difficult ok - enough Easy

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