Rural Gentrification in Desakota : Farmland Politics, Alternative Food Networks, and the Emergence of New Farmers in Taiwan

Summary, in English

After post-war land reform that took place between 1949 and 1953, most Taiwanese farmers became owner-cultivators working on small landholdings. Post-war land reform paved the foundation for economic development and industrialization, processes that squeezed the agricultural sector and created changes in farming villages. When Taiwanese agriculture showed signs of stagnation in the 1970s, farmers’ perceptions of farming and landholding gradually altered, and resulted in changes in livelihood strategies. Although farmland was highly regulated and only allowed to be traded among farmers, farmland at peri-urban areas was often legally and illegally used or rented out by rural residents as sites for factories to help generate non-farming income. This situation changed after the amendment of the Agricultural Development Act in 2000, which opened up the eligibility of individuals with non-farming backgrounds for purchasing farmland — a small portion of which could then be used to build a farmhouse. Since a large proportion of the population was involved in agricultural production during the post-war period, this change in the use of farmland has created controversies over how farmland should be used and who should reserve the right to do so. This dissertation analyzes the relations between the farmland politics that emerged in the late 1990s and diverse rural in-migrations in Taiwan. It analyzes how deregulation of farmland policies have contributed to two processes of rural gentrification. On the one hand, rural gentrification is part of a continued process of deagrarianization, which has happened when farmers/landholders were given the opportunity to accumulate capital and change their social mobility during the farmhouse boom. On the other hand, farmland policies have allowed a small group of urbanite newcomers with limited experience with farming to adopt ecological farming. On social media, these newcomers are termed Smallholder Farmers (Xiao Nong) and New Farmers (Xing Nong). This dissertation suggests that the emergence of New Farmers in Taiwan constitutes a local response to the global alternative food movement, and that the New Famers’ enthusiasm for an agricultural lifestyle is a special case of rural gentrification. This dissertation is based on fieldwork in Yi-Lan and Hualien. Both counties are located in the eastern part of Taiwan and, over the past two decades, have witnessed in-migrations of both affluent households who have purchased farmland in the countryside to construct single-family villas (farmhouses) for their second homes, and New Farmers who move to the countryside to realize their dreams of becoming alternative food producers. These processes challenge us to think about the transformation of farming practices and the roles of farmland in regions that have highly mixed agricultural and non-agricultural uses of land, referred in East and Southeast Asia countries as desakota regions. New farmers’ experiences and challenges are mirrors that are useful for reflecting on Taiwanese agricultural development.

• Author: Chia-Sui Hsu
• Department/s: Department of Human Geography
• Publishing year: 2019-04-08
• Language: English
• Publication/Series: Meddelande från Institutionen för kulturgeografi och ekonomisk geografi. Avhandlingar
• Issue: 24
• Full text: - 10 MB; Download statistics
• Document type: Dissertation
• Publisher: Lund University
• Topic: Social and Economic Geography
• Keywords: Alternative Food Networks; desakota; farmhouse; new farmers; rural gentrification; Taiwan
• Status: Published
• Supervisor: Eric Clark; Tomas Germundsson
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISBN: 978-91-7895-074-4; ISBN: 978-91-7895-073-7
• Defence date: 23 May 2019
• Defence time: 10:15
• Defence place: Världen, Geocentrum I, Sölvegatan 10, Lund
• Opponent: Martin Phillips (Professor)