Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses how independent and uncertified organic farmers in China influence the regulatory oversight of food. Unable to oversee quality certification, authorities instead rezone land for organic purposes. If they can't certify the product, they will do better; certify the farmers.

Paper long abstract:

State authorities in China ready food for exchange through a regulatory process that confers quality certification. This can be as mundane as a quality stamp on the packaging. Even during times of crisis, state certification readies food for exchange. During the melamine infant milk powder crisis of 2008, consumers only returned to domestic brands once a new government stamp was introduced. Accordingly, food commodities are as Marx suggested; things for exchange.

But food safety is a problem. Some activism around the issue is tolerated. A new group of independent farmers have emerged, providing uncertified yet popular organic alternatives 'infused' with rurality and all it offers. Coarse rice becomes a wholesome rural staple - clean, healthy, hand-grown. Following Appadurai, these farmers are offering something different; the potential of rural empathy and better city living. Cleverly, these farmers promote 'unfinished' produce like coarse rice to avoid state oversight. Unlike white rice, course rice does not need quality certification because it has not been processed. Authorities seem to be excluded from overseeing this alternative food movement as consumers make their own decisions regarding whom to trust.

Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Shanghai and the surrounding countryside, this paper explore the behaviours of and interactions between farmers, who lie below the state's radar, and state authorities, who, unable to police the farmers (despite trying), decide to rezone land for organic purposes. If they can't certify the product, they will do better; certify the farmers.