Sources of Leadership in Village Mobilization for Sustainable Agrifood Initiatives: The Chinese Experience

In rural areas, the transition to sustainable agrifood practices presents significant obstacles for smallholder producers, in terms of both material updates and social restructuring. Strong leadership is crucial for mobilizing and coordinating collective efforts to tackle these numerous challenges. In China’s context, however, the mass exodus of young people from the countryside over the past three decades has led to a critical deficit of leadership in rural communities. This paper differentiates three types of villages according to the source of collective leadership: village authority, informal local solidarity groups, and outside activists. It then comparatively evaluates representative cases in their transition to sustainable agrifood alternatives. This study finds that cases led by the village authority tend to prioritize economic goals. Although their pursuits are more likely to be successful, these pursuits have lower degree of alterity, often overlooking social and ecological dimensions of sustainability. When local solidarity groups provide the leadership, they are highly motivated by certain sustainability goals, but their effectiveness in galvanizing collective action varies considerably and their ability to access external resources is severely limited. Finally, when outside activists take up the leadership role, they bring in novel ideas and external resources that can be transformative, but they face challenges in mobilizing local participation, fostering endogenous initiatives, or sustaining long-term commitment.