Sustainable Agriculture and Food: Four volume set (Earthscan Reference Collections)

276 Communities and Social Capital

The importance of social capital for the rural poor in marginal areas can be
assessed by studying the relationship between social connectedness and household
innovative capacity. The lack of external resources and support means that the poor
have to learn and diffuse new technologies by themselves. Here we use the term
‘farmer innovation circle’ (FIC) to refer to the informal networks, groups or mecha-
nisms used by farmers for their own technology development and sharing. We there-
fore pose three questions. Is there any evidence to indicate the existence and successful
functioning of FICs? If so, how effective are they in marginal areas in increasing
incomes for the rural poor? And finally, by what patterns and mechanisms do the rural
poor establish, maintain and develop FICs to enhance their innovative capacity?

Zhidan County: Background and survey methodology

A rural survey was conducted in north Shaanxi in the summer of 1997. Located at
the heart of the Loess Plateau, Zhidan is one the most ecologically fragile counties
of north China. Of its 3781km^2 land, three-quarters are affected by serious soil
erosion. In addition, Zhidan has the status of a ‘nationally-assigned poor county’,
which means it shares many common features with other ‘poor counties’ in rural
China. Table 15.1 highlights the several features of Zhidan’s rural economy.
Zhidan is an ‘agricultural county’ where some 90 per cent of its population are
dependent upon agricultural economy, which is similar to most of Shaanxi’s 102
counties. Although Zhidan was one of 50 ‘nationally-assigned poor counties’
within Shaanxi province, its rural income per capita and rural incidence are close
to the provincial average. Regarding sustainable rural livelihoods, Zhidan has an
advantage in grain production where the annual grain production per capita was
386kg/person, 54kg higher than the provincial average. But the average produc-
tion per area of farmland in Zhidan was about one-fifth of the provincial average,

Table 15.1 Secondary data on study area

Indicators Zhidan County Shaanxi Province

Rural share of the total population (%) 88 86

Rural net income per capita (yuan/person) 816 850

Rural poverty incidence (% of households) 20 18.5

Annual grain production (kg/person) 386 332

Annual grain production (kg/mu) 23 93

Cultivation of steep slopes

(% of farmland over 25o to total farmland)

29 16

Inorganic fertilizer use (kg/person) 222 446

Power of farming machine (kw/person) 1.7 3.4

Source: National Bureau of Statistics (2000), Shaanxi’s Agricultural Department (1996)
Shaanxi’s Agricultural Regionalization Office (1989). Data refer to various years in the 1990s