About this episode

Forrest Zhang discusses four potential futures for China's countryside, exploring various agricultural scenarios and the shift from socialist to capitalist practices.

China's countryside isn't heading toward one future. Sociologist Forrest Zhang walks us through four different scenarios: suburbanizing villages turned tourist destinations, industrial-scale grain belts managed by smart phones, intensive vegetable farms facing a looming labor crisis, and aging villagers returning to subsistence farming. We explore the shift from socialist to capitalist agriculture, and ask whether the next era may take a "sustainability turn,” a door opened by a shrinking pop...

People in this episode

Guest: Forrest Zhang

Topics covered

• China's countryside
• agriculture
• sustainability
• sociology
• capitalism
• tourism

Keywords

• China
• countryside
• agriculture
• sustainability
• tourism
• capitalism
• labor crisis

Mentioned in this episode

Places: China

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