Mechanisms of rural revitalization through Pu'er tea industry development: A case study of Yiwu, Yunnan

Abstract

The present study uncovers the mechanisms of rural revitalization through Pu'er tea industry using the case of Yiwu, which is an underdeveloped town in Yunnan province. From the perspective of the industry and social economy, this study investigated the process and mechanisms of rural revitalization through Pu'er tea industry in Yiwu. The tea industry in Yiwu emerged in the Qing Dynasty (over 300 hundred years ago) and has experienced three development stages since then: prosperity, decline, and revival. By adopting semi- structured interviews and participant observations, the present study first analyzed different production organization modes and profit distribution modes formed in the process of revitalization of the Pu'er tea industry in Yiwu. This study then summarized the process and mechanisms of rural revitalization through the Pu'er tea industry. Three major findings can be obtained from this study. First, for rural villages with resource endowments, renewable, sustainable, irreplaceable and scarce natural resources are the most fundamental factors of production. For farmers, ownership of such resources can be an important guarantee for their livelihood and income. Second, resource endowment and transaction cost determined what kind of production organization mode and profit distribution mode the industrial subjects chose in a place. In the construction of the production and management system of modern agriculture, more indigenous tea farmers should be supported to build small and medium- sized processing tea factories to produce and process Pu'er tea. In combination with the Pu'er tea culture, local communities can be guided to transform from agriculture- led to the coordinated development of agriculture, processing industry and service industry, to enhance economic and social resilience through diversified industries. Last but not least, when promoting rural revitalization through industrial development, preferential policies should be formulated to clarify farmers' property rights to resources and improve farmers' capabilities. In the process of agricultural modernization, farmers should be encouraged and trained to improve their abilities and skills, which could help them participate in the processing and circulation, and transform from farmers to operators with the ability to process and sell tea products, so as to increase their incomes while realizing the identity transformation.