There are several reason for this sense of helplessness among the peasantry, including the market economy’s disruption of the peasant economy, the irresponsibility of local governments, and peasants’ lack of social capital, but the fundamental reason is the disorganization of rural society. Rural society today lacks cohesion, “like a sheet of loose sand.” Disorganized peasant households, depending on individual strength alone, cannot overcome natural hardships, nor can they face the challenges of the market or encroachments on their interests, and their self-confidence inevitably declines. The source of peasants’ spiritual poverty, therefore, is their lack of their own organization(s), and their loss of collective solicitude. At the same time, urban culture promoting individual competitiveness and interpersonal alienation has flooded into the countryside, further affecting rural culture and worsening peasants’ spiritual poverty.

Comrade Liu Xiangbo (刘相波), better known as Liu Laoshi (刘老石), was the program coordinator of the Center for Rural Reconstruction at Renmin University of China, Ph.D. student at Renmin University’s School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, and founding director of the Liang Shuming Center for Rural Reconstruction. He passed away at 9:45 PM on March 24, at the age of 43, in the hospital of the Tianjin Armed Police Medical School, due to injuries from a traffic accident.

Food magazine Zester has just published a report and slideshow about the Anlong co-op by award-winning journalists Robyn Eckhardt and David Hagerman. Even if you’ve read my reports I recommend you check this out, since their experience with food and farming attuned their eyes to details that I missed, and needless to say their writing and photography are far superior.

Third installment of my series on alternative food networks and experiments with urban-rural relations in China, pointing out an interview and two reports, and introducing three more projects in Chengdu.

The Liang Shuming Center for Rural Reconstruction has just announced that this Saturday (December 5, 2009), the Rural Reconstruction Center of Renmin University will host a public symposium to reflect on the past ten years of New Rural Reconstruction efforts by student volunteers, social workers, academics, and grassroots activists. The occasion will also mark the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Liang Shuming Center, which has become a national center of this movement. Below I translate the schedule and a brief overview of the movement’s history.