Professor Sigrid Schmalzer (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Chinese agricultural scientists are prominent actors in global movements to promote agroecological engineering and preserve agricultural heritage systems. This presentation will explore the diverse historical roots of the systems paradigm, along with the scientific and political work it accomplishes. The notion that Chinese farmers have traditionally viewed agriculture as an ecological system has inspired proponents of agroecology around the world. However, the mapping of such farming practices as systems of efficiently functioning components is a quintessentially modern way of thinking rooted in the application of scientific knowledge for the rationalization and control of nature and society. A deeper understanding of the history and current application of systems thinking in Chinese agriculture will help us more clearly identify where it inspires respect for ecological complexity and balance, and where it serves to justify and buttress state power.