Enhancing Rural Resilience in a Tea Town of China: Exploring Tea Farmers’ Knowledge Production for Tea Planting, Tea Processing and Tea Tasting

Abstract

Rural areas have undergone visible transformations in recent decades. It leads to some ecological problems. Enhancing rural resilience is necessary in the face of these changes. However, previous literature often ignored the roles of indigenous actors in this process. Consequently, we conduct participant observation and in-depth interviews to explore the process by which local farmer knowledge is produced in Fenghuang, a rural area that concentrates on the tea industry in China, and how this process contributes to the agriculture resilience of individual and rural areas. We find that local knowledge is a dynamic composition of daily practice highlighting the nature of adaptability in farmers’ pursuits. Such knowledge is found to be constructed, exchanged, and then reshaped into a new and heterogeneous form that involves a mix of scientific forces and local practices, building a solid basis for individual and rural resilience. In addition, both sustainable agriculture and successful market promotion can be achieved by knowledge production. In this way, the meaning of “place” is reconstrued, morphing from a barren and backward rural area to a green and unique land with idyllic beauty. This metamorphosis offers belongingness to tea farmers and imposes on them the responsibility to contribute their efforts to the land.