Chinese Journal of Sociology

This paper attempts to explore the shifting relationship between farmers and agricultural technology in the process of agricultural transformation， taking into account the technological application difficulties faced by farmers in agricultural production. Based on the case study of Ji County in Hebei Province， this paper suggests that agricultural technology promotion has gone through three stages：namely， the state led stage during the collectivization period， the grassroots agricultural market-driven stage during the reform period， and the new agricultural management entities during the agricultural transformation period. Respectively， agricultural technology has been linked to the rural society and applied to agricultural production through three forms of organization-embedded， market-embedded， and capital embedded. However， the embedded relationship between agricultural technology and rural society is not necessarily realized through farmers’mastery and application of agricultural technology. When the promotion of plant protection technology is implemented through new agricultural management entities in the form of projects， agricultural technology has realised its transfer and redistribution from farmers to new management entities， and farmers have become increasingly disconnected from agricultural technology. On the one hand， by reconstructing farmers’ practical technology and raising the threshold of acquiring modern agricultural technology， the substitution of professional knowledge for practical knowledge has been accomplished. On the other hand， by increasing support for machinery purchase and project operation for new farm management entities， traditional services centred on mutual assistance and reciprocity among friends and acquaintance have been continuously squeezed out， reducing technical services to purely economic behaviors and substituting social relations with economic relations. The social and knowledge disembedding of agricultural technology has led to a disconnection of both technology and technology services from farmers. The agricultural technology modernization can not be separated from the agricultural modernization of farmers. Attention should be paid to the technological needs of small farmers， and the reconstruction of a socialised system of agricultural services with farmers as its core， and ultimately the modernization of agriculture and rural China with peasants as the subject.

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