Understanding the Rise and Fall of Rural Specialty Agriculture from Social–Ecological Land System Perspective: A Longitudinal Case Study in China

Abstract

Specialty agriculture, promoted in China to enhance rural revitalization and farmers’ wellbeing, depends heavily on local social–ecological conditions and land transformations. However, existing studies often emphasize socio-institutional successes while oversimplifying ecological complexity and neglecting failures. This study examines the rise and fall of rural specialty agriculture through a social–ecological land system perspective, using the cherry tomato industry in C Town, China, as a case study. Drawing on qualitative data from field investigations and interviews, we adapt an extended Social–Ecological Systems Framework (SESF) to analyze interactions among governance subsystems, land resources, and external shocks, and their role in social–ecological transitions. Our findings show that the shift from farmer-led self-organization to government-driven and enterprise-dominated governance significantly undermined system resilience and adaptability. Although external interventions initially spurred industrialization and scaling, they marginalized farmers, leading to the system’s collapse under stressors like market fluctuations and environmental challenges. Our findings highlight the importance of inclusive governance for sustaining land-based agricultural systems, and point to the need of prioritizing farmer autonomy, sustainable land use planning, and adaptive governance to ensure the resilience and long-term sustainability of specialty agriculture systems.

1. Introduction

In recent years, specialty agriculture has been actively advocated by the Chinese government across China’s vast rural areas in order to enhance farmers’ incomes, alleviate rural poverty, and implement the Rural Revitalization Strategy [1,2,3]. Specialty agriculture, as in the Chinese context, refers to place-based and economically competitive agricultural practices that take advantage of a region’s unique social–ecological conditions such as soil, climate, and other natural endowments [1]. In contrast to the often disorganized subsistence agriculture, specialty agriculture is developed to meet market and societal needs that typically requires economies of scale and organization of various agents [2,4,5]. On one hand, the development of specialty agriculture can yield a range of positive impacts on rural sustainability, e.g., increased income, restored ecosystems, and enhanced social capital [6,7,8,9]. On the other hand, however, specialty agriculture brings higher production costs and bears greater exposure to biophysical, socio-economic, and even political risks [6,10]. For example, studies have found specialty agriculture to be more vulnerable to changes in climate [11], water resources [12], and labor supply [13]. Moreover, the intensification of specialty agriculture often leads to the excessive monocropping of crops, which can contribute to land and environmental degradation, a decline in biodiversity, and adverse effects on environmental health, food security, and the long-term sustainability of agricultural systems [14,15,16].

Major advances have been made in the existing literature to explain the successful development of specialty agriculture, which highlights two development models in China: the top-down, government-led model versus the bottom-up [17], endogenous development model [18]. The former model is more commonly studied in the literature, with recognized governmental influences behind various successful cases [19,20]. Such governmental contribution is attributed to local government’s motivation rooted in top-down political pressure to fulfill administrative duties and indigenous economic pressure to increase fiscal revenues [21]. Specifically, local governments, following the general principles of national policies, have implemented various measures to stimulate the growth of specialty agriculture. These measures include special funding, financial policy support, strategic planning, establishment of demonstration agricultural zones, infrastructure development, facilitation of land access, technical support, information services, assistance in brand promotion, and regional marketing initiatives [1,22,23]. Notably, the government-led model also involves collaboration with the private sector in varying forms, e.g., by offering generous subsidies, favorable loans, tax exemptions, and land integration and agricultural support [24]. In short, China’s local governments have the motivation and capability to mobilize agribusinesses to enter the specialty agriculture sector. As a result, the traditional disorganized, scattered, subsistence-based agriculture in selected villages can transform into a more specialized, large-scale, market-oriented specialty agriculture, in a relatively short period of time [25,26].

In contrast, the latter model, which is less common in existing studies, emphasizes the leading role of farmers, growers, and the cooperatives they establish in initiating and promoting specialty agriculture [27,28,29]. Such successful cases often involve, in one way or another, a key agent other than the government—rural elites. Driven by economic, social, and/or political incentives [18] and thanks to their outstanding entrepreneurial skills and strong social capital, some of the rural elites, by chance or intentionally, take the lead in developing rural specialty agriculture by aligning local resource endowments with market demands and policy supports [30]. That said, farmers often form cooperatives with those rural elites as a core to take collective actions in mitigating the limitations of small-scale production and taking advantages of the scale economy associated with agricultural industrialization and commercialization [28,29]. For instance, in central Kenya, smallholder banana farmers have successfully facilitated the flow of information, the adoption of innovative technologies, and the upgrading of production systems through forming and participating in cooperatives. This has also helped strengthen the connection between farmers and emerging high-value market chains [31]. In Costa Rica’s Central Valley and Coto Brus, participation in cooperatives has had a positive impact on farmers’ decisions to grow specialty coffee and secure higher prices [32]. In Sedomyun, South Korea, local agricultural cooperatives play a pivotal role in organizing the export system for cherry tomatoes. The cooperatives collect the tomatoes from farmers and sell them to exporters [33]. These cooperatives can serve as a platform for smallholder farmers to cooperate, share information and risks, and address common challenges [34]. They often offer technical assistance and training, supply fertilizers and pesticides, provide seeds and seedlings, engage in processing, packaging, and marketing of products, and other information and services related to production technologies and marketing [17,35]. Such collective actions not only help farmers increase production efficiency and improve the quality and market value of specialty agricultural products [29,34], but also build rural community and sometimes contributing to improved eco-environment as well [27,34].

Notwithstanding the insightful research progresses, existing studies seem still insufficient in revealing the whole story about the development of China’s specialty agriculture. To begin with, specialty agriculture, by definition, is strongly dependent on the relative comparative advantages rooted in a village’s favorable social–ecological conditions. Such conditions can be in various forms of natural endowments, usually relating to land in one way or another. However, the ecological dimension of this story—particularly the roles of land in the development of specialty agriculture—remains surprisingly oversimplified and remarkably understudied. In fact, as the spatial nexus of social–ecological interactions and a productive base for agriculture in general [36,37], land is deeply involved in the development of China’s specialty agriculture. Specifically, first, China’s unique land tenure systems impacts the extent and type of involvement of small-scale farmers and enterprises in specialty agriculture. As a result, various agribusiness modes coexist, including contracted management, land leasing, and independent cooperatives [17,25,38]. Second, land transfer is a critical foundation for achieving economies of scale in specialty agriculture [38,39]. Promoting the concentration of land use can provide the necessary space for the development of specialty agriculture [40], thus improving the production efficiency and ensuring their long-term sustainability [39,41]. Third, land consolidation helps eliminate land fragmentation, expand the area of arable land, improve planting conditions, and enhance land quality and productivity, thus facilitating the expansion of agricultural production and the development of multifunctional agriculture [42,43,44]. Finally, the modes of specialty agricultural production also transform the use of farmland, affecting the farmland functions, production efficiency, and property rights realization methods. This shift leads to a transition from decentralized to more concentrated modes of production [45,46,47].

Another insufficiency of the existing more social-focused studies, which often take a socio-institutional or governance perspective, is their obsession with explaining the successful cases (e.g., [17,18,19,23]). Equally important, however, if not more, is the need of understanding why some cases failed. Additionally, the existing studies seem satisfied with their oversimplification of a dichotomy of stereotypes, namely, the top-down, government-led model versus the bottom-up, farmer-led model. The fact is that the governance subsystem itself often evolved over time along with the development of specialty agriculture. In other words, further needed is a dynamic instead of static perspective on the roles of the governance subsystem (and land resource subsystem) in the rise and fall and China’s specialty agriculture.

To help fill the above-noted two research gaps, here we present a longitudinal case study in Shandong Peninsula of China to reveal how the governance subsystem changed over time at different stages of the specialty agriculture development—from its endogenous emergence to rapid development, then to regional proliferation, and lastly to abrupt decline—while highlighting the involved land transformations and land-related sustainability impacts. In this sense, we explicitly take a dynamic social–ecological land system perspective, with our analytical framework adapted from the Social–Ecological Systems Framework (SESF) originally proposed by Ostrom and her colleagues [48,49,50]. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 details our research design; Section 3 describes the four development stages of our case and analyzes the social–ecological land transitions between the stages; Section 4 discusses the overarching social–ecological mechanisms underlying the rise and fall of the specialty agriculture, elaborates the roles played by the land resource subsystem, and reflects on policy implications for sustainability; and Section 5 concludes in relation to the broader theme of this Special Issue, “Advancing Sustainability through Land-Related Approaches: Theoretical Foundations and Empirical Investigations”.

2. Methodology and Materials

2.1. Framework for Analyzing Transition of Social–Ecological Land Systems

As modern society has evolved, there has been a growing recognition of the universality and complexity of interactions between ecological dynamics and social processes, as well as the formidable challenges they pose [51,52]. Over the past two decades, the idea of Social–Ecological Systems (SESs) has developed into a leading interdisciplinary research field that examines interdependent linkages between social and environmental change and how these linkages influence the achievement of sustainability goals [53,54,55,56,57,58]. Among various frameworks, the SESF [48,59] developed by Ostrom and others stands out as arguably the most comprehensive and widely recognized [57], offering a general tool for understanding and analyzing SES sustainability [48,52]. While SESF is applicable to different resource systems at varying scales [53], it has been particularly influential in analyzing small-scale public resource systems [60], with case-based qualitative studies being a common research method [57].

A SES is a complex adaptive system shaped by the intricate interactions and interconnections between social and ecological systems. In this context, an ecological system refers to a network of interdependent organisms or biological units, while a social system is a network in which organisms are similarly interdependent [61]. Ecological systems provide essential resources and services that sustain the functioning of social systems, while social systems, through management and utilization activities, influence the structure and function of ecological systems. The defining feature of SESs lies in the dynamic interaction effects and feedback loops between social and ecological systems [55,62,63,64]. Agriculture is a complex social–ecological system [52,64,65,66], and its evolution is the result of dynamic interactions and feedback loops between the social subsystem and ecological subsystem [56,67,68,69]. This has led to an increasing number of scholars employing SESF to study agricultural development issues. For example, Kopainsky and colleagues used SESF to analyze Switzerland’s agricultural system [70], while Dwyer and others employed an adjusted SESF to evaluate sustainable agriculture policies and initiatives across Europe [71]. Zhu and Wang, on the other hand, applied the SESF indicator system to explore the relationship between cooperatives and collective action among farmers [72].

Our study adapts the SESF with additional focus on its dynamic flows to explore how interactions between governance subsystems and land resource subsystem change over the course of specialty agriculture development and associated implications of such transitions. According to SESF (see Supplementary Figure S1a), the first tier of the specialty agriculture SESs comprises four subsystems: Resource Systems (RSs) (the resource system for specialty agriculture); Resource Units (RUs) (natural resource units, including land, soil, and water; biological resource units, such as crops, insects, and microorganisms; and technological resource units, such as greenhouses, irrigation systems, and drainage facilities, etc.); Actors (As) (government, enterprises, cooperatives, and farmers); and Governance Systems (GSs) (the governance network or institutions formed by these actors). These subsystems interact with each other, collectively influencing the Interactions (Is) and Outcomes (Os) in specific action situations, while being indirectly influenced by external factors. Additionally, they are embedded within and interact with larger social, economic, political (S), and ecological (ECO) environments [48]. According to Ostrom’s SES diagnostic framework [50] (see Supplementary Table S1), we developed an key variable inventory for each stage of the specialty agriculture development to analyze connections between specific variables. Importantly, our extension of SESF is focusing on the dynamic nature of the specialty agriculture SESs (see Supplementary Figure S1b), investigating the potential transition of social–ecological interactions over time [49].

2.2. Case Study Area: C Town of P City in Shandong Province of China

Case study as a widely used method requires the focal case to serve research purpose and needs researchers to collect comprehensive information on the focal case. Thus, we used the specialty agriculture of C Town in eastern China as our empirical case, which present typical rise and fall of development and allows us best available first-hand data. C Town is administratively subordinate to P City, a county-level city (cf. a county-level city in China corresponds to a county in the USA, in terms of its administrative level) under the jurisdiction of Qingdao, Shandong Province, situated in the southwestern part of P City (Figure 1). As of 2024, C Town spans an administrative area of 214 square kilometers, with 209,000 mu (1 mu = 0.1647369 acres) of arable land and a population of approximately 78,000. The terrain of C Town is predominantly flat, with the eastern area higher than the west, and the northern part higher than the south. Some low-lying regions feature weakly alkaline groundwater and soil. C Town experiences a warm temperate monsoon climate, characterized by abundant sunlight and frequent summer thunderstorms and floods. Historically, C Town has long been practicing traditional agriculture, predominantly cultivating crops such as wheat, corn, and cotton. Since the top-down movement of the Targeted Poverty Alleviation program in 2014, C Town was classified as an economically disadvantaged town by the Qingdao government. In 2016, C Town began to promote cherry tomato cultivation, and by 2019, it was recognized as a strong agricultural town by Shandong Province. In 2022, the town was honored as a National “One Village, One Product” Demonstration Town by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China.

Q Village, located 6 km northeast of C Town, is named for its low-lying terrain. In the past, Q Village primarily cultivated wheat and cotton. However, due to the alkaline soil and water, crop yields in Q Village were consistently lower than surrounding villages, with the average annual income per capita hovering around CNY 8000 to 9000, leaving many villagers in poverty. In 2008, under the leadership of the village head, a few proactive villagers began cultivating cherry tomatoes. This was the origin of the cherry tomatoes industry in C Town. By 2016, C Town had established a tomato poverty alleviation industrial park in Q Village. By 2019, over ten major investment enterprises, along with tens of hundreds of small agricultural companies, got involved in the local cherry tomato industry. However, by 2023, most of these enterprises had withdrawn due to years of financial losses, leaving increasing numbers of abandoned greenhouses behind.

The cherry tomatoes cultivated in C Town are primarily of the “Busan 88” variety, a herbaceous crop with a sugar–acid ratio of 12:3, offering a richer taste and higher vitamin content. Due to the region’s alkaline soil and mineral-rich water sources, the resulting tomatoes are notably sweeter and have a superior flavor. In 2020, the unique taste and high quality of the cherry tomatoes, influenced by the local environment, were recognized by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture as a national geographical indication protected agricultural product.

In terms of cultivation practices, cherry tomatoes are grown in greenhouses. These greenhouses were initially basic structures but were later upgraded to winter-heated plastic greenhouses with investments from both the government and enterprises. The greenhouses are equipped with drip irrigation systems, and there are government-built irrigation wells, roads, and simple roadside drainage channels nearby. Local practices do not include crop rotation, intercropping, or organic farming. Fertilizers and pesticides are applied frequently during the growing season, particularly in the summer when pests and diseases are most prevalent. Given China’s inadequate phytosanitary system—especially for non-export crops—phytosanitary products have never been used. Before farmers in C Town began growing cherry tomatoes independently, they consulted agricultural experts to test and analyze the local soil and climate and conducted a basic market survey. Based on this information, they chose to cultivate cherry tomatoes, experimenting with various varieties, ultimately selecting the “Busan 88” variety as the most suitable. When enterprises became involved, agricultural planting companies assumed responsibility for market demand analysis and planting decisions. However, neither the government nor the enterprises provided systematic training for the farmers, who instead relied on the exchange of cultivation experiences among themselves.

Unless seedlings die completely due to climatic factors or diseases, cherry tomatoes are typically grown in a single cycle per year. Planting begins at the end of August, with fruit production starting in November and continuing until June of the following year. Once harvested, the cherry tomatoes are initially sold by the cooperative to local buyers. After the enterprises became involved, the tomatoes are directly sold to large supermarkets in nearby cities. Most of the tomatoes are sold fresh, while lower-quality tomatoes are processed into jams.

2.3. Field Investigation and Interview

To track the long-term development of cherry tomato cultivation in C Town, we conducted four field investigations in P City, C Town, and Q Village: in August 2021, September 2022, July 2023, and May 2024. In addition to on-site observations and visits to local industrial parks and greenhouses, we conducted in-depth interviews with 20 individuals, including officials from the P City’s Agricultural and Rural Bureau, government staff from C Town, village head of Q Village, representatives from Huaken Agricultural Company, Ping Agricultural Tourism Group, Shi Agricultural Company, and local farmers and villagers (see Supplementary Table S2 for the interview list). Most of the interviewees were revisited during the four investigations, particularly government officials and key actors. The interviews were semi-structured, lasting over half an hour, with some key interviews extending beyond two hours. Additionally, we reviewed all available official documents, statistical yearbooks, and government reports, along with collecting printed and online promotional materials and news articles.

During the first two investigations, we focused primarily on the development trajectory of the cherry tomato industry and were particularly interested in understanding the roles of and interactions among the government, enterprises, cooperatives, and farmers as well as related land transformation in successfully developing this specialty agriculture. At the third field investigation, however, we recognized serious challenges facing this local industry. In fact, the situation deteriorated far more rapidly than anticipated—during the fourth investigation, conducted less than a year later, we observed large numbers of abandoned and idle greenhouses, and several of the companies we had interviewed the previous year had already left. We made efforts to reconnect with the original enterprises and farmers to understand why the local specialty agriculture experienced such a dramatic decline in such a short period.

3. Results

Based on consensus among key actors and consistency with second-hand data, the specialty agricultural development of the cherry tomato industry in C Town can be divided into four stages: endogenous emergence (2008–2015), rapid development (2016–2018), regional proliferation (2019–2022), and abrupt decline (2023–2024). The division into these four stages is primarily based on the involvement of different actors and the resulting significant changes in planting scale and industrial upgrading. For instance, after the government’s involvement, the planting area was expanded, and a specialized industrial park was established. The participation of enterprises contributed to a rapid expansion of the industry scale. We then employed the SESF, along with secondary variables, to conduct a detailed analysis of each stage, exploring how interactions between actors, governance systems, resource units, and resource systems, within specific political, economic, social, and ecological contexts, led to the evolution of the specialty agriculture and land transformations.

3.1. Endogenous Emergence (2008–2015), Characterized by Farmers’ Self-Governance

In this phase, under the political, economic, social, and ecological conditions of the time, a small group of farmers, led by the village head, initiated land consolidation and self-organizing activities that laid the foundation for the initial development of cherry tomato agriculture. Figure 2 illustrates the dynamics of the SES in this phase, while Supplementary Table S3 provides empirical evidence for the secondary variables.

① Ostrom identified ten key secondary variables influencing self-governance within SESs [48] (marked with * in Supplementary Table S3). The interplay of these variables contributed to the collective actions and self-organizing efforts of Q Village’s farmers to cultivate cherry tomatoes. Before 2008, Q Village had relatively abundant farmland, with 3423 mu allocated to individual households after the household responsibility system was implemented (RS3). However, the village’s low-lying terrain, alkaline soil, and frequent summer storms (ECO) made crop yields highly dependent on weather conditions (RS7). As a result, agricultural production was low (RS5), and many villagers lived in poverty. In 2004, Ju, an entrepreneurial and leadership-minded individual, was elected as the village head (A5). Upon taking office, he was deeply concerned about the poverty and underdevelopment in the village. In 2008, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the “Decisions on Several Major Issues Concerning Rural Reform and Development”, which called for the active promotion of modern agriculture (S4a). This reform direction ignited Ju’s entrepreneurial zeal. After learning about the successful greenhouse vegetable model in Shouguang, Shandong Province (S5), he quickly mobilized 18 villagers to start cultivating vegetables in greenhouses (A1).

② Once the proactive farmers were organized, they engaged in a series of collective actions involving interactions among themselves, external actors, and land and other resource units. Initially, the farmers undertook learning, consultation, and lobbying with external actors to obtain the necessary knowledge, experience, and resources. In 2008, the proactive farmers visited Shouguang to learn cultivation techniques. Ju also invited agricultural experts from Qingdao to assess the local soil and water quality. The tests revealed that the local soil and water are slightly alkaline, making the area particularly suitable for growing cherry tomatoes (I2). Ju then actively sought local government policies and loan support (I6). Furthermore, in order to consolidate land, the farmers negotiated land exchanges with other villagers on a 1:1.3 ratio (I3). Secondly, the farmers held collective discussions and made decisions about the development of specialty agriculture. After deliberation, they decided to grow cherry tomatoes (I3). Thirdly, they engaged with land and other resources. The proactive farmers consolidated 140 mu of contiguous land by exchanging land with other villagers (I10), built 18 greenhouses (I5, I10), and trial-planted tomato varieties suited to the soil conditions (I10).

③ The interaction between farmers and resources led to changes. By consolidating land, building greenhouses, and cultivating tomatoes, the economic value of land resource unit and their crops increased (RU4), their quantity grew (RU5), and their spatial distribution became more concentrated (RU7). In terms of interactions between resource units, compared to traditional farming, cultivating cherry tomato varieties that are better suited to the local soil and water conditions optimizes the use of land resources. Greenhouse cultivation also safeguards specialty crops from extreme weather, thereby stabilizing agricultural production. However, cherry tomatoes are water-intensive and susceptible to pests and diseases, requiring significant amounts of water, fertilizers, and pesticides (RU3) [73,74]. The above interactions, in turn, facilitated the expansion of the resource system. The farmers planted 18 greenhouses on the 140 mu of consolidated land (RS3, RS4), resulting in higher crop yields and greater economic returns (RS5). However, the predictability of the resource system decreased (RS7). During the first trial, the chosen cherry tomato variety failed due to extreme weather conditions and severe market homogenization, leading to lower yields and prices and significant losses for the farmers. Nevertheless, most farmers persevered.

④ The dynamic changes in the resource system led to new interactions. According to Ostrom’s research, a slight expansion in the resource system strengthens the motivation for self-organization, while decreased predictability can lead to larger-scale or higher-degree self-organization [50]. In this case, the changes in the resource system indeed reinforced the farmers’ self-organizing efforts and increased the level of organization within the self-governance system. After the first trial failure, farmers conducted market research (I9) and consulted experts (I2) to identify a more suitable cherry tomato variety, “Busan 88”, and after successful cultivation, they achieved higher economic returns. This success attracted more villagers to join, but Ju and others soon noticed that some farmers engaged in unhealthy competition and substandard practices (I9), resulting in conflicts (I4). As a result, they continued learning from the cooperative model in Shouguang. Based on the Farmers’ Professional Cooperative Law enacted in 2006 (S4b), the villagers, after months of deliberation (I3), established the “Q Village Fruit and Vegetable Professional Cooperative” in 2014 (I7), with Ju as the chairman and hundreds of local farming households as main members.

⑤ These self-organizing efforts led to the expansion, organization, and standardization of the self-governance system. The cooperative established a more comprehensive management and service system, guiding and regulating the actions of an increasing number of participants. The cooperative primarily provided services such as vegetable cultivation and sales, greenhouse management and maintenance, and the promotion of agricultural technologies to its members. It also addressed competitive chaos by directly liaising with buyers, overseeing operations, and disciplining members for improper behaviors. Moreover, the cooperative stipulated that farmers could join by contributing their land’s contractual rights at CNY 800 per mu per year. The cooperative would then collectively lease the land for greenhouse construction (GS5, GS6, GS8).

⑥ The dynamic interactions between the four subsystems produced noticeable social and ecological outcomes. Farmers in Q Village, leveraging local land resources and market demand, began developing greenhouse agriculture to cultivate cherry tomatoes, a high-value crop. This not only increased the villagers’ economic income but also significantly enhanced their self-governance effectiveness. The local specialty industry began to take shape, and the villagers’ economic income and self-governance effectiveness significantly improved. At the same time, the development of facility agriculture transformed land use, improving both land and production efficiency (O1). Compared to traditional farming, cultivating a single variety of cherry tomatoes in greenhouses is more likely to result in soil degradation, nutrient depletion, and loss of biodiversity. The increased use of plastic films, fertilizers, and pesticides also contributes to soil, water, and air pollution (O2). These factors create hidden risks to the sustainable development of specialty agriculture from the emergence.

3.2. Rapid Development (2016–2018), Characterized by Governments Interventions

In accordance with the national strategy to overcome poverty, local governments took proactive steps to promote the development of specialty agriculture rooted in local characteristics, leading to the swift expansion of cherry tomato cultivation in C Town. However, this also introduced new challenges. Figure 3 illustrates the dynamics of the SES in this phase, while Supplementary Table S4 provides empirical evidence for secondary variables.

① At the end of 2015, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council made landmark decisions concerning the national poverty alleviation strategy, mandating that “local party committees and governments at all levels must treat poverty alleviation as a major political task”. They also proposed specific strategies for target poverty alleviation and for developing specialty industry-based poverty alleviation (S4a). These politically driven poverty alleviation tasks and their rigid targets were passed down the vertical power structure, exerting pressure at all levels of government. Qingdao City, P City, and C Town governments rushed to identify and nurture potential industries for poverty alleviation within their locales. The rapidly expanding tomato industry in Q Village quickly caught the attention of the local government.

② In their effort to succeed in the national “poverty alleviation competition [75]”, P City and C Town governments strategically embedded themselves within the local specialty agriculture governance system, fostering its rapid development. This resulted in the creation of a new governance framework dominated by government leadership, with the cooperative at the core (G1). In this framework, local governments, utilizing their political clout and poverty alleviation resources, became the central decision-makers for the development of specialty agriculture, directly formulating plans and strategies for its macro-development (GS7). The cooperatives, acting under government guidance, assumed the role of operational managers, handling government investment projects, executing development strategies, and overseeing day-to-day operations (GS6, GS5).

③ Within the governance system of “Government-Cooperative” and its guiding principles, the government, cooperative, and farmers undertook specific actions to further develop specialty agriculture, engaging with resource units and systems. In 2016, C Town pooled CNY 5.4 million in poverty alleviation funds allocated by higher levels of government for six impoverished villages (I5) and consolidated over 260 mu of project land in Q Village to establish 36 high-standard winter greenhouses (I10), aiming to create a poverty alleviation industrial park (I11). The completed industrial park was then handed over by the government to the cooperatives for management. The cooperative was tasked with leasing out greenhouses, hiring workers, and providing leasing farmers with production plans, seeds, technical guidance, and market access service. Under the cooperative’s management and services, the farming model adopted by the farmers remained largely consistent with that of the initial stage (I11). Land transfers and consolidation, driven by government initiatives and supported by substantial poverty alleviation funding, provided the necessary land resources and improved agricultural infrastructure, both of which were crucial to the expansion of specialty agriculture. A significant portion of agricultural land, especially fields previously abandoned by farmers due to land salinization, was repurposed for protected agriculture, thereby increasing its economic value. As a result, the cultivation area of cherry tomatoes expanded, and the construction and utilization of new greenhouses significantly enhanced both the quality and yield per unit area, as well as the economic returns (RU3). By 2017, the cherry tomatoes grown in the 36 greenhouses were of exceptional quality (RU4), with the highest purchase price reaching CNY 12 per pound, and each greenhouse generated a net income exceeding CNY 140,000 (RU5).

④ The dynamic interaction between actors and resource units led to the rapid expansion of the resource system, the growth of agricultural infrastructure, and sustained improvements in productivity. In 2017, the poverty alleviation industrial park, covering over 260 mu and comprising 36 greenhouses, produced 1.12 million jin (1 jin = 1.1023 pounds) of cherry tomatoes, generating over CNY 5.6 million in sales revenue (RS3, RS4, RS5).

⑤ The rapid growth of the resource system signified a new phase in the development of specialty agriculture. The implementation of the government’s poverty alleviation projects not only brought in construction funds but also revitalized the land and labor in six surrounding impoverished villages. The previously fragmented or idle land was consolidated and developed into a poverty alleviation industrial park, generating employment opportunities for hundreds of impoverished farmers in the surrounding areas. Land use became more efficient, agricultural output and economic returns improved, benefiting a greater number of surrounding villages and farmers. The project has generated no less than CNY 50,000 in collective income for the six impoverished villages annually (O1). However, it is somewhat regrettable that the local government, which relied on poverty alleviation projects to promote the development of agriculture, provided only national poverty alleviation funds and land use incentives to facilitate the quick implementation of the project, but failed to offer further support or guidance to the cooperative and farmers. Even in planning specialty agriculture, the focus has been primarily on expanding the scale of specialty crop cultivation in the short term to achieve the goal of economic poverty alleviation for more farmers, rather than considering the ecological balance and sustainable land use (O2). Moreover, after the rural tax and fee reforms and restructuring of township governments (S4b), C Town lost its primary fiscal sources, and its administrative capacity diminished. After using the initial special funds for industrial park construction, the local government struggled to provide continued support. These issues led C Town’s specialty agriculture to quickly enter a period of stagnation in sustained development after initial gains from poverty alleviation investments.

3.3. Regional Proliferation (2019–2022), Characterized by Market-Driven Investments

The rapid development and agglomeration effect of C Town’s specialty agriculture sector attracted a significant influx of investment from both enterprises and agricultural companies. The infusion of commercial capital, combined with the professional management of agricultural businesses, has propelled the large-scale, intensive, and industrialized expansion of specialty agriculture. However, this growth has also been accompanied by the marginalization of the cooperative and farmers [25,40,76]. Figure 4 illustrates the dynamics of the SES in this phase, with Supplementary Table S5 providing empirical evidence regarding the secondary variables.

① In China, both industrial and commercial capital, as well as agricultural enterprises, are recognized as pivotal forces in driving agricultural reform and modernization [25]. In 2013, the central government issued policies encouraging industrial and commercial capital to invest in modern agricultural practices in rural areas (S4c). By the end of 2017, the country initiated the Rural Revitalization Strategy, which explicitly called for promoting investments by industrial and commercial capital in agricultural projects suitable for industrialization and large-scale operations (S4a). The revision of the “Land Contract Law” in 2018 institutionalized the “separation of three rights” land reform system, reinforcing the legal standing of industrial and commercial enterprises (S4b) [77]. These national policies provided strong institutional support for agricultural enterprises to engage in specialty agriculture. Moreover, the agglomeration effect and notable benefits of C Town’s specialty agriculture attracted profit-seeking capital, while the sector’s inherent development challenges called for the intervention of enterprises. Around 2019, spurred by robust local government efforts to attract investment, C Town’s tomato industry drew over a dozen companies, including large state-owned enterprises like Ping Agricultural Tourism Group and private agricultural firms such as Huanken Agricultural Company (GS2a).

② With the entry of enterprise actors, the governance system of specialty agriculture shifted to a new “Government-Enterprise-Cooperative” model, prompting changes in governance rules. In this framework, new relationships and interactions were established between the government, enterprises, cooperatives, and farmers. The local government assumed the dual responsibility of “poverty alleviation and effective linkage with rural revitalization”, attracting industrial and commercial capital, as well as leading enterprises, by offering policy support and land incentives to accelerate the industrialization and scaling of specialty agriculture. Faced with management challenges, the cooperative relinquished management rights to more capable enterprises, focusing instead on serving as intermediaries for land transfer. Enterprises, in turn, assumed responsibility for managing and operating industrial parks, frequently employing farmers for cultivation (GS5, GS6).

③ Under the “Government-Enterprise-Cooperative” governance model, various actors and resource units interacted dynamically with resource systems. Firstly, the government’s interaction with the resource system evolved from internal industrial planning to external industrial packaging and brand promotion. Both P City and C Town governments rebranded agricultural industrial parks multiple times. The initial poverty alleviation industrial park was renamed several times, first to “Farmers’ Entrepreneurship and Innovation Park” (also known as “Farming Innovation Body”), then to “Modern Characteristic Industrial Park”, “Tomato Town”, and finally “Xiangyang Common Prosperity Industrial Park”. Additionally, the C Town government took over the private Tomato Festival, elevating it to an official event, the “C Town Tomato Exhibition and Trading Fair and Tourism Culture Festival”. The government also strengthened media promotion, with the local tomato industry being featured in national-level official media outlets (I11). Through these actions, the local government successfully turned agricultural development into tangible political achievements. However, the emphasis on industrial planning and support considerably diminished. Secondly, due to limited managerial capabilities, the cooperative no longer managed the industrial parks but instead focused on facilitating centralized land transfer services (I10). Thirdly, large state-owned enterprises primarily engaged in investment and construction (I5), erecting numerous intelligent greenhouses and independent modern industrial parks on large-scale contracted farmland (I10). Smaller agricultural companies rented land and greenhouses from these enterprises. Moreover, enterprises took over the daily management of industrial parks, including soil improvement, facility maintenance, technical support, and product sales (I11). Finally, farmers who transferred their land were predominantly employed by enterprises to carry out tasks such as planting, harvesting, and packaging. A few farmers leased greenhouses from enterprises for independent cultivation.

④ The involvement of enterprises introduced higher capital investment, as well as more advanced agricultural technologies and operational management systems. The local government provided significant policy incentives, facilitating access to large, contiguous plots of land, while the cooperative successfully connected farmers to implement large-scale land transfers. Through the combined efforts of all three parties, the number of greenhouses and the planting area saw substantial growth, agricultural facilities and cultivation technologies were upgraded, and the yield and quality of the products improved. Consequently, the asset value and economic returns of the land resources also increased (RU3). As a result, the scale of the specialty agriculture system expanded considerably, with a marked increase in output value, achieving both large-scale operations and commercialization. By 2019, P City had attracted over CNY 500 million in investment, leading to the construction of more than 1000 greenhouses (RU5), each generating an average net income of CNY 200,000 (RU4). By 2022, the number of greenhouses exceeded 2400 (RS4), covering more than 15,000 mu (RS3) of land, with an annual output of 90 million jin and annual sales revenue reaching CNY 1.03 billion (RS5). Furthermore, the proactive industrial packaging and brand promotion efforts of the local government rapidly elevated the profile and reputation of C Town’s specialty agriculture. In just a few years, the town’s poverty alleviation industrial park was transformed into a national-level rural revitalization demonstration area, becoming a prominent political achievement for the governments at the municipal, district, and town levels.

⑤ After enterprises integrated into the governance system, C Town’s specialty agriculture experienced rapid large-scale development and industrialization. The large-scale land transfer had, to some extent, optimized the allocation of land resources, providing essential support for the development and upgrading of specialty agriculture. The enterprises’ unified management and efficient utilization of land resources had effectively enhanced the efficiency, asset value, and economic returns of agricultural land. Through its specialized cultivation methods and market-oriented operations, the enterprises had increased the economic value of specialty agriculture, facilitated the return of villagers to employment in their hometowns, boosted both individual and collective incomes, and revitalized rural development, thereby making a substantial contribution to rural poverty alleviation and revitalization (O1). However, driven by short-term economic incentives, the large-scale and intensive land use and cultivation models adopted by the enterprises had weakened the ecological resilience of the specialty agriculture. The greenhouse transformation of large-scale farmland not only encroached on essential arable land but also exacerbated environmental issues, including excessive consumption of water resources and energy, overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and plastic pollution. Furthermore, the long-term reliance on monocropping had amplified risks such as soil degradation, increased pest outbreaks, loss of biodiversity, and contamination from fertilizers and pesticides (O2). Additionally, the involvement of enterprises had significantly diminished the influence of farmers and their self-governing organizations within the governance subsystem. The farmers’ cooperative lost their decision-making, management, and control powers. Farmers who transferred their land to enterprises and became laborers grew increasingly detached from the land, losing their initiative and agency in agricultural development. These outcomes could present potential risks to the long-term sustainability of specialty agriculture.

3.4. Abrupt Decline (2023–2024), Characterized by Systematic Vulnerability

Since 2023, under the combined pressures of social, political, economic, and environmental risks, the cherry tomato industry in C Town has experienced a dramatic decline. Several companies have withdrawn after years of sustained losses, leaving a significant number of greenhouses idle and vast areas of farmland abandoned. Figure 5 illustrates the dynamics of the SES in this phase. Empirical evidence for secondary variables is provided in Supplementary Table S6.

① Since 2023, the political, economic, and environmental conditions affecting the development of the specialty agricultural sector have undergone a series of significant transformations. Politically, the revision of the “Regulations on Accountability of the Communist Party of China” by the Central Committee has led to a marked increase in political accountability (S4). Economically, the protracted effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the extended control measures have intensified, resulting in long-term disruptions in social production and stagnation in economic growth (S1). Additionally, with the market’s shift in tomato varieties, the price of the single-crop, highly homogeneous “Busan 88” variety plummeted (S5), falling sharply from CNY 14 per jin to a mere CNY 3 (RU4). In terms of environmental factors, in 2023, frequent heavy rainfall occurred (ECO1). Due to the low-lying topography of the specialty agriculture area (ECO4), compounded by the dilapidated state of the greenhouse back walls and drainage systems (RS4) led to flooding inside the greenhouses. As a result, a large number of tomato seedlings perished due to prolonged submersion, and some greenhouses collapsed due to water accumulation (RU5). At the same time, the long-standing highly intensive and excessive monocropping of greenhouse-based specialty agriculture began to reveal its detrimental effects on land resources and the agricultural ecosystem. Soil nutrient imbalance, severe compaction, salinization, and a marked increase in alkalinity became increasingly evident (ECO4). Furthermore, the continuous monocropping of “Busan 88” over the years had exacerbated pest and disease issues (RU3). These combined factors had resulted in a decline in both the quality and yield of tomatoes (RU5).

② The changes in the external environment and the resulting dynamics of resource units and systems have directly influenced the motivations of key actors. For the government, as the specialty agricultural sector developed and upgraded, the marginal returns from continuous investment and policy support in terms of industry growth and political achievements have diminished [78]. Furthermore, in the previous stage, the three levels of government and their officials had already maximized their political returns. Government departments received accolades from the central government, and many officials were promoted. However, with the increased pressure of political accountability and growing industry risks, local governments’ motivations have shifted from seeking political gain to avoiding political fallout. In essence, the drive to continue supporting the tomato industry has markedly weakened. For businesses, driven by the pursuit of high returns and low-risk opportunities, capital investment is particularly sensitive to market demand and price fluctuations [19,24]. The scaling, marketization, and industrialization of operations carry higher costs and greater risks. In 2023, with yields sharply dropping and prices remaining low, agricultural enterprises and growers suffered substantial losses. Farmers who rented greenhouses struggled to meet rental payments, and the laborers saw their earnings sharply reduced. For the farmer cooperative managed by village committees, their focus shifted towards land transfers, village affairs management, and rural construction after enterprises took over operations.

③ This situation has prompted the government, enterprises, cooperative, and farmers to widely adopt exit strategies. While the tomato industry remains a distinctive feature of the region, the local government’s attention has shifted towards supporting other specialty agricultural products, such as carrots, in an effort to create new political achievements. Concurrently, industry promotion activities, including media coverage and cultural festivals, have essentially come to a halt. Numerous small and medium-sized agricultural companies, after years of financial losses, have ceased operations and withdrawn from C Town. Large investment companies, still holding land management rights and greenhouse ownership due to unexpired land transfer contracts, have suspended maintenance and operations of facilities due to poor returns. As enterprises gradually withdraw, the cooperative have largely ceased their services and activities. On the individual farmer level, with the exception of a few self-operating greenhouse growers, most farmers who had rented greenhouses have relinquished their leases. Migrant workers, who lost their job opportunities after the enterprises left, have been forced to return to cities to find work.

④ As the government and cooperative effectively withdrew, enterprises followed suit, and most farmers abandoned cultivation, the “Government-Enterprise-Cooperative” governance systems collapsed, losing its rule-setting and governance functions. Due to neglect and lack of maintenance, the actual planting area in greenhouses sharply declined (RU5), and many greenhouses remained idle for extended periods (RS4), no longer generating any economic value (RU4). Since the land transfer contracts had not yet expired, a substantial portion of the greenhouse land cannot be reclaimed or re-cultivated in the short term, resulting in the prolonged abandonment of large tracts of land (RU3). The tomato cultivation area shrank rapidly (RS3), and production dropped dramatically (RS5). These developments clearly reflect the significant decline of the tomato industry in C Town.

⑤ The decline of the tomato industry in C Town has led to a cascade of negative consequences. From a socio-economic perspective, the decline weakened the market competitiveness and regional distinctiveness of agricultural products, potentially leading to a return to traditional, inefficient farming methods. As a key economic pillar for local farmers, the decline in cherry tomato cultivation had directly resulted in a sharp reduction in farmers’ incomes, with some facing livelihood difficulties. This shift had also triggered a new wave of rural labor outflow, exacerbating rural depopulation. Furthermore, the industry’s decline had led to reduced activities within farmers’ cooperative and collective economic organizations, weakening rural social cohesion and governance capacity (O1). At the agricultural ecosystem level, the widespread abandonment of greenhouses and the long-term neglect of large tracts of farmland had not only resulted in the extreme waste of arable land resources but had also intensified the contradiction between peasants and land. The issues caused by the long-term monoculture agricultural, such as soil degradation, water pollution, and biodiversity loss, were also difficult to naturally restore in the short term (O2). In conclusion, the decline of specialty agriculture is a direct consequence and external manifestation of the imbalance in the internal interactions and the misalignment of the human-environment relationship within SES.

4. Discussion

4.1. Theoretical Rationale Underlying the Rise and Fall of Specialty Agriculture

In recent years, the Chinese government has made substantial efforts to promote rural specialty agriculture, viewing it as a critical strategy for achieving targeted poverty alleviation and rural revitalization. Additionally, it is seen as an effective means of agricultural structural adjustment, increasing farmers’ incomes, and driving agricultural modernization. However, from the perspective of agricultural practice, some regions have experienced a phenomenon of “short-term prosperity” in the development of specialty agriculture, where industries rapidly shift from rise to fall [78,79]. The cherry tomato industry in C Town stands as a quintessential example of this trend.

The dynamic SESF analysis of the four development stages in C Town vividly illustrates its development trajectory (Figure 6). Driven by the social, economic, and political settings, the participation of farmers, government, and enterprises in the development of C Town’s specialty agriculture has shaped its path, transitioning from a livelihood logic to alternating political logic and market logic.

In the early stages, local farmers, seeking to increase their income and resolve poverty and livelihood issues, spontaneously cultivated tomato varieties suitable for the local soil and climate, thereby achieving higher economic returns. To stabilize and organize agricultural production, farmers self-organized into cooperatives, establishing effective self-governance and fostering the endogenous emergence of specialty agriculture. Later, faced with the dual political tasks of poverty alleviation and rural revitalization, the local government, eager to meet performance assessments, create political achievements, and accumulate promotion capital, rushed to rapidly expand the scale and visibility of specialty agriculture. To accelerate this process and streamline governance, the government actively attracted external investments. Enterprises, driven by economic interests and incentivized by government, joined the initiative, following a market-driven approach. These enterprises, oriented towards market demand and profit maximization, implemented large-scale monoculture and highly intensive greenhouse farming, thereby accelerating the commercialization and industrialization of specialty agriculture.

In China, where government intervention is high and social organizations are relatively weak [80], the political logic followed by the government plays a decisive role in shaping the trajectory of specialty agriculture. Under the dominance of political logic, the market-driven logic of enterprises gradually replaced the livelihood logic of farmers. This shift is reflected in the SES, where the involvement of the government and enterprises progressively diminished the role of farmer cooperatives and farmers in the governance system. Their governance function and agency were eroded, eventually marginalizing the farmers and their self-governing organizations. This was the primary driver behind the rapid decline of specialty agriculture in C Town.

As Ostrom’s profound insights have pointed out, externally imposed, larger-scale governance systems may destroy the existing governance mechanisms within an SES, thereby hindering the achievement of long-term sustainability [50]. In the case of C Town, under the dominance of political logic, the local government focused on rapid industrial expansion and immediate income increases for farmers, neglecting the protection of land resources, agricultural landscapes, and the agricultural ecosystem. This tendency was reflected not only in the lack of long-term sustainable development planning but also in the absence of specific guidance and effective regulation for farmers and enterprises. Under the influence of market logic, enterprises prioritized profit maximization, which exacerbated resource overconsumption and environmental degradation. More significantly, the marginalization of farmers and their organizations not only led to the gradual erosion of traditional knowledge and local expertise but also greatly reduced the agricultural system’s capacity to withstand stress and unexpected shocks [81], making it more vulnerable to external disturbances such as climate change and market fluctuations [82]. The case of C Town deeply illustrates the sustainability dilemma caused by improper external governance interventions and an imbalanced internal governance structure. In other words, the sustainable development of the specialty agriculture SESs must achieve a positive interaction and dynamic balance between the governance systems and the resource systems.

4.2. Governance–Land Interactions and Feedbacks in Transition of Specialty Agriculture SES

Arable land serve as the spatial carrier and core production factor for the development of specialty agriculture, playing an essential role in supporting its growth. At the early stage of the development of specialty agriculture in C Town, the area’s abundant arable land and slightly alkaline soil provided the foundation for the cultivation of cherry tomatoes. The farmers, acting voluntarily, integrated fragmented farmlands, built greenhouse facilities, and introduced cherry tomato varieties with higher added value. These activities successfully turned a small portion of the farmland into specialty agricultural land, significantly improving land use efficiency and economic returns. Subsequently, the government took the lead in implementing large-scale land transfer and land consolidation, which not only facilitated the effective integration of arable land but also promoted the scale and intensive management of specialty agriculture. This further enhanced the efficiency, economic returns, and asset value of the farmland, accelerating the transformation of land use patterns and the productive function of the land [83].

However, large-scale land transfer led to a widespread conversion of basic farmland into greenhouse agricultural land for a single economic crop, posing a threat to food security and the continuous provision of ecological services. Land resource management has always required a delicate balance between economic development and farmland protection. Entering the 21st century, the Chinese central government has consistently strengthened farmland protection, with the 2008 policy clearly demarcating 1.8 billion mu bottom-line of basic farmland reserve. However, to meet the needs of modern agriculture, the country has adopted relatively flexible and lenient management of facility agriculture land. For example, the 2019 policy allowed the use of permanent basic farmland for facility agriculture, provided the cultivation layer remains intact [84].

Thanks to the flexibility of national policies and proactive promotion by local governments, C Town was able to use 15,000 mu of farmland to develop greenhouse cherry tomato agriculture. However, the unchecked expansion of greenhouse agricultural land had encroached upon food-growing land, exacerbating the trend of “non-grain conversion of cultivated land”. In grassroots practices, the definition of facility agricultural land is ambiguous, regulatory oversight is difficult, and the costs of land reclamation and cultivation are high, making recycling difficult [85]. In the construction of the industrial park and demonstration area in C Town, extensive ground hardening for roads, buildings, and storage areas damaged the farming layers of certain farmlands. After the decline of the industry, large areas of farmland were left fallow for extended periods due to contractual constraints and the high costs of restoration.

Furthermore, the expansion of greenhouse agricultural land has significant ecological negative externalities, including increased greenhouse gas emissions, soil acidification, salinization, nutrient imbalances, severe pollution from fertilizers, pesticides, and plastics, loss of biodiversity, increased crop pests and diseases, and the destruction of agricultural landscapes [86].

In summary, during the development of specialty agriculture, the interactions between the governance systems and farmland resources has led to a transformation in land use and triggered a series of socio–ecological outcomes. These outcomes, through feedback mechanisms, further propel the dynamic evolution of farmland resources and the specialty agriculture system. Unlike small farmers who are deeply connected to the land and possess local knowledge [87,88], the government and enterprises, driven by short-term profit maximization, often neglect the long-term value of farmland, including food security, ecological services, and social security functions. Due to an excessive pursuit of economic profits in the development of specialty agriculture, the government failed to guide the industry toward eco-friendly practices, while farmers and enterprises lacked green and organic farming practices, thereby hindering the sustainable development of specialty agriculture and the sustainable use of land resources.

4.3. Policy Implications for Sustainable Development of Specialty Agriculture

In China’s agricultural development blueprint, driven by political motives, the government is committed to rapidly realizing the large-scale, modernized, and commercialized operation of agricultural enterprises [89]. However, this study uncovers a paradox: driven by short-term interests, both the government and enterprises—while advancing the development of specialty agriculture—may marginalize farmers and their self-governed organizations. Furthermore, the excessive monoculture farming and neglect of agricultural ecosystem dynamics could undermine the sustainable of specialty agriculture development and the agricultural land use. From this perspective, the C Town fails to provide a viable path for promoting sustainable agricultural and rural development.

In contrast, successful cases from other countries illustrate a very different approach. Dorsey’s early study on the development of specialty coffee cultivation in central Kenya reveals that, the diversification of specialty crops and small-scale production is more conducive to successful commercialization. This not only boosts coffee yields and farmers’ income but also optimizes the use of increasingly fragmented land resources. Similarly, Roest and the colleagues, in their comparative study of vegetable and fruit farming development across seven EU member states, argue that the high degree of agricultural specialization and scale diminishes the economic resilience of farms. In contrast, small-scale, diversified farming, along with well-developed farmer networks, plays a crucial role in building a more resilient and sustainable agricultural system. A more comparable example to China’s agricultural development context is Japan [90]. In 1961, Oyama Town in Oita Prefecture launched the One Village, One Product (OVOP) movement, encouraging farmers to transition from traditional rice farming to a diverse range of specialty crops, including chestnuts, mushrooms, and herbs. The movement adhered to principles of local wisdom and resource conservation. This initiative achieved remarkable success. Subsequently, the governor of Oita Prefecture promoted the OVOP movement across the entire region, urging each village to specialize in producing one unique product. Unlike C Town, however, the local government’s role in OVOP was primarily catalytic—emphasizing community-driven development rather than heavy reliance on government support. It viewed local governments as facilitators, not as direct providers of subsidies for farmers [91]. Some scholars assert that the sustainable development of specialty agriculture in Oita is rooted in three key principles: “local yet global”, “self-reliance and creativity”, and “human resource development” [92].

By contrasting the failure of C Town with the successes of these international examples, the following policy recommendations can be made for the development of rural specialty agriculture in China:

• Farmers and their self-governing organizations are critical to the sustainable development of specialty agriculture. Local governments should be cautious to protect and nurture the elements of farmers’ autonomy, rather than undermine them, when introducing industrial capital and supporting leading enterprises. Especially in regions where development foundations have already been established, targeted policy support and public services should be provided to farmers to stimulate their endogenous development potential.

• The sustainable development of specialty agriculture hinges on the rational and efficient utilization of agricultural land resources. Both the government and enterprises must adopt more prudent and accountable land management strategies, striving to balance the dual goals of agricultural development and farmland resource conservation, thereby achieving positive interactions and feedback within the human–land system [93]. They should collaborate effectively with farmers and cooperatives to jointly explore a sustainable farmland use system, ensuring that the development of specialty agriculture does not come at the expense of the long-term benefits of land resources.

• The pursuit of large-scale, intensive, and specialized approaches is not a viable path for ensuring the sustainable development of specialty agriculture. Instead, a small-scale, diversified, and organic cultivation model, led by farmers, not only strengthens the resilience of the specialty agriculture system but also fosters the preservation of landscapes and the ecological security of the land [94].

• Government intervention in the development of specialty agriculture is driven by performance incentives and political logic, which are deeply rooted in the incentive structures of national macro policies. While the central government has consistently emphasized the “central role of farmers” and the need to “stimulate farmers’ intrinsic vitality” in its policies for specialty agriculture, the task assessments of local governments are often focused on scale and efficiency. Economic indicators such as “industry scale, value, and development level [95]”, along with park construction, are commonly used to evaluate local government performance [80]. Therefore, the central government should adjust the incentive structure from the top down, ensuring that socioeconomic and ecological benefits such as farmers’ participation, sustainable land use, rural social harmony, and ecosystem services are comprehensively considered.

5. Concluding Remarks

As the spatial nexus of social–ecological interactions, land is nonnegligible in understanding the sustainability dynamics of SESs. Unfortunately, the complex roles of land in shaping SES sustainability in various contexts remains underrecognized by some of the traditional research fields in social sciences, which are showing increasing interests in advancing sustainability (e.g., rural sociology, governance studies, and political economy). Our study explicitly takes a social–ecological land system perspective to analyze how the interactions between various actors (e.g., governments, enterprises, and farmers) and their engagement with land modifications have influenced the social–ecological transition of a specialty agriculture SES. By tracing the lifecycle of cherry tomato agriculture in C Town, P City, China—from its gradual rise to its swift decline—we illustrate the dynamic interplay of governance systems, resource systems, and external shocks in driving agricultural land system transformations. Using qualitative data from field surveys and in-depth interviews, we apply an extended SESF to analyze these processes, highlighting lessons for fostering sustainable agricultural practices and resilient land use systems.

Our findings clearly show that land has played critical roles in both the rise and fall of the focal industry—or transitions of SES, more broadly speaking. On one hand, the previous successful development of a specialty agriculture in our case study would be impossible without favorable land endowment and necessary modifications to the sitting land system such as land transfer, land consolidation, and land development. Often the case the difficulty in making such land transformations happen is severely underestimated. Institutional barriers, social frictions, biophysical disadvantages and associated economic costs can rule out at the very beginning the possibility or farmers’ right of development. Nevertheless, the flexibility of national policies, coupled with the strong advocacy of local governments, has enabled the transformation of large-scale farmland into specialty agricultural land. On the other hand, transitions originated from the socioeconomic side of SESs, such as the abrupt decline of specialty agriculture in our case due to under the leadership of the government and enterprises, farmers’ self-organizations are relegated to the margins within the governance subsystem, would have cascading effects on the land-related ecological subsystem and environmental sustainability implications. Looking ahead, the mission of advancing sustainability through land-related approaches calls for a more explicit social–ecological land system perspective and more inter- and trans-disciplinary research–action practices.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, X.W.; methodology, X.W., M.W. and C.Y.; software, M.W. and C.Y.; validation, C.Y. and L.G.; formal analysis, M.W.; investigation, M.W., X.W. and C.Y.; resources, X.W. and L.G.; data curation, M.W. and C.Y.; writing—original draft preparation, X.W. and M.W.; writing—review and editing, X.W., C.Y. and L.G.; visualization, M.W. and C.Y.; supervision, C.Y.; project administration, C.Y.; funding acquisition, X.W. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

Data will be available upon reasonable request.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Footnotes

Disclaimer/Publisher’s Note: The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.

Figures

Figure 1. Study area and evolution of its specialty agriculture. (a) C Town in P City, a county-level city in Shandong Province of China. (b) C Town is situated in southwestern P City. While agricultural land in the southeast is dedicated to traditional farming, that in the northwest was developed into a specialty tomato cultivation zone. The development of specialty tomato agriculture in C Town has progressed through four phases (with Q Village as a case, which is located 6 km northeast of the C Town government): (c) from 2008 to 2015, Q Village farmers initiated by themselves to establish greenhouses for cherry tomato production; (d) from 2016 to 2018, governmental poverty alleviation funds were invested to develop an industrial park, expanding cultivation; (e) from 2019 to 2022, significant commercial investments facilitated industrialization and commercialization; and (f) from 2023 to 2024, persistent financial losses led to the withdrawal of enterprises, causing widespread greenhouse abandonment and extensive specialty agricultural land fallow.

Figure 2. Endogenous emergence (2008–2015). Farmers in the region engaged in land consolidation for greenhouse construction through plot exchanges with other villagers. Given the area’s slightly alkaline soil conditions, they carefully selected a variety of cherry tomatoes that was most suited to these environmental factors. These measures not only promoted the early-stage emergence of specialty agriculture but also enhanced the efficiency of land use.

Figure 3. Rapid development (2016–2018). The government harnessed poverty alleviation projects to implement land transfers and consolidation, improving infrastructure such as roads, drainage channels, and irrigation wells, while also establishing a poverty alleviation industrial park. These efforts not only expanded the scale of specialty agriculture but also optimized the allocation of land resources.

Figure 4. Regional proliferation (2019–2022). With government support, newly introduced enterprises carried out broader land transfers, converting large areas of farmland into greenhouse agricultural land. While this facilitated the scaling up and intensive management of specialty agriculture, it also heightened the vulnerability of the specialty agriculture SES, thereby creating potential risks to the long-term sustainability of both specialty agriculture development and land use.

Figure 5. Abrupt decline (2023–2024). The detrimental interactions among the governance systems, farmland resources, and the agricultural ecosystem had amplified the vulnerability of the SES. Under external shocks, the withdrawal of the three key actors triggered the collapse of the governance systems, leading to the abandonment of vast greenhouse land. As a result, local specialty agriculture entered a state of decline.

Figure 6. Theoretical rationale underlying the rise and fall of the specialty agriculture in C Town. The dynamic incentives of the social, economic, and political context shaped the distinct action logics of the three main actors. Driven by short-term interests, the government and enterprises led the development of specialty agriculture, achieving rapid scaling, industrialization, and intensive management in the short term. However, this also gradually marginalized farmers and their self-governing organizations, weakening the resilience of the SES and ultimately leading to the rapid decline of specialty agriculture.

Supplementary Materials

The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/land14020254/s1. Figure S1a: SES analysis framework; Figure S1b: The dynamic flows in the SES Framework; Table S1: Second-tier variables in framework for analyzing an SES; Table S2: Interviewee list; Table S3: Second-tier variables analysis in the endogenous emergence stage; Table S4: Second-tier variables analysis in the rapid development stage; Table S5: Second-tier variables analysis in the regional proliferation stage; Table S6: Second-tier variables analysis in the abrupt decline stage.

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