Evolutionary Path and Mechanism of Village Revitalization: A Case Study of Yuejin Village, Jiangsu, China

Abstract

A profound understanding of how China’s villages gradually grow from rural decline to vitalization has essential theoretical and practical values. Through an exploratory case study, this paper adopted the grounded theory method analyzing the village-level data collected from Yuejin in Jiangsu province, China, to reveal the leading forces, the evolutionary path, and mechanism of a typical village revitalizing during the past 40 years of China’s economic reform. Based on comprehensive rural development theory, this article identifies the “critical”, “transitional”, and “induced” forces at different stages of the case village growth, to reveal the cultivation mechanism of rural poverty alleviation, prosperity, and revitalization. The results show that the evolution mechanism of rural revitalization is a process in which the rural core competence evolves from low to high level and from traditional subsistence agriculture to market-oriented industry. The evolution essence of rural revitalization is the integration, reconfiguration, and optimization of the resource under the specific cultivation mechanisms, corresponding to the rural growth path of self-repairing, self-adapting, and self-improving. This study contributes to a better understanding of the growth track of a typical agricultural village during the transition from poverty to vitalization.

1. Introduction

As a spatiotemporal location, villages have existed steadily in the development of human history, inheriting the farming civilization for thousands of years and playing an important social role. However, with the tremendous impact of pandemics such as COVID-19 on the world’s economies and the challenges of anti-globalization, climate change, and food insecurity, rural areas are more economically fragile than cities toward the economic, political, and natural shocks [1,2]. The rural decline is becoming an increasingly prominent global issue caused by the widening rural-urban gaps under the urban-rural dual system and market mechanism [3]. The proportion of global rural population dropped from 66.39% in 1960 to 44.73% in 2018, with a significant drop in China from 83.80% to 40.85% in the same period [4]. The rapid and large-scale decrease of the population in the countryside indicates that villages and farms around the world were declining as workers and the young migrated to urban areas [5]. This trend directly leads to the increasingly salient rural recession, reflecting the severe outflow of rural talents, labor shortage, local market contraction, and economic downturns [6,7,8].

Rural revitalization is a policy response to a series of “rural diseases”, including village hollowing, environmental pollution, weakening in agriculture, and rural poverty [9]. China has been exploring the approaches to rural revitalization for several decades. China’s reform and opening-up in 1978 had brought historical changes to the rural landscape, and strongly supported the profound transformation of the national economy and society [10,11]. International experience shows that when a country’s urbanization rate exceeds 50%, capital, technology, management, and other factors will shift to the agricultural sector [12]. China’s urbanization rate exceeded 50% in 2011, and reached 64.72% by the end of 2021 (National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, 2022). China has stepped into the development stage of urban-rural integration, and it is time to revitalize rural areas. Accordingly, the Chinese government initiated the “rural revitalization strategy” starting in 2017. The strategy aimed to prioritize the development of agriculture and the countryside, and establish and improve the institutional and policy systems for integrated urban-rural development.

The growth path and development mode of rural areas vary significantly due to the diversity in natural resource endowment, culture and tradition, economic system, and development stage among different countries and regions. The characteristics of China’s urban-rural dual economic structure make the path of rural growth and evolution in China unique and typical. Like most developing countries and regions, however, China still faces various problems in the process of rural revitalization that need to be explored in depth, such as weak agricultural competitiveness, rapid non-agriculturalization of production factors, aging population, farmland decentralization, and environmental pollution [5,9]. Studies that explore and reveal the evolutionary path and mechanism of rural growth based on the case of Chinese villages would help develop an essential theoretical framework and practical experience for rural revitalization in China and other countries in the world. Specifically: (1) How to use national policies in combination with ordinary villages’ resources to achieve rural revitalization? (2) what is the growth trajectory of villages from poverty to prosperity and rejuvenation? (3) what are the internal mechanism and fundamental laws of village revitalization evolution? These questions could be better answered through an exploratory but systematic case study of the evolutionary path and mechanisms at the village level.

Rural revitalization is a complex project and a scientific system involving various disciplines, including agricultural economics, rural geography, rural sociology, and ecology sciences [9,13]. Previous studies mainly focused on the driving forces, theoretical models, and case studies of rural revitalization [14,15,16]. However, few studies specifically explain the evolution mechanism and path of rural transformation from decline to revitalization. In terms of research methods, most of the studies adopted case analysis and established theoretical analysis models for qualitative research [3,17], including pattern-matching [15], descriptive quantitative and qualitative analysis [18], as well as comparative analysis methods [19]. Data were usually collected by questionnaires, in-depth interviews [18], document reviews, semi-structured interviews, and small and medium-sized workshops [20]. Few adopted an exploratory case study method and a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods.

This paper puts forward an analytical framework for the evolution mechanism of rural growth, revealing the key elements, evolution mechanism, and path of rural transformation from decline to revitalization. Based on the grounded theory, this study adopted a longitudinal and in-depth exploratory case study method to analyze the evolutionary mechanism and path of rural revitalization. In contrast to static and single analysis methods, the exploratory case study is a dynamic analysis that combines both qualitative and quantitative methods. Compared with the existing research, this study takes a typical agrarian village in China as the research unit, the time extended from 1978 to 2018 of the Chinese reform and opening-up. This study contributes to a better understanding of the growth path of a typically agricultural village during the transition from poverty to vitalization and provides experience for village development in China and other regions.

2. Theoretical Framework

The widely accepted definition of sustainability is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet those needs” (WCED, 1987). Rural sustainability is a comprehensive concept covering multiple dimensions such as rural environment, economy, politics, and society [21,22]. Sustainable rural development is an ongoing process of constantly seeking development strategies to sustain and build healthy and attractive rural communities [23]. The essence of China’s rural revitalization strategy is to explore a sustainable development path. The general requirements of industrial prosperity, ecological livability, rural civilization, effective governance, and affluent life proposed in the rural revitalization strategy are actually specific representations and goals of different dimensions of sustainable rural development. The village sustainability development mechanism is the process, mode, law, and essence of the interactions between the internal and external factors that influence the development and evolution of the village system [14]. Village revitalization is also the result of the combined effects of the endogenous driving factors, the exogenous driving factors, and the interactions between these factors at the different stages of development.

Based on endogenous rural development theory [15], rural talents, land use, and industry development are core elements in rural revitalization. Rural elites, represented by rural leaders and key people, are crucial actors in stimulating and integrating internal and external resources. They are also prominent in village development [14,24,25]. Land consolidation is gradually favored in rural revitalization due to its multiple benefits in social, economic, and ecological aspects [26]. Wang et al. demonstrated that the coupling between a healthy ecological environment and rural revitalization was always high [27]. Local industry development has been widely proved and proposed as a vital endogenous driving force of rural revitalization. These include developing organic farming [28], establishing local entrepreneurship [29], building a new town development zone, and integrating first-second-third industries [30]. Moreover, Li et al. reveal that according to Hirschman’s “exit voice theory”, bottom-up revitalization initiatives, including local committees or stakeholders’ self-organized actions, play an essential role in rebuilding villages [7]. Exogenous rural development theory addresses the decisive role of exogenous factors on rural development. Studies have shown that the key exogenous factors include government intervention or policy, and social capital [16,18]. Innovations are also vital external supports in realizing rural revitalization [3]. Key innovation systems include technology innovation, institutional management innovation, community-based network, and intermediary platforms innovation.

Compared with the polarization of exogenous and endogenous development models, a comprehensive rural development theory that combines internal and external forces in driving rural development is more in line with research trends [14,15,31]. Empirical evidence of prosperous villages indicates that sustainable rural development is formed based on the integration and coordination of internal and external driving forces and the interaction between elements [14]. Based on comprehensive rural development theory [14,15], this article redefines the influencing factors of village evolution as “critical”, “transitional”, and “induced” forces in accordance with the universal logic of the evolution and development of “cause-behavior-result”, forming a mechanism analysis framework of rural growth and evolution (Figure 1). The focus is to identify these three forces in the development stages of the village, from seeking survival, and gradual growth to promoting comprehensive development, which helps reveal the evolutionary mechanism of rural revitalization. Specifically, critical forces are the factors that play a leading and decisive role in rural development, usually the result of a combination of internal and external factors. The transitional force is the opportunity brought by policy or system change for rural development, mainly from the role and influence of exogenous factors, such as system reform and policy intervention. The induced force is the spontaneous formation of impetus within villagers to lead to village changes, which stems from endogenous factors, including land use and resource integration led by the village leaders.

3. Methodology

3.1. Study Methods

It is appropriate to use an exploratory case study method as the evolution of rural revitalization is a dynamic process. Specifically, the method is selected based on the following considerations: (1) The core research questions of this paper are “How to revitalize villages?” and “Why does rural revitalization have specific evolution laws and growth paths?”, which belongs to the category of “how” and “why” problem. Using an exploratory case study helps understand the force and mechanism behind this particular phenomenon [32]. (2) The concept of rural growth path and the evolutionary logic of rural revitalization involved in this study is abstract, so it needs to be explored with rich case materials and data. (3) There is a lack of relevant research and data to build the model and quantitively analyze rural revitalization evolution’s internal mechanism and growth path. Adopting an exploratory case study is more conducive to focusing on typical villages’ growth and evolution track. An in-depth description and interpretation based on background and situational factors help refine the evolution rules that reveal complex phenomena [33].

3.2. Case Selection

Following the rule of typicality principle [34], we selected Yuejin village, China, as the case for this study. Yuejin village locates in the northwest of Jiaze Zhen, Wujin district, Changzhou city, Jiangsu province. It is a famous hometown of flowers and trees in the southeast of China (Figure 2). Yuejin village covers an area of 233.33 hectares with 18 small natural villages and 21 villagers’ groups under its jurisdiction. There are a total of 736 households consisting of 1863 registered local residents and 321 migrants.

The main reasons for choosing this village are as follows. First, Yuejin village was once faced with a comprehensive system crisis, such as poverty, ecological deterioration, and numerous social contradictions. This kind of problem is very representative in the process of rural development. Second, Yuejin village is a typical village that takes agriculture as the leading industry and realizes revitalization by multisystem reforms. It is different from villages that rely on industrial and commercial capital to drive development. Third, Yuejin village has undergone tremendous changes since 1978. The average per capita income was 91 yuan in 1978, while the per capita net income of villagers was about 30,000 yuan in 2018, about 50% higher than that of average rural residents in China. Therefore, the conclusions and experiences based on the reform process of Yuejin village are particularly informative.

3.3. Data Collection

Methods applied in this research include the semi-structured interview, focused interview, on-site observation, and secondary data collection. This study’s primary and secondary data were collected from June to December 2018, as shown in

Table 1. Data source and code.

Date Source	Title	Number of Entries	Code
Primary data	Data obtained through semi-structured interviews	20	F1
	Data obtained through focused interviews	16	F2
Secondary data	Village archives	13	S1
	Minutes of the village committee meetings	5	S2
	Working report and summaries of the village committee	10	S3
	Policy paper on the village reform	24	S4
	Media interview materials provided or approved by the village committee	7	S5
	Existing research literature materials approved by the village committee	11	S6

and

Table 2. Interviewees and the core content of the interview.

Serial Number	Position and Number of Respondents	Contents	Interview Frequency	Duration of Time
Focused group discuss
1	Director and deputy director of the Rural Work Office of the District Committee (2 people)	The overall development of the rural economy in the region The reform of the rural property rights system Implementation measures of the rural revitalization strategy Characteristics of the rural reform in this district Evaluation of the development of Yuejin Village	4	225 min
2	Town leaders (4 people)	Overall development status of Yuejin village General thought and development process of Yuejin village Evaluation of the land system reform	4	210 min
3	Past and current secretaries and directors of Yuejin village (4 people)	The pilot measures for the land system reform Village construction and industrial development Ecology and environment protection Villagers’ living conditions etc.	3	192 min
4	Village committee members (6 people)	Key events and characters in different development stages Attitude towards land system reform Cognition of Industrial development Ecology and environment protection Villagers’ living conditions etc.	2	139 min
Semi-structured interview
5	The farmland stock cooperative leaders (4 people) and members (6 people)	Cognition of the village’s farmland stock cooperative Membership Operating performance and mechanism Profit distribution mechanism	3	195 min
6	Nursery brokers (4 people)	Cognition of the village industry Understanding of the village industrial policy Experience in working as a nursery broker Perception of villagers’ living conditions	1	95 min
7	Other village representatives (6 people)	Overall understanding of Yuejin village development Attitude to the village’s farmland system reform Cognition of the civil construction of village style Understanding of ecology and environmental protection Perception of villagers’ living conditions	1	212 min

. The semi-structured interview was conducted with 20 representative villagers, composed of family farm owners, nursery brokers, and managers of cooperatives. These interviewees were selected using judgment sampling. Survey questions for these people involve the development history of the village nursery industry and farmer cooperative organization, the growth experiences of each representative member, family financial status and the observed changes of the village, the cognition and evaluation of the village development planning, and system reform, etc., (Table 2). The focused interview was conducted with 16 executives involved in village reform and development. Survey questions for this group included: development history of Yuejin village industrial and Village Collective Economic Organization (VCEO), the reform process of village farmland system, the village farmland use, the composition and development history of the village committee, the village development plan and its evolution, ecological environment protection, villagers’ living conditions, etc.

The secondary data include village archives (1978~2018), minutes of the village committee meetings, working reports and summaries of the village committee (2008~2018), policy documents on the village reform (1978~2018), media interview materials provided or approved by the village committee, and existing research literature approved by the village committee (2013~2018). Due to loss and improper preservation, etc., the collection of the village committee meeting records and work report data is limited.

3.4. Data Analysis

The data analysis adopted the grounded theory method. The data analysis process involves three types of coding: open coding, axial coding, and selective coding [35]. At the stage of open coding, double-blind coding is adapted to encode the meeting minutes, interview records, and observation notes of 36 respondents sentence by sentence. Forty-three initial categories are defined by conceptualization and categorization of the encoded data. At the axis coding stage, continuous comparison and cluster analysis of open coding are introduced to explore the internal logic between the initial categories. According to the logical relationship of “cause-behavior-result”, 43 initial categories are reintegrated into 36 sub-categories (a1, a2 … a36, shown as

Table 3. Related concepts and typical evidence.

Formed Basis	Primary Code	Secondary Code	Examples of Typical Evidence	Number of Entries	Source
Cause	Stress of living (A1)	Economic poverty (a1)	At the beginning of the reform and opening-up, Yuejin was a typical poor village that grain relied on repurchased and production depended on relief. The villagers had poor housing conditions, living in mud-brown cottages, and the three generations share the same room.	10	F1, F2, S1, S2, S3
		Low land productivity (a2)	Affected by natural disasters, farmers have suffered losses in farming, choosing to plant less or abandon farming.	8	F1, F2, S1, S2, S3
		Rural governance disorder (a3)	Village committees are in a state of disorderly management and no collective benefits. Thefts frequently occurred in the village.	5	F1, F2, S1
Behavior	Create a leading rural industry (A2)	Keep up with policy trends (a4)	The rise of the national greening and beautification movement has provided opportunity to develop seedling cultivation. The villagers followed the example of the first group who made money by planting seedlings.	6	F1, F2, S1, S2, S3
		Leverage local advantages (a5)	The Xiaxi Flower Market is located in the Yangtze River Delta Plain, where the fertile land, subtropical monsoon humid climate, and sufficient light have the unique planting conditions and sales position of flowers and trees.	4	F1, F2, S1
	Farmland system reform (A3)	Household contract responsibility system (a6)	In 1982, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the NO.1 document and pointed out the form of agricultural production responsibility system for contracting land and other means of production and production tasks.	15	F1, F2, S1, S2, S3
		Independent management of farmland (a7)	Under the household contract responsibility system(HCRS), on the premise of ensuring the completion of national and collective tasks, farmers can independently decide what and how much to grow on their contracted land.	8	F1, F2, S1, S2
	Resource Integration (A4)	Insight into market demand (a8)	The villagers are working as carpenters in the surroundings, who first found the lumber industry profitable. They started to plant seedlings and used bicycles to sell on the market and make a fortune.	10	F1, F2, S1, S2, S3
		Rural elite leadership (a9)	The village elites made money by planting and selling seed nursery stock, which attracted the envy and imitation of the villagers. Some farmers constantly explore cultivation and grafting techniques and guide the surrounding villagers to plant the techniques. Village cadres took the lead in organizing villagers to plant seedlings and set up cooperatives.	4	F1, F2, S1, S2, S3
Result	Village poverty alleviation (A5)	The growing nursery stock industry (a10)	As of 1998, the planted area of flowers, plants, and trees accounted for about 50% he village total cultivated area. The flower and tree industry has gradually expanded from the initial planting of a single local species to the planting of imported varieties.	9	F1, F2, S1, S2
		Significant increase in villagers’ income (a11)	The per capita income level of the villagers has increased by 38.46 times from around 91 yuan in 1978 to 3500 yuan in 1998.	5	F1, F2, S1, S2, S3, S4
		Land use efficiency improvement (a12)	Under the adjustment of the land farming system and industry, the phenomenon of abandoned farmland in the village has decreased significantly. The number and scale of nursery stock industries have increased, which has also significantly improved land productivity.	4	F1, F2, S1, S2, S4

,

Table 4. Related concepts and typical evidence citation.

Formed Basis	Primary Code	Secondary Code	Examples of Typical Evidence	Number of Entries	Source
Cause	Stress of living (A6)	Unclear Industry position (a13)	In Yuejin Village, the long-term cultivation structure of a single grain planting system has greatly restricted the development of the nursery stock industry. Although planting seedlings and flowers is more profitable than growing grains, but the government still insist on the grain-based grain mode.	9	F1, F2, S1, S2, S4
		Low level of farmers organization (a14)	There was no special organization integrating production, service, and sales, which restricted the development of the flower and tree industry, leading to a poor ability to resist market risks and a relatively low villagers’ income.	4	F1, F2, S1, S2, S4
		Scattered land management (a15)	Basically, each household has scattered planting and cultivation, and then transports the flowers and trees to the market for scattered sales.	10	F1, F2, S1, S4
Behavior	Rural industry synergy development (A7)	Agricultural industry structure adjustment (a16)	Under the joint discussion between the local government and the village committee, the structure of the agricultural industry has been adjusted from grain-based to seedlings and flowers.	7	F1, F2, S1
		Industrial location coordination (a17)	The district government has formulated a strategy for industrial clustering and coordinated development in Jiaze Town, aiming to build the largest in the entire East China region.	9	F1, F2, S1, S2
	Farmland system reform (A8)	Rural tax and fee reform (a18)	In 2001, the entire Jiaze area began to “fee to tax”, abolished various fees in the name of “hitchhiking,” and replaced the payment of “agricultural tax. Agricultural tax exemption policy was implemented in 2004,. In 2007, the scope of the state subsidy was further expanded and began to subsidize seedlings and flowers at 30 yuan per mu.	12	F1, F2, S1, S3, S4, S6
		Farmland transfer (a19)	In 2003, the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Rural Land Contracting came into effect. Article 32 of the law stipulates that land contracted management rights acquired through household contracting may be subcontracted, leased, exchanged, transferred or transferred in other ways.	8	F1, F2, S1
	Resource reconfiguration (A9)	Industrial Organization Construction (a20)	After the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Professional Farmers Cooperatives was promulgated, villagers began to join professional cooperatives for planting flowers and trees, and the cooperatives began to operate in a standardized manner.	11	F1, F2, S1, S2
		Rural technical elite Leadership (a21)	With the increase in flower and tree planting varieties, the skilled people have become the core talents in driving the development of the industry. These capable people who understand seedling and planting techniques are particularly popular in the village.	13	F1, F2, S1, S3
Result	Village prosperity (A10)	Living a well-off life (a22)	By 2007, the per capita income was nearly ten thousand yuan, which was more than 10 times that of 80 years, basically reaching a well-off level. In 1985, the per capita housing area was 27.64 square meters, and by 2007 it had increased to 53.02 square meters.	6	F1, F2, S1, S3, S5
		Collective economic growth (a23)	By the end of 2007, the village collective income was 32.04 million yuan, sideline income was 30,000 yuan, nursery stock income was 23 million yuan, and per capita income was 8502 yuan.	8	F1, F2, S2, S3
		Large-scale flower and wood industry (a24)	By 2008, the whole village’s flower and tree planting area accounted for nearly 95% of the farmland, and at the same time, more than 90% of the villagers engaged in the production and management of wood and flowers.	10	F1, F2, S4, S5

and

Table 5. Related concepts and typical evidence citation.

Formed Basis	Primary Code	Secondary Code	Examples of Typical Evidence	Number of Entries	Source
Cause	Growth pressure (A11)	Inadequate integration of rural industries (a25)	The rural flower and tree industry has not yet formed a development pattern of in-depth integration of three industries with flowers and trees driving agriculture, industry, and tourism services.	7	F1, F2, S3, S4, S5
		Poor utilization of land (a26)	The rental price of village land transfer varies greatly, ranging from 1000 yuan to 10,000 yuan, mainly due to different locations. The huge price difference makes villagers generally have a higher price psychological expectation, hindering village land circulation.	11	F1, F2, S1, S3, S4, S6
		Shortage of professional and technical talents (a27)	The rural industry lacks scientific and technological talents and management professionals and innovative support from universities, scientific research institutes, and other R&D institutions.	8	F1, F2, S1, S2, S3
Behavior	Construction of modern agricultural industry system (A12)	the in-depth industrial integration (a28)	The village is based on the cultivation and planting of flowers and trees, relying on the Internet and e-commerce platforms to extend the industrial chain to industry and tourism, and realizing the integration of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries.	6	F1, F2, S1, S3, S4, S5
		Transformation and upgrading of rural industry (a29)	The village realized the transformation and upgrading of the rural industry by optimizing the modern agricultural industry system, improving the modern agricultural production system, and adjusting the modern agricultural management system.	10	F1, F2, S1, S2, S4, S5
	Farmland system reform and innovation (A13)	Rural homestead reform (a30)	As the first batch of rural homestead reform demonstration villages in Wujin District, Yuejin Village focuses on the creation of village-level planning, homestead approval, homestead confirmation registration, paid use, and paid withdrawal.	11	F1, F2, S1, S2, S5
		Farmland shareholding system reform (a31)	Yuejin Village has promoted the centralized and large-scale management of farmland and the sharing of the interests of collective shareholders through the reform of the shareholding of farmland management rights.	12	F1, F2, S1, S4, S5
	Resource optimization (A14)	Professionals cultivation (a32)	Yuejin Village organized the village’s entrepreneurs to become rich leaders, gold medal flower brokers, and college students to participate in entrepreneurship training.	8	F1, F2, S1, S3, S4
		R&D capability improvement (a33)	The improvement of the R&D capabilities of the flower and wood industry is the key to promoting the synergy development of the industrial development location of Yuejin Village.	7	F1, F2, S4, S6
Result	Rural revitalization (A15)	Ecological and livable (a34)	The village has improved various supporting public service facilities, continued to improve the rural environment and features, and built a modern rural beautiful and rural demonstration site.	8	F1, F2, S4, S5
		Strong villages and wealthy villagers (a35)	As of the end of 2017, the village’s agricultural output value was 150 million yuan, industrial output value was 35 million yuan, village-level collective income was 1.8 million yuan, and per capita net income was 29,500 yuan.	7	F1, F2, S3, S3, S5, S6
		Effective governance and rural civilization (a36)	The village focuses on constructing rural civilization, and the participation of multiple subjects forms an effective rural governance system.	5	F1, F2, S4, S5, S6

) based on the village history and the literature guidance. Excluding the initial concepts least relevant to this study, 36 sub-categories are summarized into 15 main categories (A1, A2 … A15, shown as Table 3, Table 4 and Table 5). At the stage of selective coding, repeated comparison and root analysis are employed. By combining the constructs in the main category, three theoretical frameworks are extracted, including the cultivation mechanism of rural poverty alleviation, prosperity, and revitalization (shown as Figure 3, Figure 4 and Figure 5). At last, villages’ growth force, measures, and accomplishments are identified, and the chain of evidence is established to determine the inherent logic of the evolution of rural revitalization.

4. Overview on Development of the Case Village

At the beginning of China’s reform and opening-up, Yuejin village was a typical impoverished village. Since 1978, this village has seized the opportunity of national greening policy and farmland system reform to start the journey of rural rejuvenation because of its location advantages. The development of Yuejin village can be divided into four stages (Figure 6). The village’s nursery industry gradually emerged at the first stage, promoting rural poverty alleviation from 1978 to 1988. At this stage, implementation of the household contract responsibility system (HCRS) allowed agricultural land to be contracted to villager groups and individual farmers, seedling planting replaced grain crops as the primary industry, and farmers started decentralized planting operations. With the rapid increase in nursery stock production, brokers have begun emerging to expand the market and sales. The per capita income of the village increased about 11 times from 91 yuan in 1978 to 1000 yuan in 1988.

The second stage was from 1988 to 1998, when the rise of the flower-plant industry helped rural economic recovery. The rural tax and fee reform and the reform of the farming system in China became the key turning point of Yuejin development in this period. During this period, the agricultural industry of the village expanded its business scope from sole nursery stock to nursery stock, plus flowers and plants, forming a nursery industry supported by flowers and trees. The village’s acreage of flowers and trees reached more than 50% of the total agricultural area. Moreover, the per capita income of villagers increased by 3.5 times from about 1000 yuan in 1988 to 3500 yuan in 1998.

In the third stage, the “enriching villagers based on flower-plant industry” strategy brought village development to a new phase, from 1999 to 2008. With the rise of the nursery industry, the economic effect of planting flowers and trees in the village spilled over. During this period, the village’s acreage of flowers and trees kept increasing and accounted for more than 90% of the total agricultural area. The nursery industry had become the leading industry, contributing significantly to the prosperity of the village. The per capita income of villagers rose by 2.29 times from about 35,000 yuan in 1998 to 8000 yuan in 2008.

The fourth stage was from 2009 to 2018, when the upgrading of the nursery industry promoted the village rejuvenation. In this stage, Yuejin village further clarified the development strategies of the characteristic industries, supported by the reform and innovation of the land system and the cultivation of local professional talents. Finally, the characteristic modern agricultural industry system was established, which laid a solid foundation for the road to further rural revitalization. The total output value of the village reached 185 million yuan. The village-level collective income reached 1.8 million yuan, and a per capita net income increased to 29,500 yuan in 2017.

5. Case Analysis of the Evolutionary Mechanism of Rural Revitalization

The growth and evolution course of the case village are divided into three phases from the perspective of rural change and rural industrial development. The first two stages in Figure 6 are merged into phase 1 because the development of Yuejin village was generally at the stage of rural industry rising and rural poverty alleviation from 1978 to 1998.

5.1. Phase 1: Rural Poverty Alleviation Focusing on Leading Agricultural Industry (1978–1998)

Like most villages in China, Yuejin village suffered from the rural economic decline in the late 1970s, such as economic poverty (a1), low land productivity (a2), and rural governance disorder (a3), etc., (Table 3). In the face of tremendous pressure to survive (A1), Yuejin village relied on the leadership of village talents to seek possibilities for development in China’s economic reforms. Based on process analysis, this study summarized and refined the mechanism of rural poverty alleviation (Figure 3), the key factors, and the evidence (Table 3).

5.1.1. Critical Force of Rural Poverty Alleviation

The critical force of rural poverty alleviation is to build rural pillar industries (A2). Yuejin village experienced various setbacks in its initial exploration attempts, such as the failure to establish brick and tile, iron, and soil factories. The enlightenment from these lessons is that divorcing from the reality of rural development and blindly following the economic boom cannot bring villages out of poverty and development. On the contrary, the establishment of rural leading industries first needs to base on the local advantages of the village. The evidence a5 shows that Yuejin village is hot and humid and close to the Xiaxi flower and tree market. As such, it has unique natural conditions and geographical advantages in flower and tree sales. Second, a vital factor for the development of the village industries is to keep up with the policy (a4). As the Yuejin village committee leader mentioned, “The rise of the afforesting and beautifying project has brought us a good opportunity to develop the seedling industry”. Based on these conditions, Yuejin village has formed an agricultural industry dominated by seedling planting that can fully use its regional advantages. The formation and development of the flower and tree seedling industry helped increase farmers’ income (a11), the improvement of land use efficiency (a12), and the formation of the internal order of the village, and finally transformed the growth pressure into the driving force of village poverty alleviation.

5.1.2. Transitional Force of Rural Poverty Alleviation

The transitional force of rural poverty alleviation is the HCRS (A3, a6). This reform took advantage of family management and built the connection of rights and obligations between families and village collective economic organizations (VCCO) [36], which became the basis for formatting the internal village community. Under the land system, individual contracting households were bound by collective rights. As pieces of evidence show, “on the premise of ensuring the completion of national and collective tasks, farmers can independently decide what and how much to grow on their contracted land.”, which means farmers started to have independent land management decision-making rights under HCRS (a7). With the freedom in land management released by the land system reform, Yuejin village built an agricultural industry dominated by flowers and trees that significantly improved farmers’ enthusiasm for agricultural production and agricultural industry development.

5.1.3. Inducement Force of Rural Poverty Alleviation

The inducement force of rural poverty alleviation is the integration of resources (A4) driven by rural leaders. Under resource scarcity, integrating limited resources in the village to build competitive industries became the internal driving force to alleviate rural poverty and promote economic revival. Rural talents play a leading role in resource allocation, integration, and utilization. In establishing the key industry, a group of pioneers with intelligence and the courage to try new things emerged in Yuejin village. These leaders can be classified into three types based on evidence a8 and a9. The first category mainly is village seedling brokers who are the critical intermediaries between the seedling market and the planting farmers. The second category is the technical leaders who first mastered the technology of cultivating nursery stock. A group of seedling growers in Yuejin village played a key role in diffusing the nursery stock industry technologies. The third category is village cadres, as core village leaders and managers with a strong sense of responsibility and rich production and management experience. These three leaders often appeared together, becoming the backbone of lifting the village out of poverty (A5).

5.2. Phrase 2: Rural Prosperity Focusing on the Regional Synergy Development of Agricultural Industry Chain (1999–2008)

At the end of the 20th century, Yuejin village faced the growth pressures (A6) that had existed in many of China’s villages, including unclear industry position (a13), low level of farmers organization (a14), and scattered land management (a15). The external manifestations of this pressure were unitary products, incomplete industrial chain, lack of attraction to talents, capital, and technology, relatively extensive resource utilization, low economic benefits, etc. Some measures became the key to the village’s prosperity in this period, including the regional coordination development of the agricultural industry chain, the agricultural management system reform, and the resources reconfiguration driven by industrial cooperation organizations. Combined with process analysis, the cultivation mechanism of rural prosperity is summarized as shown in Figure 4, and the constructs of core influencing factors are formed through typical evidence (Table 4).

5.2.1. Critical Force of Rural Prosperity

In this period, the critical forces of rural prosperity are the synergy development of rural industry and the extension of the rural industrial chain (A7). Rural industry is influenced by resource endowment, market conditions, and the government’s choice of regional development strategy [37]. The strategic positioning of regional industrial development directly affects the rural industrial chain’s formation, extension, and spatial synergy. At this stage, the local government realized it was difficult to achieve rural prosperity by sticking to the grain-based farming mode. Therefore, based on the market demand and regional conditions, the local government re-determined the agricultural industry structure (a16) and formulated the industrial synergy development strategy (a17) in Jiaze town. “The strategy aimed to create a nationally renowned hometown of flower and wood, and the largest flower and wood distributing and trading center in east China, named the Xiaxi Flower and Wood Market”. Relying on the synergy development strategy of rural industry, Yuejin village took advantage of its location in the center of Xiaxi flower market, realizing the development of the industry chain from seedling, cultivating, breeding, grafting, and selling.

5.2.2. Transitional Force of Rural Prosperity

The transitional force for rural prosperity is the improvement of production efficiency through the reform of the agricultural management system. The reform of rural taxes and fees was another important system initiative related to people’s livelihood after HCRS. From the abolition of agricultural taxes and fees to the gradual increase of agricultural subsidies, from self-management of contracted land to allowing land transfer, agricultural tax and fee reform (a18) and farmland transfer policy (a19) deeply impacted the utilization of farmland and the resource allocation in Yuejin village. Generally, the effects of rural tax and fee reform on Yuejin villagers were mainly reflected from two aspects. On the one hand, agricultural tax, as the implied transaction cost in the land transfer, directly affects the implementation of the transfer contract. The abolition of this tax meant that the transaction cost of land transfer was dramatically reduced [38], which was crucial to promoting land transfer, improving the efficiency of land resource allocation, and resulting in a scale effect in Yuejin village. On the other hand, agricultural subsidies replaced the rural taxes and fees, farmers’ land management costs were reduced. Farming income increased, resulting in an investment effect [39], which also provided an excellent incentive for villagers to plant flowers and trees.

5.2.3. Inducement Force of Rural Prosperity

The inducement force of rural prosperity is the reconfiguration of rural resources and factors by the rural industrial organization. With the continuous refinement of the division of labor, the nursery stock industry in Yuejin village had gradually evolved from single families to cooperative organizations. During this period, the technical talents of flower and tree planting in Yuejin village were the core members of the cooperative organization. They had effectively promoted the update, promotion, and application of new varieties and technologies of flowers and trees. They also had become the core force to encourage the flower and tree industry development and drive the reconfiguration of rural resource elements. The advantages of Yuejin village industrial cooperative organizations (a20) and rural technical elites (a21) in promoting the reconfiguration of rural resource elements were mainly reflected in three aspects. When farmers’ professional cooperative organizations appeared in the village, scattered farmers were effectively organized, significantly improving market competitiveness and reducing the excess structural supply of products. Additionally, the cooperatives were conductive to promoting the formation and extension of the rural industrial chain. The industrial chain based on the cooperatives extended to both before and after production, which helps to reduce transaction costs and reduce the degree of information asymmetry [40].

5.3. Phrase 3: Rural Revitalization Focusing on the Construction of Modern Agricultural Industry System (2009–2018)

When the planting area of flowers and trees in Yuejin village reached more than 95%, its income accounted for more than 75% of the village’s total income, indicating that the local market of the flowers and trees is basically saturated. The limitations of market space and industrial boundary undoubtedly became the main barriers to the further development of the countryside in this period. Breaking the market and industrial boundary and opening up a new market has become a new challenge for Yuejin village in the new era from rural prosperity to comprehensive revitalization. There is a series of development pressures, including inadequate integration of rural industries (a25), poor utilization of land (a26), and shortage of professional and technical personnel (a27). Through rural land reform and innovation, resource structure optimization, offline sales market expansion, and online e-commerce development, Yuejin village has built a modern agricultural characteristic industry featuring the integrated development of the first, second, and third industries, realized the rural industry prosperity and embarked on the road of rural revitalization. Based on process analysis, this study summarized the cultivation mechanism of rural revitalization (Figure 5) and the corresponding typical evidence of constructs (Table 5).

5.3.1. Critical Force of Rural Revitalization

The binding force of rural rejuvenation is constructing a characteristic modern agricultural industry system based on the integrated development of the three industries. Relying on the in-depth industrial integration (a28) and the transformation and upgrading of the flower and tree industry (a29), the village finally formed a characteristic modern agricultural industry system (Figure 7). The transformation and upgrading of the flower and tree industry in Yuejin Village happened in two steps. The first step is the transformation of the industrial operation form from farmer households to diversified operations such as “farmers + cooperatives + e-commerce”, “farmers + e-commerce + network platform”, “farmers + agribusiness + distributors”, etc. Furthermore, the market strategy has transformed from local wholesale and retail to regional brand sales and export. The second step is transforming the flower and tree industry from the low added value to high added value, such as flower and wood production services and tourism development. In addition, a modern agricultural industry system has been established, through the in-depth integration of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries, including flower and tree cultivation and planting, landscaping engineering, flower and tree production services, and flower and tree rural tourism.

5.3.2. Transitional Force of Rural Revitalization

The transformational force of rural revitalization is the reform and innovation of the agricultural land system, adding a solid impetus to the revitalization of rural industry. The “three-power split” of China’s rural land system has become a new driving force to stimulate rural revitalization [41]. Yuejin village seized farmland shareholding system reform (a31) to become the first pilot village in China’s second batch of rural reform pilot areas. Farmers who have contracted land become shareholder members of agricultural land stock cooperatives due to this change. Farmers can earn labor income by participating in production and operation as cooperative members and earn dividend income through land management rights. As a result, a more active and liberalized flow of land resource elements has been realized, further increasing villagers’ income and promoting the development of rural industries.

5.3.3. Induced Force of Rural Revitalization

The inducement force of rural revitalization is to promote the optimization of rural resource allocation by cultivating professionals and improving research and development ability. Yuejin village cultivated three kinds of professionals in this stage (a32). The first category mainly consists of local elites, the leaders of rural entrepreneurship, and overall revitalization. The new elites in Yuejin village included the current and retired cadres of the village committee, entrepreneurs, leaders of the new type of agricultural operation. The second category mainly includes flower and wood brokers who were excellent sales personnel and market pioneers. Their principal-agent approach has gradually developed from the traditional offline sales to the multi-channel mode of “entity + e-commerce + the Internet”. The third category consists of college students with professional skills, who are the new force of rural rejuvenation. The children of low-income families who graduated from colleges and technical schools are trained as professionals, achieving a win-win situation for poverty alleviation and the cultivation of rural talents.

6. Results and Discussion

6.1. Evolutionary Path and Mechanism of Rural Revitalization

Results from this study would shed light on the key elements and mechanisms for a typical farming village’s rise from poverty to prosperity since China’s economic reforms. Based on the evolution course of Yuejin village in the past 40 years of China’s reform and opening-up, the evolutionary paths and mechanisms of rural revitalization are summarized as shown in Figure 8. On the grounds of the exploratory case analysis, we conclude that (1) the core forces of rural poverty alleviation mechanism consist of establishing leading industries, catering to the household responsibility system reform, and integrating talent-driven rural resources. (2) The main factors that affect rural prosperity mechanism are synergy development of rural industries, reform of agricultural management system, and rural resources reconfiguration. (3) The key elements of rural revitalization mechanism include developing agricultural-industrial integration as the core drive, reforming farmland policy as the booster, and utilizing village collective economic organization as the central force.

The analysis implies that the evolution mechanism of rural revitalization is a process in which the rural core competence evolves from low to high level and from traditional subsistence agriculture to market-oriented rural industry. During this process, villages’ capacity for self-development evolves and improves continuously. In the rural poverty alleviation stage (Phase 1), the form of the rural industry changed from a heap of loose sand to a leading industry. The core development ability has been upgraded from self-sufficient production to market-oriented agricultural leading industry. This update is led by the integration of resources driven by rural talents and the transformation of management mode relying on agricultural land reform. In the rural prosperity stage (Phase 2), the rural industry form has transformed from a single leading industry to an industrial chain. The rural core capacity has transformed from a single agricultural industry to the synergy development of the regional agricultural industry. In the rural revitalization stage (Phase 3), the rural industry form has transformed from an industrial chain to the modern agricultural industry system, and the core rural development ability has further transformed into the sustainable and dynamic endogenous development ability.

Additionally, based on systems ecology, the essence of rural revitalization is the integration, reconfiguration, and optimization of resources under the three cultivation mechanisms, corresponding to the rural growth path of self-repairing, self-adaptive, and self-improving [42]. As an ecological system, the village is a collection of the relationships between village construction subjects and resource elements, village construction subjects and industries, resource elements and industries, industries and markets. In the micro self-rehabilitation mechanism, the relationship between village construction subjects and resource elements and between resource elements and rural industries should be properly handled. The purpose is to achieve rural poverty alleviation and the development of the main body of village construction from weak to strong. Based on the meso self-adaptation mechanism, the key is to handle the relationship between village construction subjects and rural industries and between rural industries and the market, realizing rural development from singularity to diversification. Based on a macro self-improvement mechanism, the relationship between village construction subjects and stakeholders and between rural industries and the environment should be properly managed to reach the goal of coordinated symbiosis among stakeholders and the continuous enhancement of rural self-reliance.

6.2. Evolutionary Law of Rural Revitalization

In the past 40 years of reform and opening up, Yuejin village has experienced extreme poverty in the backward period and witnessed rapid development in the rejuvenation period. The following three rules can be identified from the core factors influencing the evolution process of Yuejin village revitalization. (1) The rural industry is the engine of village revitalization. Rural agricultural industrialization involved the stages from leading industry to the industrial chain and then to the industrial system. (2) System reform is the stabilizer of rural revitalization. The farmland property rights change from concentration to subdivision, and the agricultural management system changes from taxation to subsidy. (3) Rural talents are the accelerator of rural revitalization. Rural talent growth is constantly upgraded from individual leaders to organizational leaders to professional farmers, and from experience-based to technical-based and then to compound-based. Although the importance of the above-mentioned influencing factors has been discussed in the existing research on rural development [14,16,17], the studies have not identified the dynamic change characteristics and differences in the roles of key forces in the context of different development stages of villages. This study identifies the changing characteristics and differences in the role of key factors influencing village change at different stages of development from “poverty alleviation-richness-revitalization”. which is conducive to guiding the process of rural development in a more targeted manner.

6.3. Discussion

Regarding the evolution path of rural revitalization, the mainstream literature is based on the perspective of development economics and proposes the path of urban-rural integration development [43,44], and the path of rural industrial integration development [45,46]. Undeniably, rural industry and economic development play a crucial role in rural revitalization. However, from a sustainable development perspective, this paper emphasizes that rural revitalization is a process of exploring sustainable development paths. Based on system ecology, the evolutionary path of rural revitalization is extracted from the case study as a spiraling process from self-restoration, self-adaptation to self-improvement. It will provide a systemic and sustainable development perspective for the study of the evolutionary path of rural revitalization.

This study reveals the evolutionary path and mechanism of rural revitalization and obtains some valuable conclusions, but there are still some limitations. Specifically, although the analysis materials of this paper are abundant, this paper is based on a single case study, which limits our ability to generalize some of the conclusions. Future research can use multiple case studies to test the research conclusions of this paper. Second, this study is an analytical induction from case to theory. The conclusions proposed at the theoretical level need to be verified by large samples and quantitative methods in further research. Third, this study only abstracts and identifies the core factors and driving forces that affect rural economic development and may ignore some important factors for rural revitalization. Rural revitalization is a process of the overall evolution and development of the entire rural system, which involves many aspects such as economy, politics, culture, social construction, ecological civilization construction, etc. China is a vast country with significant regional differences in resource endowment and economic development. Rural issues themselves are diverse and complex, so it is difficult to cover all aspects. Therefore, continuing such types of case studies is necessary to include more factors in the analysis.