Differentiation of the Rural Households Based on the Perspective of Agricultural Industrialization Behavior - A Case Study of 102 Households in Yanling County, Henan Province, China

Based on the analysis of fieldwork data collected by us from 102 households in the villages of Yaojia, Jizhuang and Wuzi, we analyze the phenomenon of differentiation behaviors of households who own different kinds of resources under the background of agricultural industrialization. The focus of this paper is to probe into characteristics of the physical contact space, information contract space between different rural households such as farmers, brokers and entrepreneurs. Then, we focus on the driving forces behind the household differentiation process. Several conclusions can be drawn from this analysis. Firstly, the geographical domain increases as the households evolutes from farmers to entrepreneurs, and the farmers’ physical contract space is larger than the information contract space while that of brokers and entrepreneurs equals. Secondly, there is a certain pattern existing in the evolution: based on the self-techniques, farmers evolutes to flower workers, and to brokers when the capital, social network and self-ability is sufficient. As a result of appropriate policy, opportunity of building business and the risk appetite characteristics, entrepreneurs may differentiate from the brokers.