China is a large country with diverse agro-ecosystems and numerous different agricultural production systems. These agricultural systems are managed by more than 200 million households who provide agricultural products to meet the needs of almost a fifth of mankind.

Agriculture plays numerous key functions, including not only the provision of food and fiber, but also providing environmental services and employment of national importance, and is at the heart of China’s national sustainable development. In recent decades, conventional forms of Chinese agriculture have developed that rely largely on high external inputs, with resulting inefficient use of limited agricultural resources, emission of pollutants into the environment and furthermore the threat of food safety, especially with various incidences of food safety happening in the first decade of the 21 century.

While national agricultural policy is focusing to address these challenges, the threat of food safety led to a growing movement of a new kind of sustainable agricultural production system-the Community Support Agriculture. This has further developed to be an active citizen-based Agroecology movement in China for a decade of efforts.