After the NGO: smallholders, endogenous intermediation and the making of nested markets in rural China

How can smallholders sustain differentiated market access in China after external project support recedes? Drawing on the concept of nested markets, this article examines how a rural community in South China rebuilt ecological production, processing, and exchange after the withdrawal of an NGO that had previously organized key cooperative functions. Based on long-term ethnographic follow-up and process analysis (2018–2025), the study shows that nestedness was not sustained through ready-made alternative channels or spontaneous smallholder self-organization. Instead, it was gradually reassembled through the emergence of an endogenous intermediary and the process of endogenous intermediation linking fragmented producers to external markets. This village-based intermediary coordinated production, invested in processing and storage, stabilized quality conventions, managed parts of compliance work, and cultivated shared resources such as collective reputation, market channels, and practical know-how. The article argues that, in rural China, nested markets often depend not on the disappearance of intermediation but on locally rooted forms of intermediation capable of rebuilding commons under fragile institutional conditions. At the same time, the case highlights the precarity and limits of such arrangements under weak policy support and demanding regulatory environments.