The regulation of rural food safety risk is the weakest link in China’s food safety supervisory and management system and therefore the participation of social institutions needs to be encouraged，with villagers’ self-governing organizations being one of the most important institutions. Villagers’ self-governing organizations have certain advantages with regard to the governance of rural food safety risk，and their primary regulatory roles include providing guidance to villages on food safety，giving assistance to the government with regard to food safety as a public service，providing information about food safety and the creation of a food safety supervisory and management network. However，villagers’ self-governing organizations also face a number of restrictions when participating in the governance of rural food safety risk，and thus it is important to explore some ways of overcoming these through the following methods：capacity building，boundary determination and government support.