Agricultural Transformations and Rural Development

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Agricultural Transformations and Rural Development

• Southeast Asian Perspectives

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Agricultural Systems

• Useful to view agriculture in a systems
  framework inputs, outputs and linkages
• Inputs- labor, fertilizer, seeds, land
  preparation, land quality and tenure
• Outputs- production in form of mature crops and
  income earned and allocated
• Linkages- labor intensity gt type of crop (rice,
  rubber, etc) land sizegtincome earned and
  traditional system
• But inputs, outputs are linked through three
  overlapping milieu or environments

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Agricultural Systems

• A- Physical - Ecosystem- especially climate
  (precipitation), soil and vegetation
• B- Behavioral - how ecosystem is
  perceived-physical and behavioral may be in
  conflict
• C- Operational - culture, values, class
  structures, institutions and tradition, political
  system, technology level-farm management, land
  tenure-all influence and govern machinery of
  production, consumption and exchange

B-Behavioral Environment
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Agrarian Structure

• Agrarian structure refers to ways in which
  agricultural system is developed on the land and
  includes land ownership, cropping system, and
  institutions
• Land tenure- who owns or controls the land
• Communal tenure- land held by village where
  villagers enjoy usufruct (right to use and
  profit)
• Estates large estates where wage laborers are
  employed by private sector firms (agri-business),
  or plantations held by public sector
• Freehold- outright ownership with land being
  transferred and divided equally among (usually
  males)
• Tenancy- farmers pay owners for use of land
  either in cash or kind (production)

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Forms of Agriculturehttp//www.askasia.org/frclas
rm/lessplan/l000008.htm

• Wet rice (sawah or padi) cultivation- rice grown
  in an embanked field relying on natural rainfall
  or irrigation. Highly labor intensive and
  naturally fertile. Irrigation adds fertility
  through deposition of material in suspension.
  Capable of involution and highly impacted by the
  Green Revolution- hybrid seeds, fertilizers and
  pesticides used to enhance productivity but
  assumes abundant water

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Plantation or Estate Agriculture

• Plantation or Estate Agriculture- foreign capital
  or public sector capital large scale with
  rubber, oil palm, coffee and sugar cane being
  dominant high labor requirements-labor supply
  problems stimulated by Western now Eastern
  demand as well significant capital
  investment-planting, processing, re-planting

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Sedentary Dry Farming

• Sedentary dry farming- mostly smallholders
  growing cereal grains usually millets and
  sorghums- occasionally grown under irrigation
  where population density is generally low
  Example Khorat Plateau

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Shifting Agriculture

• Shifting cultivation- sometimes referred to as
  swidden and means occupancy of the land
  interrupted by lengthy rest periods, clearing
  field and burning vegetation, sowing food crops
  supports only a small population extensive type
  of agriculture diversity of crops planted to
  insure against natural hazard
• Shifting cultivation usually starts with cutting
  trees and a fire which clears a spot for crop
  production (L)
• (R) newly prepared land in the center, background
  is untouched forest, in the foreground the piece
  of land which has been left idle to re-growth of
  a secondary forest from the previous cropping
  cycle, and on the right the secondary growth
  awaiting cultivation during the next cropping
  cycle.

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Highland Market Gardens

• Higher elevation areas which allow cultivation of
  temperate crops
• Largely labor intensive vegetable or tea
  production for urban markets
• Usually well organized and if so export is
  possible
• Examples Cameron Highlands, Malaysia Berastagi,
  Karo Highlands, Sumatra Baguio, Philippines

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Constraints on Rural Southeast Asian Agriculture

• Small size of farms limit productivity of labor
• Reduction in size of land parcels under
  inheritance tends to increase tenancy
• Weak local or regional markets
• Expensive inputs unless subsidized by government
• Farm to market transport often poor and may be
  seasonal- collapsing in the wet season

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Contrasting Peasant Agriculture Asia

• In Latin America and Africa- too much land under
  control of too few people
• In Asia- too many people crowded onto too little
  land
• Three forces have molded the traditional pattern
  of land ownership into its present condition
• 1. European rule-private property, rise of
  landlord and creation of individual land titles
• 2. Rise in power of the moneylender- with land
  titles land became a negotiable asset
• 3. Rapid growth of Asian populations- impact has
  been severe fragmentation as holdings shrink
  production falls below poverty level peasants
  forced to borrow at usurious rates large debts
  forced to pay high rents with scarce land labor
  abundant so wages are low Myrdals vicious
  circles of poverty!!

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Southeast Asias Green Revolution

• What is the Green Revolution?
• Basically a worldwide attempt to revolutionize
  production of wheat and rice in many Third World
  countries
• Most important development is the application of
  new seeds or hybrid referred to as HYVs (high
  yielding varieties)
• In Southeast Asia International Rice Research
  Institute, Los Banos, Philippines

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Hybrid Rice

• Especially responsive to fertilizers in
  conditions of adequate water supply and effective
  management
• Spectacular yields- more than double normal which
  allows nations to achieve rice self sufficiency
  and eliminates need to import
• HYVs are locationally selective- best results
  where cheap irrigation is available
• Geographic effect relate to distribution pattern
  of research coops and relation to control center
• Successful where overcrowding encourages
  intensity of production
• New seeds substitute for both land and labor
  since productivity of both is increased
• Raise yields and are a substitute for land very
  critical

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Impact of Green Revolution

• Commercial and environmental risks are raised
  with increased dependence on success in the
  market
• Forced boom in irrigation and water control
  schemes
• Rise in fertilizer and pesticide consumption
• Increased dangers from new plant diseases
• Bottlenecks in labor supply- harvest time
• Widened income gap between rich and poor farmers
• Forces view of agricultural production as a
  technology (imported) dependent process- progress
  translated into a narrow technical problem
• Real problem is social task of releasing untapped
  and wasted human resources
• Real problem also involves politicians and vested
  interests-wealthy who benefit from status quo
• Such people can and do influence access to
  knowledge and availability of credit needed by
  farmers to purchase inputs

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Summary Impacts

• Demands access to critical inputs water,
  fertilizer, pesticides which may be costly for
  poor farmers and incites over borrowing
• Information and access to information is
  criticalremote farmers?
• Green Revolution may exacerbate income
  differentials
• Case studies show failure results from access to
  inputs but also inability to adjust to needs of
  new system, lack of farmer experience and disease
  

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Toward a New Strategy for Rural Development

• 1. Land Reform- (reorganization of land holdings
  and tenure structures by expropriation and
  consolidation of fragmented and tiny holdings)
  farm structures and tenure patterns must fit need
  to
• a. increase food production
• b. promote wider distribution of benefits of
  agrarian progress uneven land ownership single
  most important factor in explaining inequitable
  distribution of income

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Toward a New Strategy for Rural Development

• 2. Supportive Policies- need state policies that
  provide incentives and opportunities
• a. assure access to needed inputs
• b. corresponding changes in rural institutions
  that control production (e.g banks and money
  lenders)
• c. expand supporting government services (credit,
  education, rural transport, health)

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Toward a New Strategy for Rural Development

• 3. Integrated Development Objectives
• a. need simultaneous changes in income,
  employment, education, health and housing
• b. lessening of rural-urban imbalances
• c. capacity of rural sector to sustain these
  improvements over time