Agricultural Transformations and Rural Development

1. Agricultural Transformations and Rural Development Southeast Asian Perspectives

2. 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 > type of crop (rice, rubber, etc); land size>income earned and traditional system • But inputs, outputs are linked through three overlapping milieu or environments

3. 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

4. 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)

5. Forms of Agriculturehttp://www.askasia.org/frclasrm/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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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.

9. 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

10. 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

12. 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; Myrdal’s vicious circles of poverty!!

13. Southeast Asia’s 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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 critical—remote 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

17. 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

18. 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)

19. 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