Issues

• 1/2 of Third world families are farmers
• rural residents generally have low incomes, less education, poorer health
• less political influence, note "urban bias" in government policies, price policy
• 1 Billion people live in absolute poverty
•  India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, China are countries with many poor
•  Bangladesh, Haiti, some African countries have high percentages of very poor
• farmer suicide (India, but occurs in other places too)

• Latin America, Philippines: latifundia, minifundia
• Patron -- of Patron Client system, great social power, private security (police), needs labor to make land productive
• Minfundista, client  -- virtual share cropper, dependent on patron for access to land, food security
• Asia: landed elites (some with political power and private security forces),
• landlords, rich peasants (kulaks),
• small fame's, tenant farmers, landless laborers
• Africa: tribal land, control by elders, allocate usufruct rights.

Peasant Politics

• sack of potatoes, conservative
• the rational peasant -- minimization of risk,
• note many parcels of land for different crops, exposure to risk
• conservative choices of seed, purchase of fertilizer
• see writings by Samuel L. Popkin
• rebellion when "the moral economy" has failed, exploitation too great, survival undermined
• peasant uprisings are likely
• see writings by James Scott
• when voting, usually quite conservative, provide rural vote banks for patrons

• Communism, violent land redistribution, collective agriculture (red revolution)
• Socialist (USSR, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua, maybe Ethiopia)
• State sponsored invasions, takeovers:
• Venequela 1 |  ,  Zimbabwe

• Peaceful, administered land reform imposed by US (from rich farmers or unused state lands)--
• (Wolf Ladejinsky--Japan, Taiwan, South Korea)
• collectivization?  USSR, China, Israeli Kibbutzim, Mexican Ejidos
• non-Marxist: Mexico, Boliva, Peru, Algeria
• Post Colonial :  Algeria, Kenya
• moderate reformism: Egypt, Iran, India, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Chile
• land consolidation, rationalizing parcelization of land
• Technical Development
• green revolution: improved seeds, fertilizer, irrigation, credit, mechanization, to increase crop production (Punjab), brought wealth and tensions
• The Sikhs of of Punjab  1 | 2 | 3
• Violence in 1980s
• history of movement for Khalistan
• selected press articles
• spill-over into Canada
• leader  Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale      1 | 2
• critical view of green revolution 1 - 2
•  Consultative Group on International Agricultural Resarch
• 15 Research Centers
• Farmers with more land can buy and use machines efficiently.  They get wealthier and can buy more land.  Poorer farmers have trouble competing.  The sell their land and become laborers or migrate to cities. (polarization)
• The Green Revolution is finally coming to Africa (2006)

white revolution

• enable small farmers or landless laborers to purchase cows for dairy production
• very labor intensive, helps small farmers
• problem -- milk is perishable, needs infrastructure of dairy processing plants, roads and trucks to get milk to the dairy before it sour factories.
• blue revolution: aqua culture, fish ponds.  Enable small or medium farmers to get more profit from small parcel of land.  Also dealing with a perishible product so there transportation and processing system is critical

• Any technical change requires "Integrated Rural Development" (IRD): support for small farmers -- land titles, credit, marketing, roads/bridges, technology (extension), irrigation, health
• basic needs strategy: provide rationed food, medical care, education, so even poor people can meet their "basic needs." (Kerala)
• Statistics showing success in health, longevity, literacy in Kerala
• debate: has social policy in Kerela brought economic stagnation?
• paper by Joseph Tharamangalam

• Rural Reconstruction, broad social development, based on mass education and literacy
• started by Jimmy Yen, in north China in the 1930's (Ding County)
• after 1949, moved to the Philippines, now used the phrase "learning communities"
• International Institute for Rural Reconstruction website

• agricultural price policy, marketing boards (parastatals)
• high prices create urban problems
• low prices reduce agricultural incentives
• privatization of parastatals in Tanzania
• It is still difficult to develop rural areas so well that rural to urban migration ceases
• with lower rural population densities, it is much more expensive to provide:
• clean water, sewers
• schools, medical facilities
• entertainment
• political power of urban "unrest" so urban needs are met  (urban bias)
• low food prices, via subsidies and imports, reduce rural incentives and incomes
• Sometimes the best that can be done is good rural education, so when youth migrate to cities, they will get good jobs (Iowa, Finland)

Tragedy of the Commons (conflict between private and social incentives)

• The problem of overgrazing of common pasture
• Everyone has an personal incentive to have as many cows as possible to get the most from the pasture
• These individual incentives result in overgrazing
• How is grazing restricted to permit optimal production?
• presonal values, religion
• government and rules
• privatization, fences, property rights
• Where is this analytical model applicable?  Where ever there is a common resource
• livestock herding
• fishing
• forestry management, with down-stream environmental consequences
• irrigation
• control of pollution (rural areas, oceans, atmosphere)
• population fertility control
• ocean resources

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