3. Sustainability in the Views of Different Land-Cultivating Catagories

This chhapter elaborates the role which sustainability, definded as fulfilling the needs of the present generation without limiting the chances of future generations to satisfy their needs, plays for the different socioeconomis categories described above. It comes to the conclusion that there is a great variety caused by different factors.

Large Landowners (Landlords, plantations)

Today, most of them cultivate according to modern lines, however, not always with sufficient consideration of the environmental aspects. In other cases, they are traditional landlords operating with share tenants and trying to achieve a high income through strict control and skimming off as much as possible. In this case, the tenants' interest in maintaining the quality of the land may not exist at all. Chemical may be musused due to insufficient information and carelessness. As far as plantations are concerned, the management usually has all the technical information which is necessary to organize cultivation in line with care for the resource base, i.e., to observe the requirements of sustainabWty. On the other hand, monoculture and the exploitative character may have detrimental effects as we! as the fact that plantations are sometimes operated on concession so that the interest for tang-term sustainability may be limited. It is probably justified to assume positive as well as negative cases among the large landowners and plantations as far as sustainability is concerned. We rate them.

Progressive Farmers'

These are mostly young, often well-trained farmers who manage their land according to modern, 'capitalistic' criteria and achieve high yields. These "children of the 'Green Revolution" know about an ecologically sound agriculture. However, in their eagerness to make money from the land, this goal sometimes goes beyond the needs of an ecologically sound cultivation. With the use of modern inputs, especially, they sometimes do more than good. We rate them neutral, i.e., +.

Economic Holding'

These economically sound family farms have often been for generations in the hands of one family. Here, the notion of trusteship plays a role. Economic limitations and self-interst caused them to be careful with the application of chemicals, etc. In general, here thinking in terms of sustainability is widespread. We rank them +.

Households with Multiple Employment

Often, their main interst, at least their expectations for the young generation is concentrated outside agriculture. Agricultural sustainability plas a limited role in their thinking, especially among younger people. We rank them with.
Households with Household Production
Since they have not been able to find a non-agricultural activity, their living condoitkms are bad. Their thoughts revolve around survival, and the people lack the means to consider such aspects as sustainability. Therefore, in this case, the lack of interest is combined with the lack of funds. We rank them with.

Households of Aged People

These are residual households in which the shildren have migrated and the old couple has to manage the small farm since they neve no other means of survival. Disinvestment is frequent. These are neither means, nor interest, nor understanding for the notion of sustainability. The holding will cease to exist when the old couple dies. We rank them with.

Marginal Existances

These houshdds which, for personal of material reasons, have not succeeded in supplementing the income from the small acreage mostly Bve in great poverty. The members have to use every opportunity to ensure survival today without regard to the question as to what tomorrow will be. We rank them with.

If Ms ranking is applied to the figure in Table 2 regarding the number and cultivated area of different ocioeconimic catagories, we obtain the picture illustrated in Table 3.

Table 3. Percentage of Cultivating Households and Area and their Ranking Regarding Sustainability

This means that only in the case of about 1/5 the cultivating households and 2/5 of the cultivated area is sustainability satisfactory considered. On the other hand, not less than 76% of the cultivating households holding about 40% of the land are ranked negatively in that regard.

For sure, the ranking can be questioned. But the argument dos not change if 5 or 10% more or less belong to one ranking or another. The important statement is that the life situation and interest of many people are such, that considerations of sustainability hardly play a role in their life, often cannot play a role because of their degree of poverty.