Causes
There are three causes for the gradual reduction in peasant
agriculture:
- The common inheritance system foreseeing the division
of the farm area among
all children or all male children in combination with the
large number of children
per family causes a reduction in farm size. This process
has reached a level Which
does not leave enough to the individual heir for allowing
him to earn his living from
the land.
- Overuse and misuse of land, especially under dry and
upland marginal conditions,
have led to yield reductions. This reinforces the process
caused by the inheritance
system. Under such conditions, the young people do not see
any future and lose
interest in agriculture. Ecological reasons make it necessary
to stop cultivation.
- Rising income possibilities outside agriculture - not
everywhere, but in many
places - offer alternatives. In principle, this reduces
the consequences of
inheritance as not everybody is interested in land. In practice,
whenever
opportunities exist, one brother often calls the other as
soon as he has settled
outside agriculture.
The process of reduction in farm sizes has progressed differently
over the world. Some figures may indicate that, quite often,
the majority of all holdings are below the required size of
a real "peasant" holding:
Percentage of smallholdings in selected
countries |
Countries below 2 ha below 5 ha |
1983 |
Indonesia |
87% |
98% |
1980 |
Pakistan |
34% |
73% |
1981 |
India |
75% |
89% |
1980 |
Kenya |
75% |
53% |
1970 |
Ghana (1 .6 ha) |
77% |
32% |
1980 |
Ethiopia (4 ha) |
92% |
80 % |
1976 |
Chile |
97% |
49% |
1977 |
Bangladesh |
54% |
43% |
1980 |
Turkey |
82% |
91% |
1979 |
Jamaica |
63% |
93% |
1980 |
Korea |
94% |
99% |
1983 |
Togo |
77% |
78% |
1982 |
Sri Lanka |
87% |
99% |
Sources: FAO World Census of
Agriculture, diff. Vol. |
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