5. Man-Land Relations at the Beginning of Industrialization
In recent times, more and more non agricultural income opportunities
have become available in Asia with great variations between
countries and between regions within countries. This may be
the result of increasing industrialization and of expanding
the service sector, or sometimes take the form of manpower
export to other countries. While the latter involves a smaller
number of people, it is of great influence because of the
relatively high incomes and transfers.
As a result of emerging alternatives, young people, especially,
become less interested in small scale traditional farming
because they see no future in rainfed areas where the soil
conditions are poor. To a rapidly increasing extent, households
with small farms do not live from the proceeds of their cultivation
alone, but have non- farm incomes in addition. This development,
which has far reaching consequences for the man-land relations,
can take different forms depending an family structure and
economic conditions. Sometimes, peasants take a side job and
become part-time farmers. In many cases, one or more sons
take an a job, locally or at distant places, permanently or
whenever they can find work and improve the financial basis
of family life. In still other arrangements, agriculture is
an occupation for part of a lifetime only. The younger family
members take an non- agricultural jobs while the father operates
the small farm. When the young generation is about 45 years
of age, the father becomes too old so that the son has to
take over the farm. This is when the next generation reaches
working age. Sometimes, an "extended family economy"
emerges, in which relatives residing in the city receive products
from the farm for their subsistence (and for sentimental reasons)
and contribute regularly or only in case of special requirements
to the farming relatives' budget. In all these cases, the
family only partly depends an agriculture, which sometimes
makes up the smaller share of income. This influences the
interest they have in land, their willingness to invest, and
their goals concerning agriculture. As about 70 % of all census
registered agricultural holdings in Asia outside mainland
China are less than 2 ha in size- in many cases not enough
to live on - these mixed households are quite common.
As such households having a multitude of economic activities
develop, the attitude towards agriculture changes. The level
of income is the focus of interest, not the size of the landed
property a family owns. A farm is only one possibility among
others to earn this income. Equality of income is of importance,
not equality of landownership, and the comparison is not made
within agriculture, but between sectors.
The differentiation within agriculture goes further: while,
for many families, agriculture is still a way of life as for
their forefathers, other farmers become entrepreneurs and
engage in business like commercial farming along scientific
lines and sometimes surprisingly achieve high production and
productivity. This may go an until the stage of agro-business
is reached, for instance in broiler production, hog fattening,
feed lots, etc. Often, it is combined with a trend to expand
the farm units by purchasing, or more often renting in, the
land of smallholders. Those who rent out their land are often
those who failed in the rougher climate of a market integrated
agriculture and have had to give up farming.
This process of differentiation within agriculture brings
with it a new phase in the land market. Non- agricultural
speculators enter the land market, invest there and compete
with bona fide farmers, often successfully, because of their
greater financial resources. In the absence of a land policy,
more and more agricultural land often the most fertile land
is converted for other uses like roads, housing areas, industrial
sites, etc. In contrast, cultivation is given up in marginal
areas because the income a man can obtain there cannot compete
with the existing alternatives. If this concentrates in certain
regions, the population density may decrease to a level that
has detrimental effects on the service structure. Moreover,
the development of rural towns and even villages and the availability
of services may reach a stage, at which differences in the
level of living between urban and rural areas shrink in the
people's evaluation.
The increasing differentiation in agriculture requires instruments
for balancing the supply of and demand for land. The bias
against lease as an instrument has to be re-examined. As well,
too small farms often cannot earn the cultivator an income
which is attractive to an able young man. Ceiling legislation
has to find an optimum between giving land to as many rural
families who demand it and assuring the basis for a desirable
income. Increasing shortage of labour in agriculture and increasing
capital intensity are bound to lead to larger holdings. Besides,
release of labour out of agriculture is a prerequisite for
developing the secondary and tertiary sectors.
In a time of beginning industrialization, land has to fulfil
additional functions. It is no longer only the basis for agricultural
production and residence of the agricultural population, but
rural industries and services develop, and people working
in these sections live on the land. In addition, ecological
problems coming up with modern agriculture have to be taken
care of so that the resource base is maintained.
To the same degree as fundamental changes in land ownership
lose importance, measures to improve land management are necessary
to enable especially smallholders to compete with commercial
farmers. Change in existing and development of new institutions
to fulfil peasants' requirements in extension, marketing of
products, supply of Inputs, credit and insurance, transportation
and similar supporting services are required. These institutions
cannot be created by agriculture but have to be supplied by
the society.
However, their very supply by the society cannot be taken
for granted. The more general socioeconomic development takes
place, the less the general interest centres an agriculture.
While, in an agrarian society, everybody lives directly or
indirectly from agriculture, as industrialization increases,
agriculture becomes a shrinking sector and, soon, to guarantee
a policy allowing peasants to earn an income that a minority
which needs support from other sectors of economy and society,
is attractive to the young generation. The struggle among
sectors for a "big piece" of cake in the economy
is all the more difficult as there are no institutions to
represent agriculture in debates with other sectors and against
the government to represent its justified interests.
Increasing interweaving of agriculture and non-agricultural
activities within households, mutual dependence between sectors
for markets and inputs, shrinking differences between urban
and rural areas make isolated measures to change land tenure
obsolete. In industrializing societies, the agrarian question
can be solved only when integrated into the general economic
and social policy of societies.
The Example of India:
In recent years an increasing differentiationnwithin agriculture
has been one of the most remarkable tendencies. While the
"Green Revolution" led to a differentiation between
irrigated and non- irrigated areas, in which production increases
were more or less limited to the former, the differentiation
process continues in other fields. Depending on the individual
cultivator, some holdings develop into progressive farms managed
along commercial lines. Modern management and an increase
in the scale of operation are quite common in these cases.
Other landowners continue with traditional farming and are
satisfied with a moderate income, part of which at least is
rental income. The natural growing conditions and economics
of location can explain these differences only partially.
Many of the increasing number of small and marginal farmers
try to earn a non-agricultural income by working in industrial
or commercial establishments, and young people, especially,
sometimes cannot see a future in cultivating a small plot
of poor land and migrate to the cities, renting their land
to larger holdings. As, at the same time, many tenants have
been dismissed, tenancy rapidly becomes a different phenomenon
than in former times. More and more larger farms rent in land
instead of renting it out. An important drive in all these
developments has been provided by the improvement of supporting
institutions for agriculture, especially credit and marketing.
All these changes in man-land relations happen at a speed
and to a degree that vary widely in the different regions
of the country. Gradually, however, agriculture is changing
from way of life for the mass of the population towards a
possibility of making a livelihood, one among others.
The Example of Korea:
With the increasing industrialization of the country, migration
from the rural areas to the cities continues rapidly. This
is caused not so much by differences in income, but by the
absence of a successful regional development policy bringing
industries to the smaller cities and rural towns. Besides
the concentration of industry in a few big cities, the difference
in the quality of educational facilities plays a great role,
because remaining in the village reduces the life chances
of the young generation.
However, because of the close relations among families and
the children's duty to look after their parents in old age
as well as their ancestors' tombs, a network has been developed
with some members of the extended family living in the cities,
others remaining in the village and cultivating the land.
Between them close social a well as economic relations exist.
The village is becoming increasingly the living place for
the aged and the small children, while family members of working
age reside in the city.
Land cultivation is concentrated in fewer holdings, usually
in open or disguised forms of tenancy, is increasingly using
modern technology and becoming capital intensive. The government
policy to modernize the rural areas has changed the picture
of villages. Modern houses have replaced the traditional farm
house, and all modern facilities are available on the village
site. Much money earned in the city has been invested in the
rural areas.
In the absence of a sound land policy, the man-land relation
is changing rapidly. Following the improvement of supporting
institutions and favourable price policy by the government,
investment in land has become of interest to speculators.
Other good land is used for housing areas, industrial sites,
roads, etc. The abolishment of ceilings is under discussion,
hardly to the advantage of bona fide farmers. Understanding
for ecological considerations is developing only very slowly.
The tremendous industrial development in the past often causes
public interest to be judged solely with industrial eyes,
and the absence of a representation of agriculture's interests
often makes this sector the playball for other quarters.
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