Migration, Return, and Agricultural Development in the Serra Do Alvão, Northern Portugal

Abstract

The literature on migration from rural agricultural areas and return migration portrays the effects as both beneficial and detrimental. This study aims to examine the capital constraint on agricultural production as perceived by farmers and to assess the extent to which production improvements are encouraged or inhibited by migration or return migration. During the course of discussion attention is directed to the general economic and social changes in agricultural areas. Field research took place from July 1987 to October 1988 in 4 villages in the Serra do Alvao Portugal. 199 households were interviewed of which 98 were farm households. 36 farm households and 52 total households were migrant households. The two upland villages were on relatively infertile land; the lowland villages had fertile areas for growing maize and vines and for cattle raising. The effects of migration and return migration on individual farm families and the farming system in Serra do Alvao are discussed in terms of the following: 1) longterm migration and the provision of capital for investment in agricultural production; 2) the loss of agricultural workers and an increase in wage costs which undermines the traditional agricultural system; and 3) social and economic changes as a result of population loss. A comparison of migrant and nonmigrant households was hampered by the practice of temporary or seasonal migration. Also family members who were not part of the household sometimes migrated. The comparative results showed that migration and return migration reinforced processes which had already begun. Declining yields were one such process. Similar patterns were found between the uplands and lowlands but the impact on home villages was different for rental and farming arrangements and for the extent of return migration. There was a rise in real wages and a decline in rents. The male/female wage differential declined. Labor shortages and wage rates increased the cost of production and sometimes delayed the performance of essential tasks. Medium-term migrants tended to modernize production. There were no large increases in land acquisition or upheaval in social systems.