Abstract
The purpose of this article is to present a framework that could be used to achieve the objective of sustainable rural development in a community which is characterized by high numbers of smallholders, landless peasants, and unskilled or semi-skilled labor ultimately leading to low productivity and high rates of poverty. The study presents a design inspired by “Saemaul Undong” (New Village Movement) of South Korea. The proposed model is based on proposing a four-tier approach for the working of the village-level cooperatives which will be self-reliant through a network connection to the national and international markets. Existing studies and surveys in Punjab province of Pakistan have established that rural areas are often lacking essential facilities that affect the abilities of these areas to retain skilled manpower thus leading to resource drain and negatively impacting the agricultural productivity. The proposed Village-City Model, “VCM,” was designed to strengthen the local infrastructure and built interest-based cooperatives to develop an environment which can sustain the benefits of higher productivity and translate these into better livelihoods. It is proposed that farmer-centered cooperatives with appropriate institutional arrangements could result in developing village-based cities where skilled manpower can exert to in better resource use efficiency, access to market coupled with rural finance schemes to enhance resource base and access to technology. The cooperatives experience is considered as a bitter experience in Pakistan. However, the analysis of failures of cooperatives in Pakistan revealed many bottlenecks which have been addressed through indigenization of Saemaul Undong.
Highlights
Economic growth and development have remained the top agenda in the growth itinerary of the countries
If we review the growth rate of the agriculture sector of the economy along with its absolute share in gross domestic product (GDP), we can observe that pace of the growth is not consistent and its share in GDP is declining as is evident from Tables 1 and 2
Productive, and sustainable agriculture sector is a prerequisite for economic development and national cohesion of a country like Pakistan
Summary
Economic growth and development have remained the top agenda in the growth itinerary of the countries. The Pakistani experience provided impetus to researchers, academia, and field practitioners to come up with a recipe that can address the potential issues of the existing design and speed up the rural development process on a sustainable basis Another experience of participatory management was experienced in irrigation sector in Punjab, Pakistan, where farmer organizations were formed to manage the irrigation system at secondary and tertiary levels. Under the guiding principles of the Vision 2025 and building upon the South Korean experience of SMU, an integrated village development model based on village clusters (as detailed below) is believed to ensure the pace of the growth on sustainable basis and will have a more equitable distribution of income and resources across the regions and farmer classes. Risk sharing (more resources and access to market): Through collective actions, pooling of resources, enhanced contacts with extension and research and access to financial resources, the members can share the risks and have better access to markets
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