Concentration Of Landholdings Research Articles

Hybrid livelihoods: Maize and agrarian transformation in Southeast Asia's uplands

Hybrid maize farming has boomed across upland Southeast Asia in the past three decades. Recent studies suggest that the boom has resulted in diverse outcomes across countries. In Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos, the introduction of hybrid maize has often initially been linked to rising incomes and living standards, with little loss or concentration of landholdings. In contrast, recent studies from Myanmar argue that exploitative trader-farmer credit relations are driving rapid agrarian differentiation and dispossession. We analyze patterns of agrarian change associated with hybrid maize farming in southern Shan State, Myanmar, using data from a representative survey of 1562 rural households. Widespread farmer engagement in maize cultivation has contributed to deepening petty commodity production and some economic differentiation, but with little dispossession or negative impacts on food security. Credit provision by traders may benefit some larger farmers but does not actively penalize smaller producers. Hybrid maize is a ‘moderate risk, moderate reward’ crop that households integrate strategically into a broader patchwork of subsistence farming, higher risk cash crop production, and a growing mix of off-farm activities. Employment in non-farm enterprises, salaried work, and migration have significant potential to modify trajectories of differentiation associated with agriculture.

Do Medium‐scale Farms Improve Market Access Conditions for Zambian Smallholders?

AbstractThis study is motivated by the need to understand how the rise of medium‐scale farms in Africa is affecting small‐scale farm households. Survey evidence over the past decade has shown a dramatic rise in the prevalence of ‘medium’ sized farms between 5 and 100 hectares, but smaller farms still constitute the vast majority of farms and rural households. Prior evidence highlights a co‐evolution between the concentration of landholdings, surplus production volumes, and entry of larger traders into the market. Whether these changes tend to impact on smallholders negatively, crowding them out of markets, for example, or positively, potentially opening new marketing channels, is an empirical question. Using a multi‐stage model for maize market participation in Zambia, we find that in areas where medium‐scale farms are growing, even the smaller farms are becoming more likely to sell maize, more likely to sell to the private sector, more likely to sell to larger traders, and expected sales amongst sellers are higher. On balance, the growth of medium‐scale farms and large‐scale traders seems to have positive spillover effects on nearby smallholder marketing options.

Marx and Chayanov at the margins: understanding agrarian change in Java

ABSTRACTStarting from the notes which Marx made on Java in 1853 and 1881, this contribution explores the history of research and debates on the survival, reproduction and differentiation of Java's peasant communities. Rural differentiation and concentration of landholdings are long-standing, established facts; however this has produced not a capitalist large-farmer class but growing numbers of share tenants, as the landowning ‘masters of the contemporary countryside’ parcel out their land in minuscule plots to share tenants. Understanding the continuing existence of this highly productive and pluriactive mass of micro-farmers requires concepts derived from both the Marxist and the Chayanovian traditions.

Plantation livelihoods in central Vietnam: Implications for household vulnerability and community resilience

Thulstrup, A.W. 2014. Plantation livelihoods in central Vietnam: Implications for household vulnerability and community resilience. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography Vol. 68, 1–9. ISSN 0029-1951.Social vulnerability to disturbances is influenced by the economic and political context in which actors and institutions both enable and constrain household access to productive resources. These resources are crucial as a means for mitigating, coping, and responding to impacts of natural disturbances. The Vietnamese Government has formulated policies aimed at achieving dual objectives of socio-economic development and environmental protection through the expansion of plantation forests. Negative social impacts and worrying environmental trends have been noted by a number of scholars. However, few studies have examined these issues at the local level or analysed the interplay between plantation forest expansion, household vulnerability, and community resilience to climatic disturbances. The article documents the extent to which the introduction of acacia tree species has reinforced existing inequalities in landholding, which in turn increases household vulnerability to natural disturbances. This has resulted in the emergence of a social-ecological context characterized by decreasing resilience. The most vulnerable households are those of the landless and ethnic minorities, both of which depend on short-term insecure income from casual labour. A growing concentration of landholdings, coupled with a commune economy based on monoculture plantations, threatens resilience and potentially could constrain future government development interventions.

The Complex Evolution of Cattle Ranching Development Amid Market Integration and Policy Shifts in the Brazilian Amazon

This article provides an integrated analytical framework to explain the factors and trends shaping cattle ranching development in the Brazilian Amazon and its implications for deforestation. The two most important factors currently shaping cattle ranching evolution in this region are gradual market integration and the associated shifting policy contexts. Based on these two broader contextual factors, this article analyzes four main specific trends shaping the production and trade dynamics in the cattle sector. The first trend is growing investment in beef and dairy processing facilities situated closer to production zones. The second trend is gradual improvement in cattle herds and management systems alongside persistently extensive cattle ranching. The third is simultaneous fragmentation and concentration of landholdings. The fourth is widespread adoption of ranching by smallholders. These four trends are not isolated from each other; instead, they interact in complex ways to influence the dynamics of cattle expansion and associated land use outcomes. This article also discusses the complexities underlying any policy responses that aim to reduce environmental impacts of cattle ranching without hindering regional development and harming the well-being of the rural poor. This article adopts a three-step methodology that begins by formulating an analytical framework based on literature review and interview data to understand the factors shaping the development of cattle ranching, then it uses secondary data to depict the primary trends of production and trade in the cattle sector and, finally, the previous analysis is linked with observed deforestation trends.

Agrobusiness et agriculture familiale

EnglishThe banana sector in Ecuador is unique compared with other main exporting countries: many small andmedium producers operate alongside large national andmultinational companies. And while differences between these different production units are minimal in terms of productivity at the plot level, they become pronounced when it comes to packaging and transportation aspects of the production process where economies of scale are critical. Nonetheless, preserving small-scale operations, despite the trend towards a concentration of land holdings, permits agribusinesses to adjust their volumes in response to fluctuating demand. francaisLe secteur de la banane-fruit en Equateur presente l'originalite d'une structure productive tres differenciee, contrairement aux cas des principaux pays producteurs pour l'exportation. De nombreux petits et moyens producteurs cotoient en effet les plus grosses entreprises nationales ou multinationales. Les ecarts de productivite entre ces differents types d'unites productives sont pourtant peu marques en ce qui concerne la production au champ. Ils apparaissent en revanche determinants dans les processus de conditionnement, d'emballage et de transport jusqu'au port d'exportation, segments du processus productif ou apparaissent les economies d'echelle. Mais le maintien des petites structures de production, malgre une tendance a la concentration du foncier, permet aux entreprises agro-exportatrices de disposer d'un volume d'ajustement leur permettant de s'adapter au marche.

Impacto de la concentración parcelaria en el paisaje de un municipio del sur de Salamanca, en una zona de espacios naturales protegidos

The objective of this paper is to analyse the impacts caused by the concentration of land holdings on the landscape of Escurial de la Sierra, a village located in the south of the province of Salamanca (Spain). This village is part of the Biosphere Reserve of the Francia and Bejar mountain ranges (UNESCO 2006) due to the importance of its vegetation/flora, fauna and landscape. In order to observe the effect of the concentrations, several satellite images taken before and after the concentration process have been compared. The creation of 8 metre wide tracks by cutting trees and flattening the land has caused the disappearance of many hectares of forests which were either mature or in a process of regeneration. The fencing of the new parcels of land is causing the fragmentation and insularity of the land, resulting in a major impact on the metapoblational dynamics of the rich invertebrate land fauna.

The Economic Effects of Land Registration on Smallholder Farms in Kenya: Evidence from Nyeri and Kakamega Districts

Effects of land registration and title on security of tenure, use of formal credit, crop yields, and land concentration are analyzed from household and plot data in four Kenyan sites. Results indicate that the registration and titling program had a weak impact on perceived land rights of farmers, credit use and terms, crop yields, or concentration of land holdings. The conclusion is that titles are acquired for enhancing security of rights rather than for increasing agricultural production. Scarce government resources are best targeted towards providing better infrastructure and market opportunities, which should also foster a greater demand for titling.

Land ownership, farm structure and the economy: Some examples of farm sub-division in Sweden, 1780–1862

The aim of this article is to study the propensity for the sub-division offarms in Sweden in areas with differing natural conditions, either for specialising in cultivation and corn production on the one hand or for combining agriculture with various subsidiary occupations on the other. The question is whether the increased importance of corn production led to a concentration of landholdings into larger units in the plains studied, and whether the opportunities for subsidiary industries led farmers in forested tracts to sub-divide their holdings. The propensity to sub-divide farms is also studied from the standpoint of land ownership and the significance of increased owner-occupation in terms of the desire of farmers to divide their holdings.

Espace du marché et mode de domination

The Marketplace and Form of Domination - The ethnographical analysis of the Serro-Azul marketplace, located in the middle of a big sugar plantation in the Nordeste, Brazil, casts doubt on the widely accepted idea that market relationships rime with freedom and open doors toward the world. Following a description of its historical, social and institutional context, the market is shown to be a way of restoring the senhors traditional domination over the morador. The concentration of land-holdings and the appearance of new actors in the local context threatens this form of domination.

Agrarian Change and Class Conflict in Gujarat, India

ONLY A FEW DECADES AGO RURAL INDIA was described in terms of poverty and stagnation, a society imprisoned in tradition. Gunnar Myrdal's well-known study published in 1968 provides a prominent illustration of this school of thought, which dominated Western debates on development around the middle of the twentieth century. While his Asian Drama had a wider setting, the author based his argument mainly on the southern part of this populous continent, more precisely on the incapacity for self-transformation that seemed to characterize former British India. Myrdal noted with concern that development efforts were largely nullified by the enormous population growth caused by a fall in the death rate and a continuing high birth rate. Major institutional reforms were urgently needed, in his opinion, to overcome the underutilization of labor, which hindered any increase of agrarian production. What he had in mind was a radical redistribution of agrarian resources, which would place land in the hands of the tillers. The objectives of such a basic reform were twofold: a political one, namely, reduction of the rigid inequalities in the social structure; and an economic one, namely, the optimal use that a much greater mass of owners would make of the means of production allotted to them. A closer and more realistic assessment of policies and politics, however, convinced Myrdal that government lacked the will and the capability needed for transforming the rural system in this way. In his opinion, the failure to introduce any fundamental change into traditional property relations and the ingrained attitudes of agrarian people who were perceived not to be development-oriented, was due to the soft character of the Asiatic state. That social dynamics were nevertheless not entirely lacking was shown by the concentration of landholdings among a comparatively small village elite, mostly members of upwardly mobile peasant castes who had in recent times gained political power. Myrdal was well aware of the growing weight of this class and the concomitant deterioration in the position of sharecroppers and agri

G. Wignaraja, ‘Concentration of land holdings and income: Comment on N.T. Quan and A.Y.C. Koo’: A reply

G. Wignaraja, ‘Concentration of land holdings and income: Comment on N.T. Quan and A.Y.C. Koo’: A reply

Concentration of land holdings and income: Comment on N.T. Quan and A.Y.C. Koo

Quan and Koo (1985) empirically test alternative hypotheses about the relationship between income distribution and asset ownership. In this comment I discuss three difficulties with their data and methods of analysis.

Modern energy region development and income distribution: An input-output analysis

This paper formulates an input-output method for determining the distributional consequences of energy development projects. The method is oriented to the conditions appearing in many contemporary development settings where large resident populations and other factors are likely to inhibit boomtown scenarios. An analysis of geothermal energy development in Imperial County, California, is presented. The results indicate that personal income inequality is likely to increase by several percentage points as measured by the Gini coefficient. The sensitivity of the results is examined with respect to important factors such as labor supply elasticities, preferential employment of local residents, and the concentration of land holdings.

Why Some of the Poor Get Richer: Economic Change and Mobility in Rural Western India [and Comments

To the extent that peasants, particularly Indian peasants, are ever considered to be economically mobile, they are generally seen from one of two perspectives: either the Malthusian perspective, which predicts that most landholdings will shrink over time, due to partitioning among multiple heirs; or the Marxian perspective, which predicts that a few landholdings will increase in size at the expense of the vast majority-the latter diminishing, in many cases, to nothing at all. These two perspectives can be used to generate a number of specific hypotheses concerning changes in the distribution of land in rural India. Naturally, some of the Malthusian hypotheses contradict Marxian ones, but there are others which are mutually congruent (the poor will generally get poorer, from either perspective, though the rich also get richer, according to the latter). In this paper, historical and contemporary data collected from a highly commercialized and densely populated village in western India are used to test a number of these hypotheses. Where the Malthusian and Marxian hypotheses are congruent, they sometimes appear to fit the data. However, most of these data are better explained by exogenous factors, such as migration, than by the hypotheses which they appear superficially to confirm. In addition, where the Malthusian and Marxian hypotheses contradict each other, the former show a better fit with the data. The reason is simply that the largest landholdings did not get larger, they got smaller. Moreover, while many of the smaller holdings also diminished, some got larger. The concentration of landholdings has not increased, contrary to the Marxian hypotheses. Most interestingly, neither set of hypotheses can explain the significant amount of upward mobility which has ocurred among smallholders, and even among those who were landless. Coupled with frequent downward mobility among landholders of all sizes, this means an unexpectedly low correlation between the size of a family's holding in 1920 and its size in 1970. The distribution of land is neither rigidly fixed by a static social system nor deteriorating according to a pattern predicted by the Malthusian or Marxian perspectives. Since the village in question has undergone intensive commercialization, this implies that commercialization as such is not necessarily a cause of increased poverty and inequality.