Development Of Capitalist Agriculture Research Articles

Neocolonial agenda: Agrarian transformations in Ethiopia and Sri Lanka

ABSTRACT The aim of the article is to show how neocolonial development has led to increasing ‘de-agrarianisation’ despite agricultural expansion, and this is at the expense of peasant production and pastoralism. Based on the authors’ own ethnographic research and literature studies, the article presents two cases of agricultural expansion: the Mahaweli Development Programme in Sri Lanka, aimed at redeveloping small-scale agriculture, and the reorganisation of pastoralist areas into large-scale cash cropping areas in Ethiopia. The authors find that recent agricultural ‘developers’ have failed to acknowledge the role and value of the traditional agrarian economy, as well as the pressure put on small-scale farmers and pastoralists through increasing capitalism in agriculture, land grabbing, and expropriation for agri-business. In conclusion, despite the historical and cultural differences between Sri Lanka and Ethiopia, both countries exemplify how the expropriation of state land under colonialism and after has facilitated the development of capitalist agriculture, involving irrigation, new settlements and migration, cash cropping, land alienation, and external public and private control. In Sri Lanka, increasing capitalism and technical reforms have led to social inequity and de-agrarianisation among small-scale farmers. In Ethiopia, agricultural development has been a political and economic process of alienation and exploitation for pastoralists.

Moving the Rain: Settler Colonialism, the Capitalist State, and the Hydrologic Rift in California’s Central Valley

AbstractAgricultural development and water infrastructure constitute the central features of California’s Central Valley. Marxist ecological theory has examined the development of capitalist agriculture in the Central Valley, while decolonial scholarship has critiqued the disproportionate impact of California’s water resource management on Indigenous communities. We bring together Marxist ecology and critiques of settler colonialism through an examination of land reclamation in California, culminating in the development of the Central Valley Project (CVP) in the 1930s. Reclamation combined the twin logics of capitalism (accumulation) and settler colonialism (elimination) to produce landscapes conducive to capitalist agriculture. Faced with ecological limits to accumulation, colonial‐capitalist expansion required state intervention in the form of infrastructure projects to secure water for agricultural production. The CVP generated a rift in California’s hydrologic cycle, causing significant declines in water quality and fisheries and giving rise to forms of resistance and restoration that challenge colonial‐capitalist water development in the Central Valley. The reciprocal restoration of salmon fisheries offers a method to begin mending this hydrologic rift while disrupting ongoing settler colonial violence in California.

Dairying, Dispossession, Devastation

The past three-and-a-half decades of neoliberal orthodoxy in New Zealand have been marked by the rapid expansion and intensification of the New Zealand dairy industry. In the years since direct agricultural subsidies and supports were removed in the mid-1980s, the national dairy herd has more than doubled and the area given over to dairying has increased by some 750,000 hectares. This relentless drive to intensify has come at a simply enormous environmental cost: New Zealanders, present and future, are being systematically dispossessed of cherished freshwater ecosystems and endemic biodiversity. In this paper, I argue that this is but the latest episode in a long history of often-violent dispossession that has been crucial to the historical development of capitalist agriculture in New Zealand. In so doing, I draw on Marx’s theory of primitive accumulation.

Religious Conversion and the Decline of Environmental Ritual Narratives

Religion has a major impact on human–environmental relationships as evidenced by cultural responses to agricultural disease. In Belize, Protestant conversion has transformed traditional Mopan Maya environment relations and paved the way for the commercialization of formerly ritual crops. The changes in the spiritual importance of cacao and nature are reflected in farmers’ responses to the emergence of Monilia (Moniliophtora roreri), a fungal disease that attacks the fruits of the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao), the botanical source of chocolate. Traditionally, Mopan cacao farmers relied on ritual offerings to nature spirits to cure diseased trees. However, the widespread adoption of Protestant Christianity by many Mopan has led to the discontinuation of cacao rituals, the demystification of nature spirits, and increased reliance on agro-technical disease management. The decline of Mopan ritual offerings speaks more broadly to the transformation of indigenous environmental relations in the context of Protestant conversion and capitalist agricultural development.

Land outsourcing and labour contracting: Labour management in China's capitalist farms

AbstractDifficulty in labour supervision has been considered to be one of the obstacles to the development of capitalist agriculture. This paper presents two distinctive labour management strategies in China's large‐scale agriculture, which contribute to the development of agrarian capitalism in China. As shown in these cases, agribusiness companies engaged in grain crop production retreat from direct labour management by outsourcing crop cultivation, while acquiring profits from upstream and downstream activities. On the other hand, capitalist producers, who are involved in the labour‐intensive and capital‐intensive crop production, tend to mobilize local elites to manage the farmworkers. Although independent labour contracting services have not emerged, a specialized group of labour contractors is being cultivated. Rural social resources are utilized in labour recruitment and supervision to minimize the labour management costs in both strategies. However, the conflicts between capital and labour are covered or replaced instead of being settled.

Project-Based State Intervention and Agrarian Change in Contemporary China: The Case of Rice Production in Pingwan County, Hunan

This article analyzes the role of the state in the development of capitalist agriculture in contemporary China by focusing on the implementation of the central-government-sponsored National Grain Security Project and Agricultural Industrialization Project in Pingwan county of Hunan province since 2009. It demonstrates that by providing significant (formal and informal) subsidies and transferring large tracts of farmland to large farmers and agribusinesses, the Chinese government has made the capitalist transformation of rice production possible. We stress that in the absence of private property rights, the local governments’ strong control over farmland transactions makes it relatively easy to transfer large tracts quickly, helping agribusinesses and large farmers avoid significant transaction costs they would otherwise have to face under a system of private landownership. The article also shows that existing policies support the transfer of farmland in regions with favorable geographic and climatic conditions over other regions and therefore lack the capacity to significantly decrease regional inequalities.

An analysis of the development in agriculture in Lower Silesia from 1918 to 1939 and 1945 to 1956

Purpose – An analysis of the development in Polish agriculture from 1918 to 1939 and 1945 to1956. Research method – The article uses scientific historical and economical methods. Source texts of the state provenance were analysed: legal acts, printed sources (mainly statistical), archival records. In the economic studies, the analysis included statistical data, dynamics of phenomena, and comparative studies. Results – The analysis of changes in agriculture in Lower Silesia in the studied periods demonstrates that despite the under-investment and its marginal economic importance in Germany from 1918 to 1939, the agriculture in Lower Silesia was at a much higher level than the agriculture in pre-war Poland. Communism coming into power post 1945 and Poland entering the so-called Eastern Block hindered further development of capitalist agriculture in Lower Silesia. The agricultural structure created after World War II was not adapted to the character of farms taken over and the existing agricultural system was completely different from the socio-political assumptions based on agricultural reform and on the socialist character of agriculture prevailing from 1945 to 1956. Originality / value – The analysis of agricultural economy in the studied period was not sufficiently described in the source literature.

A “LEI DO BOI” E A RELAÇÃO ENTRE EDUCAÇÃO E PROPRIEDADE: O CASO DA UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL RURAL DO RIO DE JANEIRO

: This article seeks to analyze the relationship between rural property and education, institutionalized through Federal Law No. 5,465, dated July 3, 1968, known as the lei do boi. This law, repealed in 1985, established a system of reserve of vacancies, in the courses of Agronomy and Veterinary maintained by the Union, in its technical and superior levels for candidates that prove relation with the farming and cattle raising, In particular property titles. Proposed by Federal Deputy Ultimo de Carvalho (PSD-MG), declared a defender of private property and the qualification of the workforce for education, the law was enacted in full development of capitalist agriculture. Based on these premises, the research analyzed a target institution of the lei do boi, the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, in order to investigate, during its term, who were the greatest beneficiaries of the law.

The Development of Capitalist Agriculture in China

Scholars have different views on the nature and pace of capitalist transformation of the Chinese agriculture. In this paper, we have, for the first time, estimated the approximate size of agricultural proletariat in China as well as the prevalence of wage labor in agricultural work. We argue that by comparing with typical capitalist agricultures in the world, China’s agriculture is increasingly capitalist rather than petty producer/populist.

In Pursuit of Capitalist Agrarian Transition

This is a contribution to a long‐standing ‘conversation’ between Henry Bernstein and Terry Byres on capitalist agrarian transition, encompassing the development of capitalist agriculture and capitalist industrialization. Two themes are central: first, the divergence of view with respect to the possible relevance of past transitions for the present (posited by Byres) and the contemporary, pre‐emptive power of globalization (argued by Bernstein); and, second, the basic difference of analytical procedure. There is discussion of how, in India, before 1947, colonialism sought unsuccessfully to replicate an ‘English model’ of transition in eastern India; and how, throughout India, colonialism through surplus appropriation and remittances to Britain prevented the creation of the underlying structural conditions necessary for successful agrarian transition. Aspects of the nature of the Byres treatment of the Scottish experience of agrarian transition in the eighteenth century are considered, to illustrate the nature of the Byres method. The paper seeks to advance the conversation by clarifying the contrast between the two approaches.

Negotiating Fairness in the EU Sugar Reform: The Ethics of European-Caribbean Sugar Trading Relations

All markets are embedded in ethical relations and moral discourses. This is often forgotten or ignored in alternative agrofood studies, where there has been a frequent assumption that ‘ethics’ can be inserted into markets (Trentmann, 2007), or are only acknowledged in products certified as ‘ethical’ and suchlike (Barnett, Cloke, Clarke, & Malpass, 2005). This paper takes a different approach, choosing to explore how a mainstream commodity, widely associated with the development of capitalist agriculture (Mintz, 1985), is unavoidably embedded in both a set of moral discourses and a web of ethical relations (Goodman, Maye, & Holloway, 2010). Specifically, I offer a critical reading of the moral discourses that circulated between the Caribbean Sugar Protocol signatories and the European Union in the context of the 2006–2009 European Union Sugar Reform. The paper looks at how both Caribbean and European actors negotiated ‘fairness’ and in doing so, reconfigured their historical relationship. I discuss how a relational—or ethical—approach to fairness was evoked in certain instances, disrupting the European Union's (EU) neoliberal rhetoric. Contributing to the literature around ‘moral geographies’ (Jackson & Ward, 2008; Proctor et al., 1999; Smith, 1999) and also to agrofood studies, I conclude by affirming the significance of a relational approach to how the ‘fairness’ of the EU Sugar Reform might be comprehended and to how the ethics of neoliberal market reform can be more generally understood and critiqued.

Capitalization without Proletarianization in China's Agricultural Development

Marxist as well as classical and neo-liberal theories expect that the development of capitalist agriculture will be accompanied by the spread of an agricultural proletariat. That was what happened in eighteenth-century England; it is also what is happening in contemporary India. This article asks, first of all: just what is the size of China’s present agricultural proletariat? And how do we understand and explain those dimensions? Our finding is that, contrary to our own initial expectations, hired agricultural year-workers in China today total only 3 percent of all labor input in agriculture (and short-term workers another 0.4 percent), in sharp contrast to India’s 45 percent, this even while the past two decades have seen very substantial “capitalization” (i.e., increased capital input per unit of land) in agriculture. We term the phenomenon “capitalization without proletarianization,” perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of recent Chinese agricultural development.

Capital Intensification, Productivity and Exchange - A Class-Based Analysis of Agriculture in West Bengal in the Current Millennium

This paper deals with capitalist agricultural development in West Bengal, India. Based on a field study of two regions at different ends of the development spectrum, it shows the class-specific nature of agrarian development. Farms based on hired labour adopt more capital-intensive techniques, operate on a much larger scale and have higher yields in comparison to farms based on family labour, regardless of their size. Differentiation of the peasantry is intense where the adoption of capital-intensive technology is high. The paper concludes that the arguments of A.V. Chayanov and A.K. Sen, which seek to explain the inverse relation between farm size and productivity in terms of the superior efficiency of farms based on family labour compared to capitalist farms, are not borne out by our findings. Moreover, in the advanced region of Bardhaman, farmers of all economic classes are found to be subject to a form of compulsive exchange or stressed commerce brought about by traders external to the region.

The Rise of Agrarian Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Agricultural Modernization, Agribusiness and Collective Land Rights

In what forms are agribusinesses entering agriculture and interacting with farmers? How are land, labor and capital now controlled by corporate and individual actors, and then organized into agricultural production? How does such control and organization shape the relationships between the actors? In this article we argue that agrarian capitalism is expanding in China. The means of production, such as capital and land, are increasingly controlled by agribusiness, while direct producers increasingly sell their labor for a living. We document various forms in which agribusiness companies are conducting transactions with individual agricultural producers. We also argue that China's unique system of land rights featuring collective ownership but individualized usage rights has acted as a powerful force in shaping interactions between agribusiness and direct producers. It provides farmers with a source of economic income and political bargaining power, and restricts corporate actors from dispossessing farmers of their land. We find strong norms protecting farmers' collective land rights in the agricultural sector, contrary to the received wisdom about weak protection of land rights in China. In the rest of the paper, we first review the policy context in which this transformation has taken place. Next we introduce our method of data collection, summarize the five forms of agribusiness-farmer interaction found in our study, and analyze each of the five forms in depth. We conclude with a discussion of the causes and characteristics of the rise of agrarian capitalism, with a focus on the role of the land rights system.

THE MEXICAN STATE AND THE AGRIBUSINESS MODEL OF DEVELOPMENT IN THE GLOBALIZATION ERA

This article analyzes the relationship between the State and transnational capital manifested in capitalist agribusiness schemes in Mexican agriculture. It illustrates a model that has privileged one type of development in detriment to other forms of organizing rural agricultural production and labor (Real 1997). Current agricultural development in México is linked directly to the “Green Revolution”, México being prominent as its birthplace. Ironically, the Green Revolution contributed to a massive displacement of rural population to cities as human labor was replaced by machinery (1992). Development of capitalist agriculture in México and Latin America is closely related to the effects of the transnationalization of agroindustry. The importance of agribusiness has expanded in recent decades through a series of events, including the substitution of basic crops for more profitable ones and the contribution to the “new international division of labor” (Sanderson 1990). Recent trilateral transnational political and economic changes are linked to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between México, United States and Canada (Kearney 1995). In the case of agriculture, Palerm and Urquiola (1993) believe the relationship between United States and Mexico to be bimodal. From a perspective of Social Anthropology we provide firsthand information about two areas of agroindustry: production of vegetables for export and production of poultry where participation by different social actors was observed. Agro‐industrial entrepreneurs depend upon agricultural workers who wish to conserve a peasant way of life.

Eighteenth-Century Mexican Peonage and the Problem of Credits to Hacienda Labourers

The transition to modern, capitalist agriculture is usually marked by the replacement of traditional forms of farm service by a free labour market based on short-term contracts and cash payments. This process is often described in terms like ‘pauperisation’ and ‘proletarianisation’. But, of course, proletarianisation is not an inevitable consequence of the rise of day-labouring in capitalist agriculture; a point emphasized, for example, with particular reference to eighteenth-century Scotland by Alex Gibson and Alastair Orr. Contrary to much of southern England, where the forces of production developed rather fast, in Scotland traditional forms of farm service survived largely intact well into the nineteenth century despite the development of capitalist agriculture. As late as 1861 over 60 per cent of the total agricultural work-force in some Scottish regions were servants on long hires as opposed to day-labourers.

Land, power and commercialization in lower Iraq, 1850–1958: A case of ‘blocked transition’

The article takes to task both modernisation and neo‐Marxist interpretations for ascribing societal change to external forces. Taking the case of agrarian change in lower Iraq, it posits that the dominant class structure, not the encroachment of the international market, was responsible for blocking the development of capitalist agriculture. The particular response to changing market conditions was shaped by the existing socio‐economic organisation of the region, which was rooted in a tribal social organisation and economy. Commercialisation of agriculture did not itself create the ‘iqta” system based on large estates worked by peasant sharecroppers. Rather, the emergence of this agrarian system was the outcome of the successful effort of the tribal ruling groups to take advantage of the new political and market opportunities. Once in power, the new class of tribal landowners pursued income maximising policies that undermined long‐term agricultural growth.

Women, work and the evolution of agriculture∗

In this article, the author differentiates the key elements in the development of agricultural production in Quebec and Canada in the last four decades (that is, the modernization of agriculture and the development of capitalist relations of production) and then tests the relative strength of each for producing change in women's participation level. Data were collected during a year of fieldwork in a small Quebec parish and consist of semi-structured interviews with the adult members of 63 randomly selected farm families. The findings indicate that neither the development of capitalist agriculture nor the adoption of modern methods have an independent effect on women's contribution. It is the interaction effect between the two that produces the greatest variation in the type and amount of work women devote to farming.

Socialist transition in the capitalist periphery: A case study of agriculture in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe's liberation struggle yielded a government publically committed to socialist transition. The plan was for ZANU-PF, the ruling party, to seize control of the state and restructure the economy as part of a Marxist-Leninist vanguard party. A primary transformation objective was to develop black agriculture through the establishment of producer cooperatives and state farms while increasing support to peasant farmers. Internal and external constraints, international pressure, and a growing class alliance between the black bourgeoisie, white-settler farmers and emergent peasant producers effectively stifled prospects for radical agrarian restructuring. A conservative bi-modal agricultural strategy became the backbone of government policy. Large-scale capitalist agriculture was maintained and supported. A small-farm development effort was increasingly targeted to ‘progressive’ black farmers. At the present time, class formation in Zimbabwe's labor reserves is accelerating. Food surpluses have not resulted in improved nutrition nationally. Historical processes of black farm marginalization—particularly in semi-arid regions and amongst unwaged households—continue. Capitalist consolidation of white-settler agriculture is accelerating the substitution of labor for capital at a time when national unemployment is skyrocketing. The capital and land resources necessary to restructure agriculture are monopolized by large-scale capitalist farmers. The development of capitalism in Zimbabwean agriculture is generating growth but intensifying spatial and social agrarian differentiation. This is consistent with classical Marxian interpretations of the agrarian question. It is unlikely that rural Zimbabweans will experience anything resembling a socialist transition in the short-term. But numerous contradictions associated with capitalist agricultural development may ultimately create socio-economic conditions supportive of a socialist economic development strategy. Political pressures for land reform are presently intensifying. In Zimbabwe, the struggle for control of political power and economic resources has shifted from race to class in a very short period of time.

The politics of the Prussian nobility: the development of a conservative ideology, 1770-1848

Measured by its capacity to endure, the Prussian nobility was the most successful in the modern history of continental Europe. Throughout the long vicissitudes of its history, this class--the Junkers--displayed a remarkable ability to adapt to new circumstances and maintain its own political power. Robert Berdahl presents a comprehensive interpretation of the tenacity of the Prussian nobles from the late eighteenth century until the revolution of 1848. At one level, he provides a richly detailed economic, social, and political history: the story of how the landowning nobility coped with changes in rural social relations after the emancipation of the serfs in 1807 and of how it survived the agrarian depression of the 1820s by the development of capitalist agriculture. At another level, he shows how the Junkers developed an ideology of conservatism that justified their control of a society that was becoming increasingly bourgeois.The domination of society by members of the nobility was traditionally supported by their experience in governing landed estates and particularly by the imagery of paternalism. Capitalist agriculture undermined the old landlord-peasant relations, but the nobility continued to exploit paternalistic images of domination.Originally published in 1988.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.