Latin American Agriculture Research Articles

Testing two trade models in Latin American agriculture

The Heckscher-Ohlin and Markusen models state that countries export the goods intensive in the use of their relatively abundant factor. Latin American agricultural trade is consistent with both models. The paper then shows that Latin American agricultural trade is primarily explained by country differences in relative factor abundance between countries rather than differences in technology. This findings does not reject the Heckscher-Ohlin model but rejects one of Markusen's models.

Testing two trade models in Latin American agriculture

AbstractThe Heckscher–Ohlin and Markusen models state that countries export the goods intensive in the use of their relatively abundant factor. Latin American agricultural trade is consistent with both models. The paper then shows that Latin American agricultural trade is primarily explained by country differences in relative factor abundance between countries rather than differences in technology. This finding does not reject the Heckscher–Ohlin model but rejects one of Markusen's models.

The role of nongovernmental organizations in agricultural research and technology transfer in Latin America

The technology demanded by Latin American agriculture and the institutions involved in research and technology transfer are changing. New types of technology are needed to achieve a more sustainable and equitable pattern of development. Traditional research and extension institutions are poorly equipped to meet these challenges. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) can contribute in this regard, but they must improve their technical capacity and expand their coverage, without adversely affecting their positive characteristics, such as flexibility, social consciousness, and a concern for farmer participation. One partial solution is to promote coordination among NGOs and between NGOs and research institutions.

Modernization and stagnation: Latin American agriculture into the 1990s

Introduction by Michael J. Twomey and Ann Helwege The Substitution among Grains in Latin America by David Barkin, Rosemary L. Batt, and Billie R. DeWalt Social and Technological Transformations of the Argentine Pampa by Osvaldo Barsky Colombian Agriculture in the 1980s by R. Albert Berry The Agrarian Disaster in Mexico, 1982-1989 by Jose Luis Calva Agriculture, Export Diversification, and the Environment in Central America by Cameron Duncan Heterodoxy and Agricultural Development: The Recent Peruvian Experience by Raul Hopkins Chilean Agriculture and Economic Policy, 1974-86 by Oscar Munoz and Hugo Ortega External Adjustment and Agriculture in Brazil by GerVAsio Castro de Rezende Agricultural Performance in a Small Petroleum-Exporting Country: Ecuador during the 1970s and 1980s by David W. Schodt The Organization and Performance of Cuban Agriculture by Andrew Zimbalist and Claes Brundenius Further Reading Index

Land trends and sustainability in Latin American agriculture

The rapid rate of deforestation in Latin America has brought the issue of land use sustainability into especially sharp focus. This report illustrates the changes in land use in the region over the period 1968–1986. It first outlines land use trends, then discusses the intensity of agricultural land use and provides some indicators of land quality. Finally it addresses agricultural policy and draws some conclusions.

Latin American Agricultural Performance in the Debt Crisis

Latin American Agricultural Performance in the Debt Crisis

The Elusive Promise: The Struggle of Women Development Workers in Rural North India. Sylvia HaleThe Invisible Resource: Women and Work in Rural Bangladesh. Ben J. Wallace , Rosie Mujid Ahsan , Shahnaz Huq Hussain , Ekramul AhsanRural Women and State Policy: Feminist Perspectives on Latin American Agricultural Development. Carmen Diana Deere , Magdalena León

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsThe Elusive Promise: The Struggle of Women Development Workers in Rural North India. Sylvia Hale The Invisible Resource: Women and Work in Rural Bangladesh. Ben J. Wallace , Rosie Mujid Ahsan , Shahnaz Huq Hussain , Ekramul Ahsan Rural Women and State Policy: Feminist Perspectives on Latin American Agricultural Development. Carmen Diana Deere , Magdalena León Sue Ellen CharltonSue Ellen Charlton Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Signs Volume 15, Number 4Summer, 1990 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/494635 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1990 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Land and labour in Latin American agriculture from the 1950s to the 1980s

A considerable amount of statistical information on the evolution of the Latin American peasantry during the last 35 years is used to show that it has become a large refuge sector that symptomises the developmental failures of the rest of the economy. While economic growth has been rapid until the debt crisis of the early 1980s, neither access to land nor employment creation has been sufficient to reduce rural poverty. As a result, the bulk of the peasantry neither competes with commercial farming nor becomes dispossessed of access to a plot of land. Through migration, poverty gradually becomes displaced to the urban sector.

Rural Women and State Policy: Feminist Perspectives on Latin American Agricultural Development.

Rural Women and State Policy: Feminist Perspectives on Latin American Agricultural Development.

Rural Women and State Policy: Feminist Perspectives on Latin American Agricultural Development.

Rural Women and State Policy: Feminist Perspectives on Latin American Agricultural Development.

Rural Women and State Policy: Feminist Perspectives on Latin American Agricultural Development

Rural Women and State Policy: Feminist Perspectives on Latin American Agricultural Development

Rural Women and State Policy: Feminist Perspectives on Latin American Agricultural Development.

Rural Women and State Policy: Feminist Perspectives on Latin American Agricultural Development.

The Current Food Crisis in Latin America

One of the most far-reaching studies of the current state of Latin American agriculture, The Agrarian Question and Reformism in Latin America, was published in 1981 by Alain de Janvry. De Janvry, a French-born economist who has studied the Latin American agricultural situation for many years, examines the totality of that situation based on raw data for the region as a whole (generally up-to-date through 1974) and based on closer examination of selected individual countries. He concludes that Latin America faces a structural food crisis, characterized by production shortages and skewed consumption patterns, and that the situation is likely to worsen. The purpose of this study is to look at the food and hunger problems in Latin America by reviewing de Janvry's data and analysis as they relate to the food question, updating his figures where possible and filling gaps in them where apparent. By examining this, one of the most thorough studies of the question to date, we should be better able to identify the underlying causes of the food problem in Latin America, certainly a precondition for determining what can be done to alleviate it. Clearly, we have to look beyond national statistics that frequently hide serious nutritional deficiencies. We have to ask specific and probing questions in order to identify the underlying causes of the widespread hunger and undernourishment that we see in most Latin American countries. Is there an actual shortage of food due to an inability to produce, or is the problem due simply to widespread poverty, which leaves a large part of the population without the means to buy the food that they need? Is the displacement of the Latin

Public policy and technical change in Latin American agriculture

The article analyses and interprets the modernization and technical change of Latin American agriculture over the past two decades. The innovation process is analysed through eight case studies of various products in a variety of countries and method of production. Through these empirical studies, the authors provide a general interpretation of technical change and the public policy process in Latin American agriculture.

Capitalism and population in Latin American agriculture. Recent trends and problems

"On the basis of a body of empirical research, the authors explore the relationship between agrarian structure and population [in Latin America]. After an introduction in which they present their theoretical and methodological orientation, they describe the current changing trends in agrarian structure, among which are the 'intensification' of the process of the penetration of capitalistic forms into agriculture." They then discuss the relationships between agrarian structure and demographic variables, particularly fertility and migration. In the final section, some guidelines for future research are presented. This paper is a revised version of an evaluation study carried out to assess the contributions of 14 research projects financed by the Programme of Social Research on Population in Latin America (PISPAL).

Latin American agriculture. Its prospects up to the end of the century

Only a sustained and prolonged increase in the output of food and agricultural products can lead to a solution of the problem of food security, which looms increasingly as one of the main economic challenges at the world level.

Trends and recent changes in the Latin American food and agriculture situation

Analiza los elementos comunes de las diversas situaciones que presentan actualmente las agriculturas nacionales, que permiten configurar una vision de conjunto de la region e ilustra sobre el rumbo e intensidad de las transformaciones economicas y sociales que viene experimentando el agro latinoamericano. En el analisis se consideran algunos aspectos relevantes del nuevo marco agricola mundial que influyeron en grado diverso en el comportamiento de las agriculturas nacionales.

Nouveau contexte, encadrement et évolution de la petite exploitation paysanne en Amérique centrale et dans les pays andins

New Context, Organization and Tendencies in Small Farming in Central America and the Andes. A growing destabilization of peasant economies has been taking place for the last ten years, as a result of the capitalist transformation of Latin American agriculture. This process operates thanks to the liberalization of markets and farming policies. It is expressed through an increasing regional specialization, and changes in the old fields of specialization. Capitalist firms are at the heart of this process. At present, the greater part of the rural population working on small farms has two chief characteristics : they actually sell, or seek to sell their labour force, and they have to sell their goods at a low price. This sale of surplus working force, on the level of the minifundio, is the central point of the crisis and it particularly underlines the fact that smaller farms help to absorb the shock of the rural unemployment resulting from the modernization of capitalist concerns. The deterioration of the minifundio is a consequence of the demographic growth and the reduction in the economic surplus available to the rural population, because of the open market small producers are less and less able to compete with capitalist firms. The accumulation of capital by fanners remains very rare. The question of the development of peasant population cannot be seen as a straightforward sector-based problem : it cannot be solved by a mere search for better forms of administrative and technical support.

The Economic Cycle in Latin American Agricultural Export Economies (1880–1930): A Hypothesis for Investigation

Most economic historians are probably familiar with Ernest Labrousse's model of the “Crisis of the Old Regime,” although it remains largely unknown to economists, sociologists, and other specialists in the social sciences. Yet Pierre Vilar feels that it is one of Labrousse's most important contributions to the “development of a science of history,” and considers that as an “instrument of analysis,” it can shed light not only on the “old style” crises of Western Europe but also on many essential aspects of the agrarian history of “underdeveloped” countries. We do not mean that contemporary “underdevelopment” and the “economy of the old regime” are one and the same. Rather, our intent is only to emphasize with Vilar that the “historical roles played in most of the world by meteorological abnormalities and agricultural cycles in the recent past have not been subjected to sufficiently methodological and reasoned study.”

The process of modernization in Latin American agriculture

Incontestably, the picture presented by Latin American agriculture is an ambivalent one. Although in recent decades it has shown that it is not a traditional backward sector, and has been sufficiently transformed and invigorated to meet effective demand successfully, it has not been able to achieve the levels of output required to help to solve the food, employment, income and other problems which persist both in the countryside and in the cities.