Power And Poverty

Development And Development Projects In The Third World

Donald W. Attwood, Thomas C Bruneau, John G Galaty, D W Attwood

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367284060
• eBook ISBN: 9781000307900
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book presents case studies concerning the impact of development projects on societies at various levels of affluence and modernization. They demonstrate project variety, and the ecological, economic, political and social contexts within which development is attempted but seldom achieved.

1
Poverty, Inequality, and Economic Growth in Rural India

Donald W. Attwood

I

What arc the effects of cash cropping on subsistence cultivators? When peasants grow commercial crops, do they endanger their subsistence base, become impoverished, lose their lands? And do agricultural laborers lose their jobs? Such questions have been debated furiously for more than a century. The answers obviously depend on whether we are considering, for example, New World peasants overwhelmed by giant plantations, or Asian peasants selling rice and vegetables in a local market.

This long debate became particularly heated in the late 1960s, when the governments of India and other Asian countries began to promote the spread of new agricultural inputs: high-yielding varieties of seeds, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, better irrigation and new methods of cultivation. The spread of these new inputs unleashed a “green revolution”—a rapid increase in grain production in certain regions, along with a storm of debate about the social impacts of the new technology. Critics of the green revolution argued that the new technology, and the commercialization of production which accompanied it, would impoverish small peasants and agricultural laborers in various ways. For example, small peasants would be unable to afford the new inputs, or would be crushed by debts in efforts to pay for them; in either case, they would be forced to sell off their lands to more competitive large farmers, armed with the new technology. Moreover, agricultural laborers would lose their jobs as a result of mechanization.

The object of this paper is to compare local case studies from various regions in India in order to show whether these pessimistic predictions have been confirmed by experience. In particular, I will summarize my own research in western India, where the social impacts of new technology and commercialization have been traced back over the last hundred years. Several points will be argued here. The first is that the impact of technological change and commercialization varies from region to region. The second is that economic growth in agriculture has occurred primarily in dry regions favored with the establishment of an “irrigation frontier.” The third point is that pessimistic predictions are not borne out by the experience of these favored regions: small farmers and landless laborers gain more economic opportunities than they lose. The fourth point is that regions with the worst poverty are those where natural conditions, social structure and lack of infrastructure have inhibited the spread of new technology and cash cropping.

While these are favorable conclusions regarding the social impact of cash cropping and economic growth in rural India, they should not be interpreted to mean that “development” for the poor is an automatic result of such changes. Other factors, which are to some extent independent of economic growth, can also improve the living standards of the poor.

II

It is now two decades since the start of the green revolution in India, and the debate has cooled somewhat. Biplab Dasgupta, a vigorous critic, concedes that the new technology has been adopted by most small farmers wherever the inputs are available and appropriate for local conditions (Dasgupta 1980: 229–32). He also agrees that small farmers have not lost their lands, and agricultural laborers have not been faced with increasing unemployment. A balanced assessment of the changes wrought by the green revolution is given by Sarma (1982). He notes that the new technology widens income disparities but does not generally impoverish small farmers and laborers. On the contrary, more intensive cultivation increases the demand for labor and makes small holdings more viable (ibid. 37–43). Two acres cultivated intensively (with irrigation and double cropping) can support a family better than ten acres cultivated non-intensively. The main problem arising from the green revolution, as emphasized by Sarma and others, is the increase in disparities between regions: between those regions with good soil, irrigation and access to markets, where the new inputs have been adopted successfully, and other regions where agricultural production is stagnant (cf. Lipton 1978).

It should be noted that such regional (and local) disparities are highly intractable, regardless of policy priorities: that is, whether they emphasize economic growth over social equity, or vice versa. Those regions which are more prosperous today have benefitted from very long-term, and expensive, public investments in roads, irrigation and other infrastructure. The more backward regions, consequently, require much more than a supply of new seeds and chemical fertilizers: they need the same heavy investments in infrastructure.

David Ludden’s chapter in this volume outlines the historical ecology of Indian agriculture as a basis for understanding the divergent paths of economic change in different regions. Along with other writers (e.g., Stein 1980; Béteille 1974; Beals 1974) he has emphasized the great social, historical and economic differences between “wet” regions of assured rainfall and the drier regions. Most of India gets its rain during just a few months of the year, and half the sub-continent receives less than thirty inches annually (Lewis 1970:18). Consequently, water is supremely important: its abundance or scarcity shapes the techniques of production, the dynamics of population, and the hierarchy of social classes. This chapter, like Ludden’s, emphasizes the contrasting changes occurring in wet and dry regions.

Of course, wet zones are not all alike, and there are many transitional regions between the really wet and the really dry. Nevertheless, it is possible to generalize about the contrasts. The wet zones have long had higher population densities with a secure subsistence base; large populations of low-caste, landless laborers; numerically small, high-caste elites of non-cultivating landlords; and rigid, polarized stratification systems. Historically, the main subsistence crop has been rice. The wet-rice regions include the eastern portion of the Gangetic plains, along with the coastal plains and deltas of eastern and southern India.

The dry regions, on the other hand, have long had lower population densities with an insecure subsistence base; smaller populations of low-caste, landless laborers; fewer non-cultivating landlords; and thus more flexible stratification systems dominated by “yeoman peasants” from the middle or upper-middle levels of the caste hierarchy. Before the advent of modern, large-scale irrigation systems, the main subsistence crops were sorghum and millet. These dry regions include the western portion of the Indo-Gangetic plain, along with most of the inland plains and plateaus of western, central and southern India. The dry regions comprise some of the most impoverished, insecure and stagnant portions of the country.

Ecologically and economically, the most favored agricultural areas today are those portions of the dry regions which have received large-scale irrigation systems during the last century or so. These areas include much of the northwest (heartland of the green revolution) and scattered areas in western and southern India. The advantages of these areas are manifold. Irrigation reduces the risk of subsistence crises and multiplies the returns which farmers can obtain from their land. Irrigated land can support a much denser population and small farms become more viable. At the same time, these regions start with lower population densities, so there is less pressure to expand production of traditional subsistence crops; instead, the farmers have room to switch to high-value cash crops like cotton, wheat and sugarcane. In addition, the prevailing stratification systems are flexible, open to economic mobility, and as a result, there are fewer social barriers to innovation and enterprise (Attwood 1984). These favorable conditions can be summed up as the opening of an “irrigation frontier” (Attwood 1985). As in other frontier societies, entrepreneurs are less inhibited by established class relations from gaining access to land, labor, irrigation and capital. The potential wealth expands beyond the control of old elites and is grabbed up by new entrepreneurs (cf. Stone 1984).

The rest of this chapter examines, first, the social impact of commercial agriculture in dry regions favored with irrigation, followed by a look at the rather different problems of the wet regions. Then it discusses in detail the long-term effects of commercial agriculture in western India.

III

Critics of the green revolution rarely make systematic comparisons between what is happening to the poor in regions with high economic growth and what is happening in more backward regions. We are fortunate, however, to have at least one set of case studies covering both types. The Swiss economist, Gilbert Etienne, visited several regions in the mid-1960s before the green revolution and revisited them in 1979 (Etienne 1968; 1982). He was thus able to make comparisons not only between regions but also between conditions before and after the green revolution. What Etienne found is very simple: in the regions of high growth in agricultural production the rural poor are much better off than they were fifteen years ago. They are also much better off (in wage and consumption levels) than their counterparts in the low-growth regions. Etienne makes no precise comparisons between relative inequalities in the high- and low-growth areas, but this question is of secondary importance. What is significant is that the poor have improved their absolute levels of living in the high-growth regions. This pattern holds true particularly for dry regions with irrigation, but it also applies to wet-rice regions with good irrigation where agricultural production has also risen. In these latter areas, employment opportunities and wages have increased, just as in the wheat-growing heartland of the green revolution (ibid. 137). Let us consider the dry regions in more detail.

The rise in agricultural production has been most successful in the northwestern wheat-growing region consisting of Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh states. The prime example of an “irrigation frontier” is in this region, which began to benefit from large-scale canal systems in the mid-nineteenth century (Whitcombe 1972; Stone 1984). After a century of massive and expensive investment in infrastructure, this region was particularly suited for adoption of the new high-yielding varieties of dwarf wheat which were introduced in the mid-1960s. The result has been an 8 percent annual increase in food grain production in Punjab (1960–61 to 1978–79) compared with 2.8 percent for India as a whole (Sarma 1982:27). The dynamic effects of this agricultural boom have also been felt in other sectors of the Punjab economy, giving this state the highest per capita product in the country (ibid.50).

The green revolution in the wheat-growing areas has been extensively discussed and criticized: good summaries of the issues may be found in Sarma (1982) and Sen (1974). Here we shall briefly review the findings of one of the best-informed critics, Biplab Dasgupta (1980). Dasgupta marshalls data from a number of case studies and surveys to demonstrate the failings of the green revolution, but the results are not all negative. Though small farmers are slower to adopt the new technology, most of them do so within a few years (ibid. 229; Sarma 1982:40). Moreover, these small farmers tend to use the new inputs with greater intensity than the larger farmers (ibid.; Dasgupta 1980:232).

On the question of greater inequality resulting from the green revolution, Dasgupta finds several cases in which operated landholdings (but not owned lands) have become slightly more concentrated in recent years (ibid. 254–60). However, he makes no systematic comparisons between changes in areas of higher and lower economic growth. (Quite possibly, the ratios of concentration are higher or are increasing more rapidly in the more backward areas?) Data on changes in income or consumption inequality in the green revolution areas are scant and uncertain (ibid. 264–85), though Ahluwalia (1978:36) has found a significant decline in consumption inequality in Punjab and Haryana. Bhalla (1974) also found decreasing income inequalities among farmers who adopted the new technology. However, even if relative inequalities were increasing, they could result from “upward divergence,” to borrow a phrase from my colleague, Donald Von Eschen. Upward divergence means the small farmers are moving upward out of poverty, but at a slower rate than the larger ones. While it is not clear whether relative inequalities are increasing in the green revolution areas, the results are probably no worse than suggested by the image of upward divergence.

There is uncertainty about trends in real wages for agricultural laborers, though Dasgupta (1980:330–31) finds that the green revolution has had a favorable impact on real wages, especially in those districts where the new technology has been most heavily adopted. In addition, the total demand for labor in agriculture and ancillary trades and services has been rising very rapidly in these areas, providing more jobs, more diversified employment and much steadier work for laborers and small farmers (Aggarwal 1973). The green revolution, which means raising yields through the use of high-yielding seeds, fertilizer, pesticides and better irrigation, can proceed with or without much mechanization. Moreover, some forms of machinery (such as irrigation pumps) actually increase the demand for labor, and most farms are too small to resort to heavy, labor-displacing mechanization. On balance, more intensive crop production usually means relatively limited mechanization and a higher total demand for labor (Sarma 1982:41–42; cf. Attwood 1987b).

A study of long-term change in one Punjabi village points out that, “with substantially increased crops to be harvested, greater demands for laborers for their transportation, and the development of a variety of off-season occupations for semi-skilled and general labor,” more low-caste agricultural laborers “are fully employed at better rates of pay than ever before” (Kessinger 1974:124). Consequently, these laborers are the only local people with no nostalgia for the past. Etienne (1982:134) has also observed that employment expanded and wages rose in many parts of the northwest, where low-caste laborers have found jobs in local industries stimulated by the agricultural boom.

This rising demand for labor has attracted a huge influx of migrants from low-growth regions, such as Bihar and eastern U.P. The result of this migration is that the incidence of absolute poverty may not have declined in Punjab and Haryana (Ahluwalia 1978:34–35). However, this is not an indication of the failure of the green revolution, but rather its success in absorbing and thus mitigating some of the poverty in other regions.

Another example of the impact of irrigated cash cropping in a dry region is found in the south, in Mandya District, Karnataka, where Epstein (1962,1973) has made comparative and longitudinal case studies. Her results show that cash cropping (sugarcane and rice) in a canal-irrigated village generates more jobs and year-round employment for laborers than in a nearby dry village (ibid. 125–41). (Even in the dry village, jobs have increased due to economic diversification stimulated by the canal.) Real wages in the irrigated village have, as in the northwest, been limited by an influx of migrant laborers from unirrigated regions (ibid. 138–39). So long as sharp inter-regional disparities continue, labor migration will ensure that new job opportunities are inevitably spread very thin.

The impact of the green revolution has been studied in another relatively dry area, North Arcot District in Tamilnadu, by a group from the Center of South Asian Studies at Cambridge (Farmer 1977). New technology has been adopted by a minority of farmers in this area. Given the moderate rainfall, the major constraint on adoption is the need for reliable sources of irrigation. Large farmers have invested in pumpsets, but these are still beyond the means of many small farmers (ibid. 117–118). Nevertheless, some small farmers have achieved high rates of adoption, high intensities of input utilization, and large increases in income (ibid. 112–113).

In this district, the green revolution has had no perceptible impact on land distribution: in a comparison among twelve villages, there was no correlation found between intensive, market-oriented production (which is quite strong in a few villages) and higher concentration of landholdings (ibid. 320). Considering the limited scale of intensified production in the district, the employment effects have been good, leading to a higher total demand for labor, higher wages and lower seasonal fluctuations in employment, especially in those few villages which have adopted modern inputs. The benefits of even limited economic growth have ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• Introduction
• 1 Poverty, Inequality, and Economic Growth in Rural India
• 2 The Political Ecology and Economic Development of Migratory Pastoralist Societies in Eastern Africa
• 3 Development Strategy in Sri Lanka and a People’s Alternative
• 4 Memories of Development: The Rise and Fall of a Participatory Project Among the Dinka, 1977–1981
• 5 Economic Development and Social Change in Indian Agriculture: A Historical Perspective
• 6 Investing in Inequality: Class Formation in Upper Volta
• 7 A Case Study of the Closing Frontier in Brazil
• 8 Livestock Policy and Development Ideology in Botswana
• Index