CHAPTER TWO: RURAL DEVELOPMENT THEORIES AND CONCEPTS
2.4 RURAL DEVELOPMENT IDEAS: TIMELINE
2.4.2 Phase Two: Transformation Approach (1960s →)
The traditional sector, incorporating the subsistence sector, has hardly contributed to the economic development process. As described in Phase One above, it has, merely supplied resources to the modern sector. From the 1950s, theorists such as Mellor (1966) and Schultz (1964) observed that certain aspects of human endeavour and certain segments of society were being left out in state-led developmental pursuits.
Mellor (1966) and Schultz (1964) shifted their focus by arguing that industrialisation, one of the tenets of the modernisation theory, should not, as previously advocated, receive the attention. Instead, the small farms, should be in the limelight, with the focus specifically on their efficient functioning and their contribution to the local economy (Biewenga, 2009). Ellis and Biggs (2001) noted that the first “paradigm shift” occurred in the early to mid-1960s. Small farm-centred agriculture was now prioritised and regarded as the answer to economic growth and development. It did not, however, replace large-scale farming which was based on mechanised equipment and methods.
Such opinions led to the Transformation Approach in the 1960s as depicted by the Small Farm Model, as presented below.
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In a 2002 report on agriculture in Brazil, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) pointed to the fact that the small farms in the country were proving to be at least twice as productive as the larger farms; this was attributed to higher levels of employment, greater crop diversity, and the increased attention given to the practice of intercropping (Ashley and Maxwell, 2001). Chang (2010) has demonstrated that the successful development of modern agriculture in the era before neo-liberalism was largely based on state support and on controlling the supply and pricing of major agricultural products. For example, according to Chang (2010), land reform worked in many countries when combined with measures to increase agricultural productivity, stabilise agricultural income, and create non-agricultural jobs.
Chang (2010) further argued that before the rise of neo-liberalism in the 1970s, small and medium-sized farmers in many countries received enough support to allow them to produce most of the food their countries needed.
The small farm model has been relatively successful and according to Ellis and Biggs (2001), there are still advocates for it. This new approach was aimed at responding directly to the needs of the poor, especially poor families who did not have enough land to plough (Swanepoel, 2006). Ellis and Biggs (2001) noted that the small-scale farm model has played an important role in development thinking up to the 2000s. This assessment can be attributed to their acknowledgment of the informed decisions that small farmers, as deep-thinking economic agents, are able to make in respect of land utilisation. Rosset (2008) pointed to a further element favouring the small farm model, namely, the inverse relationship between farm size and economic efficiency. Ashley and La Franchi (1997) and Rosset (2008) set forth several reasons in favour of the small farm model when specifically compared to large-scale farming. Firstly, Rosset (2008:2) argued that larger investments in better quality labour are made by small farmers “since the family’s future depends on it, driving them to take care of it”.
Furthermore, family labour is used more intensively on small farms.
Secondly, he stated that although “large farms may ‘yield’ more crops per hectare, small farmers have crop mixtures and thus produce a greater variety of products from a piece of land” (Rosset 2008:2). As an additional benefit emanating from small farms, Rosset (2008) posits the idea that the environmental damage wreaked through the production methods practised on small farms is far less than that on large farms.
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According to Ashley and La Franchi (1997), the relatively large spaces between the planted rows in subsistence farming enable the small farmers to use more land than is the case on large farms where single crops are cultivated.
As mentioned, the small farm model has been relatively successful and is currently still being advocated as a worthwhile enterprise (Rosset, 2008; Ellis and Biggs, 2001;
Ashley and La Franchi, 1997). However, it only benefits some as it fails to take cognisance of the fact that not all the poor people in the rural areas earn their livelihoods from agriculture. There are many other different ways in which they do so (Biewenga, 2009). For example, although the model may uplift the rural poor, this would not be the case with part-time farmers, who, according to Ellis and Biggs (2001), may be of the opinion that they need not maximise their returns from farming.
According to Ellis and Biggs (2001), this means that part-time farmers may continue with their subsistence farming methods and merely grow staple crops for their own consumption. Evidently, these farmers are not motivated or do not have the available cash to buy the mechanical equipment needed to increase their crop production (Biewenga, 2009). Other criticisms include the fact that small farmers may lack the skills to use modern equipment or technology (Ellis, 1993).
Although Ashley and Maxwell (2001) note that some of these positive assessments mentioned above about small farms are questionable, according to Biewenga (2009), it is clearly evident that the efficiency of small farms is open to doubt. The reasons for these ambiguous assessments are not entirely related to the practice of subsistence farming as such, but rather to the pressures of globalisation: - in modernised commercial agriculture, the focus is on non-traditional crops produced through mechanised farming methods where machines replace manual labour (Ashley and Maxwell, 2001).
Furthermore, there are other scholars who maintain that the focus on agriculture in the rural areas is too narrow, and therefore unrealistic. In order to sustain their livelihoods, many of the rural poor, for instance, depend on various other non-agricultural activities (e.g., wages, pensions and/or profits from selling hand-made goods) in order to earn an income to sustain their livelihoods (Jele, 2012; Ashley and Maxwell, 2001; Ellis and Biggs, 2001).
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Apart from the small farm model, another idea that should be emphasised within the context of Ellis and Biggs’ (2001) timeline is the so-called Green Revolution. In general, Green Revolution usually refers to the transformation of agriculture that began in 1945. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO, 1986), the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, with its package of improved seeds and farm technology, better irrigation, and chemical fertilisers, was highly successful in meeting its primary objective of increasing crop yields and augmenting aggregate food supplies. Former USAID director, William Gaud (FAO, 1986) was the first, in 1968, to use the term ‘Green Revolution’. He noted that the spread of the new technologies in the field of agriculture “is not a violent Red Revolution, like that of the Soviets, nor is it a White Revolution, like that of the Shah of Iran.But rather, I call it a Green Revolution, based on the application of science and technology.” He termed this spread of new technologies the Green Revolution (cited in Abayechaw and Dikir, 2022:16).
Much of the increase in agricultural output was because of an increase in the yields per hectare rather than an expansion of the area under cultivation. Global food production increased by 58% between 1970 and 1990 (World Bank, 2010). For instance, FAO (1986) data indicate that for “all developing countries, wheat yields rose by 208% in the period between 1960 and 2000; rice yields rose 109%; maize yields rose 157%; potato yields rose 78%; while cassava yields rose 36%” (cited in Pingali and Raney 2005:3). One point of criticism involving the Green Revolution is the complex traditional farming systems and particularly the traditional shifting cultivation and range-grazing pastoral livestock systems. In these systems, a farmer clears a piece of land from the initial fallow stage through slash-and-burn methods and then cultivates it for two to four years. When the soils are exhausted, the farmer moves to other land. This system is adapted for low population densities and is not compatible with the application of the Green Revolution technologies (Dezi, 2003 cited in Abayechaw and Dikir, 2022). This argument is supported by the FAO (1986), arguing that despite Green Revolution success in increasing the aggregate food supply, the Green Revolution as a developmental approach has not necessarily translated into benefits for the lower strata of the rural poor in terms of greater food security or greater economic opportunity and well-being.
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