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Commercialization of Agriculture and Rural Living Standards: El Palmar, Colombia, 1960–1979

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Nola Reinhardt
Nola Reinhardt
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts 01063
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Abstract

The effect of the commercialization of traditional agriculture on the levels of living of peasant households is examined through a case study of El Palmar, Colombia. While there appear to have been widespread, positive, short-mn effects, the long-run consequences appear to be more problematic. It is suggested that commercialization and its consequences are more complex than can be grasped from available aggregate data, and a historical, case-study approach to this topic is recommended to complement macroeconomic studies.

Type
Papers Presented at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , March 1983 , pp. 251 - 259
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1983

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References

1 See, for example, Schultz, T., Transforming Traditional Agriculture (New Haven, 1964),Google Scholar

and Johnston, B. and Kilby, P., Agriculture and Structural Transformation: Economic Strategies in Late Developing Countries (New York, 1975).Google Scholar

2 This is the orthodox Marxist position of Lenin, V. I. in The Development of Capitalism in Russia (Moscow, 1920), which informs the work of many Marxist scholars today.Google Scholar

The classic work of Kautsky, K., Die Agrarfrage (Stuttgart, 1902), has also been interpreted in this manner.Google Scholar A recent analysis from this perspective is Payer, C., “The World Bank and the Small Farmer,” Monthly Review, 32 (11 1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Some Marxist scholars have taken this position, most notably Amin, Samir and Vergopoulos, Kostas in La Question Paysanne et le Capitalisme (Paris, 1974) and other works;Google Scholar

Rey, P. P. in Les Alliances des Classes (Paris, 1973);Google Scholar

and Bernstein, Henry in “African Peasantries: A Theoretical Framework,” Journal of Peasant Studies, 6 (07 1979).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Some non-Marxist scholars have also argued along similar lines: for example, Owen, Wyn, “The Double Development Squeeze on Agriculture,” American Economic Review, 56 (03 1966).Google Scholar

4 The difficulty may arise also from the differential nature of the commercialization process in different times and places, as microlevel studies suggest. A key research agenda is to identify the factors affecting that differential development.Google Scholar

5 See, for example, Lenin, Capitalism in Russia.Google Scholar

6 See the discussion in Harrison, Mark, “Resource Allocation and Agrarian Class Formation,” Journal of Peasant Studies, 2 (1977), 139–48.Google Scholar

7 These small farms produce the bulk of such staple items as plantains, panela (bulk unrefined brown sugar), potatoes, corn, cassava, and arracacha (a root crop), as well as a considerable proportion of other domestic foodstuffs such as kidney beans, cocoa, and fruits of many kinds. According to the 1970 Censo Cafetero, 46 percent of all farms growing coffee were under four hectares (ten acres).Google Scholar

8 Kalmanovitz, Salomon, “La Agricultura en Colombia, 1950–1972,” Boletin Mensual de Estadistica (Colombia, 1974), pp. 276–78.Google Scholar

9 See, for example, Corchuelo, Alberto, “Condiciones de Desarrollo de la Agricultura y la Politica Agraria,” Cuadernos Colombianos, 12 (03 1979), 617–38.Google Scholar

A good recent overview of the Colombian debate is presented by Villa, P. Gomez, “Economia Campesina y Descomposicion del Campesinado,” in Fajardo, Dario et al. , Campesinado y Capitalismo en Colombia (Bogota, 1981), pp. 89–121.Google Scholar

10 Nine absentee landowners were also interviewed, but data on these farms are not reported here. For a discussion of these farms see Reinhardt, “Independent Family Farm,” pp. 328–33.Google Scholar

11 Further discussion of the settlement and agricultural development of El Palmar can be found in ibid., chap. 7.

12 The minimum subsistence income includes only food requirements. The expenditures necessary in El Palmar to obtain a minimum nutritionally adequate diet were calculated using FAO recommended nutritional levels by age and sex and the INCAP/ICNND tables of the nutritional content of Latin American foodstuffs. These calculations were based on the costs of foodstuffs commonly used or easily available in El Palmar and on the cooking styles of the area. A complete explanation of the methodology can be found inGoogle Scholaribid., Appendix B.

13 Net household income was calculated as cash income plus income in kind, net of farm production costs.Google Scholar

14 The decrease for holdings over 37.5 acres is due to the fact that many of these units were owned by elderly heads-of-household with inadequate family labor to maintain the farm. It was common in El Palmar for all but the youngest child to have left the farm by this stage in the family life cycle.Google Scholar

15 A complex model of the family farm life cycle was developed by Chayanov, A. V., translated from the Russian as “Peasant Farm Organization” in Thorner, D., Kerblay, B. and Smith, R. E. F., The Theory of Peasant Economy (Homewood, Illinois, 1966).Google Scholar

See Reinhardt, “Independent Family Farm,” pp. 426–64 for an assessment of the applicability of the model to El Palmar.Google Scholar

16 The percentages total more than 100 because more than one of these factors was involved for some households.Google Scholar