1338.1 .R813 9.REFERENCE ORGANIZATION (130) Cornell 10
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BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA SHEET 1.CONTROL NUMBER 3UBJECTCLASSIFICAT-ON (695) PN-AAJ-646 AF30-0000-0000 3. TITLE AND SUBTITLE (240) Landless peasants and rural poverty in Indonesia and the Phi lippines 4. PERSONAL AUTHIORS (100) Rosenberg, J. G.; Ro,-en'erg, D. A. 5. CORPORATE AUI'llORS (101) Cornoll Univ. C - for lit. Studies. Rural Development Committee 6.DOCUMENT DA-E (110) 7.N IA IBE OF P AGES (120) 1. ARC N UMBE R (f 1980 1 136p. 1338.1 .R813 9.REFERENCE ORGANIZATION (130) Cornell 10. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES (500) (Special a;eron li ile ; ;nw;i; and near-land I t ';';ness, no. 3) 11. ABSTRACT (950) I I s(:.R71Ti)RS (90)01O. IS. PROJECT NIJM I! (I Phi ppI Iti w , AqrAfiiii ic.t(11v#1'?i l At 1,lIrAmt (14 n) iff. IfIiIIIgPOC1IMV.NI fill(: AllI 'V10 7 !10 M) ,hi)6 LL UNIVERSITY RURAL DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE 4 - 't " -, Special Series on Landlessness and Near-Landlessness LANDLESS PEASANTS AND RURAL POVERTY IN INDONESIA AND THE PHILIPPINES Joan G. Rosenberg and David A. Rosenberg LNL No. 3 LANDLE8:1 'l,"ASA'JTS AND RURAL POVERTY IN INDONIESTA AND THE PHTLTPPINES by Jean C. Rosenberg and David A. Roomnberpg Midd lebu'y Coll]ef-o Middlebury, Vermoit Published by the lural Development Commi.ttee, Center' for Internal;lonal Studels, 170 Un 1; Hall, Corinell University, Ithaca, New York 18'83. ,'ebruavy, 1900. Thi s vesearvch was, Fund (d In part by P/offc*! ()f;Ao r'a IDveloprieit ProJect # 0 11-]'7-998-00I-73. $0.00 Table of Contents I. Introduction 1 Ii. Indonesia 10 A. The Basic Causes and Consequences of Rural Development on Java 10 B. Rural Development under the Dutch: Involution and Shared Poverty 15 C. The Creation of Wealth and Poverty: Explanation and Evidence 17 I. The Effects of Population Growth and Integration into the National Economy on Village Life 18 2. Changes in the Control of Land and Capital 24 3. Other Assets: Fish Ponds and Fishing Boats 35 4. Changes in Access to Farm Inputs 37 5. The Concentration of Income from Employment 40 6. Labor Use and New Technology 52 7. Institutional Changes Restricting the Sharing of Agricultural Work 55 8. Declining Returns to Agricultural Labor 60 9. Employment and Technological Change in Fishing 62 I0. Employment in Rural Industries 63 D. The Effects of Increasing Wealth and Poverty 64 I. Population Growth and the Land less 66 2. Conclusion: Political Partici pation and Government Policies for the Landless 68 III. The Philippines 72 A. Introduction 72 B. The Baslc Causes of Wealth and Poverty 711 ]. Changes in the Control of Land and the Organizatlon of Agrcultural Producton 75 2. ChtIr; a th, Distrlhlt ion of A -lcul ruval l ,wom, 79 3. The Dl ff,,rent 1sa] Conrsequences of Af rari't,' He forms 85 C. Factors of 11ur,il Chiangu 90 I. Plant;at ion:; 91 2. Owner-ope'at-ed, Commercial Varms 93 3. Expanis to by I,ashold Tpant,s 99 4 Ca)Iicul iat llof" Owrer"ht1p 102 .MargnIri] Teiiit; and Owners 103 .* LInd es, Libui'r:; 108 D. Conus 1on: A CapIlt,a Fronticr Is Requ . red 113 IV. Conclusion 115 A. Summary 115 B. Thcoretlcal Significance 116 C. PolIcy Implications 119 Footnotes 121 Bibliography 129 List of Tables Table 1: Landless and Near-Landless Rural Households in Selected Asian Countires 4 Table 2: Rural Poverty in Java: 1970 and 1976 14 Table 3: Size Distribution of Farm Holdings, Indonesia: 1963 and 1973 28 Table 4: Proportion of Farms by Tenancy Status, Java: 1963 and 1973 30 Table 5: Percentage of Owner-operated Farms and Areas by Size, Indonesia: 1963 and 1973 34 Table 6: Fish Catch 36 Table 7: Employment of Men in the Main Rice Season of 180 Days, SriharJo: 1969-1970 14 Table 8: Percentage of Work in Agriculture and Non-agriculture, Main-rice Season, 180 days, SriharJo: 1969-1970 45 Table 9: Percentage of Household Time in Income Earning Activities and Household Work, by Strata, in a Javanese Village 149 Table 10: Underutilization of the Rural Labor Force, Java 50 Table 11: Rate of Tenancy by Crop, Philippines: 1971 83 Table 12: Percent Change in Number and Area of Farms by Tenure of Farm Operator, Philippines: 1960 to 1971 96 Table 13: Distribution of Number, Area, and Average Size of Farm by Tenure Status of Operator, Philippines: 1903-1971 98 Table 11: Sources of Credit by Size of Farm in a Laguna Village, 1976 106 I INTRODUCTION Rural society in much of southern Asia is underolni! a profound and seemingly contradictory transformation. un the one hand, economic output is risng, Incomes are expanding, tochnology Is changing, and wealth is accumulating. Un the other hand, underemployment is pervasive, the distribution o, income and wealth has become more unequal, real wages have declined, and many small farmers have lost their land. How is it possible to hRve both increasing wealth and increasing poverty at the same time? This study attempts to answer this question by examining two case studies of social change in the rural Philippines and Indonesia. The study will attempt to explain why some rural households in these two countries are prospering and accumulating now assets and skills, while other households are losing ownership of assets and becomInrg poorer. in both cases, particular attention is given to a relatively new and highly disturbing phenomenon, the growth of a massive and enduring! class of landless peasants. The phrase "landless peasants" is an intentional contra diction in terms. Peasants, according to most definitions, are farmers who own or rent land to produce crops, using traditional methods, primarily for their own consumption and subsistence, However, there are millions of poauant families who have loot their land and have not acquirod nny now skills or assets to provido a livolihood. To be sure, some peasants have become modern, commer cially-oriented, profit-maximizing agribusinessmen, but only a very few. A larger number may have become modestly prosperous, small-scale farmers. A very few have found industrial jobs to earn an adequate livin throurn wage labor. Increasingly, however, traditional peasant households are beinq reduccd to the slatus of landless peasants. They own few or no assets or to( is, in particular, very little or no land. They have no way to earn a ]ivinn except through their own manual labor efforts as wage laborers in anriculture, as plantation workers, as migrant workers, or as petty traders, yatierers, c aft workers, or any combination o the above. 'Yiney are almost always underemployed, but they cannot aiforC to be unemployed. However poverty may he defined -- in terms of income, or consumption, or basic human needs, or days of work -- landless peasants are the poorest of the poor. The approach employed in this inquiry, viewing land lessness as the key characteristic of rural poverty, was developed as part of a major comparative s tudy of .azdliessness and near-landlessneso in developing countries, under the auspices o the Rural Development Committee of the Cornell University Conter for Adrternational Studies. The analytical. framework' and ,enera 1 I' i d i.nns of th isa research projec t are presentod in a Rural Deve.lopment Committe, mono,,rat, enI, tl]cd land esneysot ynd fLeaIE-Land leanness in Deve lI ±IIJ. COtLIptriel Ly li11tori ,J.hsrman, Director of the eltor for 11ateriatotmalA Studies. Another monograph by the presont authors on Landlesb SPeasants and Rural Poverty in Selected Asian Countrie. tii.at ,on * the extent of landlesaness in hangladesh, 1ndia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. The conclusions of these monographs can be briefly sur.mnuizod, as followss In recent years, there has boon a major shirt in development objectives from maximizin economic growth and increasing GNP per capita to improving income distribution, reducing poverty, and meeting basic needs. "Growth with Equity" is now the guiding objective in many development agrencies. Many rural development programs, reflecting this shift in emphasis, have attempted to reduce rural poverty by improving the productivity and income o small farmers. However, while small farmers in southern Asia are generally poor, they are not the only poor, nor even the most poor. There are several other groups o rural workers who are even worse off than small farmers. Theso gro~ps arc best characterized as landless and near-landless workers bocause they do not have adequate farming land or other remunerative employment to provide subsistence. Those landless and near-landless workors comprise a majority of the rural labor force in many Asian countries. Further more, there in strong evidence that their numbers are incroasing rapidly. The basic categories and aggregate estimates of landlessnons are given in Table 1. Table 1 LANDLESS AND NEAR-LANDLESS RURAL HOUSEHOLDS IN SELECTED ASIAN COUNTRIES -T Indonesia Bano2_dIesh(1977) india (i971) (Java, 1971) JPhilippines(1971) Sri Lanka(1973) I 1 % No.(000) % __o.(000) . N (u0)(o. K.(000) % o.(000): PI 501 11.3% 238 12.6%2 A. Agricultural Workers 623 5.3!' 23,000 27.0% F__-3,850 41.0/Z B. Non-A ricultural Workers 2,3; 19.9% s,(r 16.0, 75b 17.17_ - i -751 39.8% C. Tenant Farmers 7 5.0 3,000 I 3.0, i 24.4%° 480 10.8% rFae13 .0% 1,800 19.2% 1,312 29.6% 453 E. Others ... 381 8.6 o !--ndlessand Near- I - dless 0 7a5 .e2 45,000 59.0% 7,950 84.7% 3,430 77.4% -1,443 76.4%% J i ra[ iI ICi 100.0%. Total Rural Households ! 1393 1 00.0i S 6 ,O, I1000%0i 9,390 I00.0 44,34 1!00.0Z i 1,888 Source: Rosenberg, David A.