SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This study examines the process of agricultural development with particular reference to the interaction between land use and the market system. Agricultural change is seen in terms of increasing orientation towards commercialisation. The existing subsistence land use pattern has been gradually modified as a result of the farmers' response to stimulation of cash expectations by contact with the wider market economy. This response follows the two main lines of the expansion of production of a marketable surplus in the traditional crops, and the adoption of new land use elements which differ markedly from the established pattern. These trends are not necessarily mutually exclusive and may indeed occur together. The instability of the environmental conditions, the unpredictable nature of commodity prices, the weakness of the market system and the farmers' desire to continue to provide their basic subsistence needs, all act as constraints on the progress of agriculture towards highly commercialised and specialised production. A combination of continued stimulation of farmers' cash expectations, the unreliable flow of income from farming and the government policy of heavy investment in rural infrastructure, which generates a large amount of unskilled labouring employment in the short term, may cause farmers to turn increasingly away from agricultural pursuits. Whether or not these farmers revert to agriculture as the mainstay of cash income once the employment in construction work ceases could have very significant implications for the future land use pattern of an area planned for modernised intensive agriculture.