The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change Under Population Pressure / Edition 1

by Ester Boserup

Overview

This book sets out to investigate the process of agrarian change from new angles and with new results. It starts on firm ground rather than from abstract economic theory. Upon its initial appearance, it was heralded as "a small masterpiece, which economic historians should read—and not simply quote"—Giovanni Frederico, Economic History Services.

The Conditions of Agricultural Growth remains a breakthrough in the theory of agricultural development. In linking ethnography with economy, developmental studies reached new heights. Whereas "development" had been seen previously as the transformation of traditional communities by the introduction (or imposition) of new technologies, Ester Boserup argues that changes and improvements occur from within agricultural communities, and that improvements are governed not simply by external interference, but by those communities themselves Using extensive analyses of the costs and productivity of the main systems of traditional agriculture, Ester Boserup concludes that technical, economic, and social changes are unlikely to take place unless the community concerned is exposed to the pressure of population growth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780202307930
Publisher:	Transaction Publishers
Publication date:	06/30/2005
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	132
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ester Boserup was a Danish economist who spent many years researching the problems of economic development and agriculture for the United Nations and acted as economic consultant for other international bodies. She studied in India under Gunnar Myrdal. She died in 1999.

Virginia Deane Abernethy is emeritus professor of psychiatry and anthropology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and has an MBA from Vanderbilt and a PhD from Harvard University. She writes daily on national and international news, and in 2012 ran for vice president of the United States on a third party ticket.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION, 1. THE DYNAMICS OF LAND UTILIZATION, 2. THE INTERDEPENDENCE OF LAND USE AND TECHNICAL CHANGE, 3. LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY UNDER LONG-FALLOW AND SHORT-FALLOW SYSTEMS, 4. CARRYING CAPACITY OF LAND AND PRODUCTIVITY OF LABOUR UNDER INTENSIVE AGRICULTURE, 5. POPULATION GROWTH AND WORKING HOURS, 6. THE CO-EXISTENCE OF CULTIVATION SYSTEMS, 7. DIMINISHING RETURNS TO LABOUR AND TECHNICAL INERTIA, 8. THE VICIOUS CIRCLE OF SPARSE POPULATION AND PRIMITIVE TECHNIQUES, 9. SYSTEMS OF LAND USE AS A DETERMINANT OF LAND TENURE, 10. INVESTMENT AND TENURE IN TRIBAL COMMUNITIES, 11. RURAL INVESTMENT UNDER LANDLORD TENURE, 12. INCENTIVES TO INVESTMENT UNDER MODERN TENURE, 13. THE USE OF INDUSTRIAL INPUT IN PRIMITIVE AGRICULTURE, 14. SOME PERSPECTIVES AND IMPLICATIONS, INDEX

Editorial Reviews

This is a stimulating, even provocative book which should cause many social scientists and agriculturalists to revise, expand, or at least re-examine their views of the processes of agricultural change… The book is a new signpost along important roads of scholarship. It may be either accepted or refuted in whole or in part; it cannot be ignored.” —Clarence W. Olmstead, Economic Geography “This essay… [is] a most formative work in the theory of agricultural change. In it Mrs Boserup lifts the theory of agricultural development out of the rut of sterile discussion of land use and tenure, and sets it within an illuminating dynamic framework, which reveals the irrelevance of old squabbles by raising neglected but fundamental issues… Mrs Boserup writes with great rigour, economy and clarity.” —Charles M. Elliott, The Economic History Review “Bosserup’s theory derives agricultural development in many pre-industrial societies from population growth: “population growth is here regarded as the independent variable which in its turn is a major factor determining agricultural developments”… A steadily increasing population within a given land area necessitates new agricultural techniques and more intensive land use in order to feed the expanding population… [Boserup] has justly brought attention to population growth as an essential factor in any model of societal development. This is a point frequently overlooked by anthropologists.” —Charles Sheffer, American Antiquity “It is always a pleasure to see a potent and useful text made more available, and Boserup’s quondam revolutionary work is just that… Boserup’s argument reversed the standard doctrine that in basic agrarian societies ‘agricultural development controls population growth’ and instead argued that population growth would determine agricultural development… Throughout, the argument is kept beautifully succinct. The points of contention are clearly indicated, leaving the reader free to develop counter arguments and add interpretation as the argument is developed; which makes for that rare object, an excellent, thought-provoking, teaching text.” —John F. Loder, Journal of Tropical Ecology "a classic in the development literature." —Education in Science and Technology "essential reading in the context of the generally gloomy debate on the effects of population growth on poverty and the status of the environment." —Development Policy Review

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