This paper was prepared for presentation at a meeting in Beijing, China from 17 to 21st Novemebr 2010. The objectives were as follows
Objective of the paper
In order to prepare an extensive series of future researches and meetings, three preparatory meetings are foreseen, respectively in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In each one, the following questions would be raised:
• The state of small farm agriculture, facing the extension of monoculture and of industrialization and urbanization in some key countries of each continent.
• Which forms of peasant’s resistances are existing ?
• Which experiences are existing of economic, social and cultural improvement of small agriculture in the same countries ?
• Which are the experiences of rural-urban relationships in the same countries ?
Paper expects a contribution on the situation of peasant agriculture in your country, experiences of organic agriculture, reflections on social and cultural conditions of peasant agriculture, reflections on rural-urban relationships. The aim is to come to a broader research project for the future and to establish work hypotheses.
State of small farm agriculture in Sri Lanka
In Sri Lanka a big majority of rural farmers are small farmers. They form about 1.8 million families. This is about half the population in the country. They are the main domestic food producers. Although the climatic conditions, geographical terrain, environmental and ecological conditions and some social conditions have been ideal for small scale farming and the policies adopted by pre colonial governments as well as those of the governments in the immediate decades after independence have been helpful, the changes that have been introduced during the colonial rule as well as those of the last three decades have made it almost non viable for such small farmers to continue. This situation has created serious economic, social, political crises in the country.
Before the colonial period the main form of the economy of the country was small scale farming by rural farmers. The British gave priority to plantation crop farming for export and the ordinary people were left to look after their food production and it was largely ignored by the state in its economic policy. They were not assisted in any way for much of the British rule.
Private ownership of land did not exist in Sri Lanka until the British introduced it, to get land available for their privately owned plantations. This was done by the British through the introduction of the Waste Lands Ordinance and the Forest Lands Ordinance of 1830s
Some interest in improving domestic food production was created under the British due to the food shortages during the war in 1930s. The initiatives taken by the British rule to revive irrigated agriculture for production of rice was more intensely continued by all governments after independence.
During the first three decades after independence the governments assisted small farmer based food production heavily and there was much emphasis in social welfare. Sri Lanka achieved much positive social development during this period. The Governments had a consistent policy of retaining the small farmer structure in the land ownership and land accumulation in a few hands was prevented by policy except in the plantation sector. The food situation in the country was then not unsatisfactory. On the whole, governments since Independence in 1948 until 1977 did not support capitalist accumulation in a big way. Food produced by the rural small scale farmers were purchased with state intervention and was distributed to all at affordable cost.
Introduction of green revolution strategies in mid 1960s was initially seen as a very positive step forward to increase food production and reduce hunger.
Use of external inputs such as hybridized seeds, chemical fertilizer, pesticides, weedicides and use of machinery and a larger requirement of water and irrigation resulted from this introduction. World Bank was one of the key promoters of this strategy and it gave a lot of loans to expand green revolution package of agriculture. A large network of agricultural research and extension, setting up government farms for production of high yielding varieties of hybridized seeds were the results assisted largely then by the World Bank with loans. Much development of irrigation was another outcome. With these interventions domestic agricultural production increased a lot in the initial phases.
Positive features of traditional farming
Among the peasantry in addition to paddy farming under irrigation there were other small farmers too. Some of them did not have irrigation facilities and they did rain fed agriculture some of them cultivated rice only during one season of the year. This was the Maha season where the rainfall was heavier and the other season where there was only a lesser rainfall farmers cultivated highland crops which was also called “chena” cultivation. Growing millet was an important activity among farmers with less or no irrigation and rice and millet were a combination of the main food crops.
In the older type of peasant farming there were many features that enabled the farmers to make use of nature’s ways and nature’s contribution to do effective farming, without need of much financial capital. Chena farmers cultivated other food crops such as cereals, pulses, vegetables, spices and yams etc. They selected their seasonal crops to suit the rainfall, sunshine and weather patterns and they timed their cropping calendars to suit the weather conditions ( ‘Kal Yal Bala Govithen Kireema’ is a traditional practice of deciding on the dates of farming activity with proper understanding of the weather patterns ). They had their fields ready when the rainfalls came in and timing of sowing was done so that the rice got ripe before the water ran dry. In doing this, they also knew that by making use of the periods of thunder and lightning properly nitrogen fixation could be better utilized and losses due to dry season can be avoided. This timing was also a way of avoiding major pest attacks.
They had various traditional practices ( rituals ) showing that they respected nature as their guardian and protector and ways of expressing their respect. They knew the animals that were assisting them in farming and they loved and respected them too. There were rituals to ask for gods’ blessings and protection before they started their seasons farming and also ceremonies to give thanks after harvesting. While there were many practices to prevent erosion of soil there were practices of using leaves, straw and other organic matter to fertilize the soil.
Combining cattle with farming was a common practice since they provided work as farm animals, as well as cow dung and urine which were essential components in sustaining natural soil fertility in addition to providing milk for food. In India cows are respected as God, while in Sri Lanka the Cow is respected with gratitude since it provided such a valuable service in farming activity. Thus killing cows and cattle for beef was rare in both countries.
People had many traditions of helping each other since farming activities required more labour at times. At times of cleaning before sowing, erecting fences, ploughing, replanting, harvesting etc. this practice of helping each other named “ aththam” helped people to reduce costs and to do the work more effectively.
However, another impact of the green revolution technology development was that farmers began to be much more dependent on external inputs.
By 1970s the food producing agriculture was almost entirely transformed into this technique of using New High Yielding Varieties ( NHYV ) of seeds, external inputs such as fertilizer, pesticides, weedicides, use of tractors and much of the rice farming depended on irrigation. The agriculture department was restructured to guide this process.
This transformation was pushed aggressively through government policy and programmes. In some countries this strategy led to further marginalization of smaller farmers and the larger and richer farmers benefitted and grew in size.
However, in Sri Lanka all governments continued a policy of sustaining and supporting small farmer agriculture and had many schemes to sustain small farmers in production, while adopting the green revolution package. The services and subsidies provided by the state to small farming were quite extensive at the beginning. This was necessary since a very large proportion of the voters were these rural farmers and about 70 % of the population depended on this farming for their livelihoods. During elections major political parties declared their policies that included support to small farmers in order to get elected and some of these promises had to be implemented too. The governments then considered the strategy of sustaining small farming as a means of preventing people from getting radicalized thus preventing them from joining the more radical Left Plitical parties.
On land ownership policies
The policies and situation in Sri Lanka related to land ownership has some peculiar features. It is assumed by many that in Sri Lanka all land belonged to the King and there was no private ownership. Some land was granted by the rulers to temples and to particular services provided by people. They were called “Nindagam and Devalagam” In other areas people were free to go into any state owned land and use them for farming. When people settled on such land developed their land, irrigation and other requirements for human settlement, the Government had a practice of investigating into the state of development and when they were satisfied that any area was sufficiently developed as human settlements the Government had land kachcheries, called for applications from such settlers and distributed the land to such regular settlers with ownership. The department set up for this task was called the Land Regularization Department.
The other way of granting land was through the Land Development Ordinance(LDO), which was the way in which land was granted to settlers under irrigated agricultural settlements.
In all these cases land that was granted by the state could not be sold outside the family. The system was to transfer ownership of the land to the eldest son of the family. This was in a way a method of getting these people to continue to have possession of the land and to prevent them from selling away the land at emergencies thus becoming landless destitute once more.
These supportive policies included the following:
• Land was granted to landless farmers under irrigated schemes and they were provided some assistance in settling down.
• Water and irrigation Development was considered a task of the government carried out with Government expenditure.
• Research and extension was carried out as a government responsibility by setting up several research centres, seed farms and a very extensive network of extension workers paid by the state.
• Development of seeds and providing certified seeds to farmers was a government responsibility
• Providing agricultural credit to farmers at low interest rates was another policy. In doing this, the Government had a scheme of refinancing 75% of the agricultural loans given so that the compulsion on farmers was to pay back only 25 % of the loans taken.
• Fertlizer was provided at subsidized rates, prices of other inputs were also kept low by government policy.
• Purchasing of farmers produce providing them with a reasonable price was undertaken by the government. In case of paddy it was through the Paddy Marketing Board( PMB) and in case of vegetables etc. there was the Marketing Development Board. Cooperatives Department too played a role in this. The same type of intervension was done in the case of fish with the National Fisheries Corporation and for milk through the National Milk Board.
This intervension in marketing was done with another purpose, to provide essential food to consumers at affordable prices
8.When it became difficult for the Government to spend on importing food it adopted a policy of restricting imports which was also a policy of supporting and protecting domestic production of food.
Governments since independence have come to this decision repeatedly from time to time when faced with economic difficulties. Although, the WB and IMF since 1980s continued to discourage this adoption of a supportive and protective policy towards small farmer based food production and wanted the government to get markets to handle all production and marketing. Governments gave into this pressure often, but they had to reverse back to this supportive policy since the WB advocated strategies did not bring results.
These policies had an overall objective of providing people with sufficient social welfare. Thus it enabled the Governments to keep the prices of essential food at affordable costs to all people, including the urban population.
These policies were initially approved by the WB since they were necessary policies in expanding green revolution agriculture within the structure of agriculture in Sri Lanka which comprised largely of Small farmers. However, these policies only intended to keep the farmers pacified and did not have intension of making them strong enough to be on their own.
Therefore the opportunities available to small farmers to be economically independent and to meet their new needs were low. The only way they could think of improving themselves economically and socially strong was to get the younger generations to get higher education and leave rural areas and agriculture as their livelihoods.
Since educational facilities were available even in rural areas, free of charge, almost every family thought of getting their children educated enough to find other livelihoods.
Social recognition and respect given to farming was very low too. Since the rural agricultural livelihoods did not expand their scope to cater to the new and increasing demands the youth who had higher aspirations were bent on finding new ways for social change and were getting radicalised in their thinking. These processes finally led to a radical youth movement fighting for social revolution. This movement named itself the JVP ( Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna – People’s Liberation Front )
The youth uprising that took place in 1971 was violently suppressed leading to around 10,000 young people getting killed and over 25,000 imprisoned for years. The party in government when this uprising took place was the more progressive political party among the capitalist parties with the older left parties in coalition. Due to the unpopularity that this party got due to its repression they lost the next elections very badly, bringing the more rightwing capitalist party (UNP) into power with a 4/5 th majority . This situation permitted the UNP, the more right wing party, an opportunity to introduce a full package of policies which were designed to make the capitalist class much more stronger and to set up a political process that reversed almost entirely the gains that were reached by all previous governments and also to weaken the people’s movement that had been built earlier.
The impact of this policy and economic strategy change was really drastic in the case of Sri Lanka. It in a way reversed almost all processes that Sri Lanka had adopted from the time of Independence and also from earlier times that allowed the country to a little more humanitarian and democratic.
Policies over the last 33 years and their impact on the peasantry
The governments over the last thirty three years have adopted a policy of protecting and supporting the rich and have consciously adopted policies to enhance inequalities and social and economic discrepancies. In order to do this the process has been one of getting the poor people to subsidize the rich,by way of transferring the burdens of loans and concessions given to the rich to the ordinary people, although the declared policy was one of getting the richness to trickle down and reduce poverty.
Private sector was given large and increasing incentives, considering it the « Engine of Growth » with the hope that private sector would help the country to achieve a much faster rate of growth in the economy.
However, looking at the results obtained over several decades it is evident that this process has not worked. Even the WB that guided these policies through pressure brought in with the lending, admitted that the country has not achieved the expected growth rates and there had been hardly any trickle down. Instead a small minority of rich elites and businesses have become very rich and social and economic disparities have incraesed tremendously. The burdens of the debts obtained continuously , largely to provide incentives and attractions to the foreign investors have been transferred to the poorer ordinary people. The debt burden today is so heavy that an individual owes around Rs.175,000 on an average. The beneficiaries of these loans, those who benefit from massive infrastructure developments enjoy long periods of 100 % tax holiday, and thus they do not contribute to the pay back of these loans.
The most tragic part of this story is that when governments see that the above strategy of growth orientation is not working what is done is not to look at the other options available. Instead the incentives are further increased with further increased borrowings .
This was very clear when the growth rates slowed down in 2002 – 2004 the Government advised by the WB introduced a new package f economic reforms, which was first called by President Chandrika, « Connecting to Growth : Regaining Sri Lanka ».
The same strategy and the policy document was adopted by Ranil Wickramasinghe, the leader of the biggest opposition party when he bacame Prime Minister and was renamed as « Future : Regaining Sri Lanka »
More of the same policies for faster growth
This package contained proposals on the same lines which intended to follow the same strartegy more aggressively. By 1992 the whole country had been declared an export processing zone. This was done under President Premadasa. The Regaining Sri Lanka included proposals of providing infrastructure facilities to make the whole country attractive to foreign investments. It included proposals f an extensive network f express highways. The first plan had four express highways while the next ten year plans had a much bigger network f 17 express highways with connections to an Asian network of express highways building a bridge across to India. It had expansion of the existing airports with proposals for new international air ports in other places such as Hambantota, Hingurakgoda and so on. There were proposals for building thermal power stations, some of which have already begun, Cleaning the city of the slum and shanty dwellers is another proposal, water privatisation was to be pushed through and inviting big private companies to undertake water distribution was intended.
The proposals contained in this package for peasant farming was even more disastrous. In 1996 there were already proposals for complete privatization of domestic agriculture inviting foreign investments into agriculture and agro based industries. It also had policies that aimed at getting small scale farmers in rural areas to sell their land and also irrigation water which they inherited.
In the policy recommendations of 1996 of the WB it said that farmers had to be discouraged frm growing paddy and other low value crops and as long as farmers get free irrigation they would not move out f paddy farming. Further these recommendations said that to shift agriculture from low value ( domestic food ) to high value ( export ) crops it would be necessary to create a free land market there by encouraging smallscale farmers who were occupying much of the rural land to sell their land and move out of agriculture. It also predicted that when this was done the land ownership pattern would change and the urban to rural population proportions would become 50 :50.
Thus it is seen that the increased rural to urban migration that was happening in other countries was to be engineered in Sri Lanka as a policy. The combined effect oof all these changes on the peasantry and poor was tremendous.
Please read attached files for details.