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Notes towards the study of
Organisational Structures in
Food Production in Sri Lanka.
A. E. MAHENDA SI JAWA
Land Hunger, Agrarian Changes and Government Policies: A Comparative Study of Nine Villages in Sri Lanka
1955 & 1980
CYRIL PARANAWITANA
Some Thoughts on Social Agro-Forestry in Sri Lanka
W. R. H. PERERA
Employment and Productivity Growth in Bangladesh
Agriculture : An Inter-District
Analysis
M. ALAUDON and
MUSTAFA K MUJER
The Marga institute’s Experimental Village Development Project
TUDOR O DEWENDRE
Published by MARGA INSTITUTE
VO 8 NO 1, 1985

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MARGA
Published by MARGA INSTITUTE (Sri Lanka Centre for Development Studies)

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Editorial Board:-
Godfrey Gunatilleke Chandra H. Soysa V. Kanesalingam G. I. O. M. Kurukulasuriya Sunimal Fernando Mervyn Herath Malkanthi Nanayakkara Victor, Gunewardena
Editorial Office:-
61, Isipathana Mawatha, Colombo 5, Sri Lanka.
P. O. Box 60 Tel: 585186/581514 Cables: Marga Telex: 21642 Marga CE
(c) Marga Institute — 1985
Inquiries regarding permission for republication should be addressed to the Institute.

Vol. 8. No. 1 1985
A. T. MAHINDA 1
SILVA
CYRL 22
PARANAVITANA
W. R. H. PERERA 40
M. ALAUDDIN and o 50 MUSTAFA K. MUJER
TUDOR O.
DEWENDRE
73
Notes towards the Study of Organisational Structures in Food Production in Sri Lanka.
Land Hunger, Agrarian Changes and Government Policies : A Comparative Study of Nine Villages in Sri Lanka, 1955 & 1980.
Some Thoughts on Social Agro-Forestry in Sri Lanka.
Employment and Productivity Growth in Bangladesh Agriculture: An Inter-District Analysis.
The Marga Institute’s Experimental Village Development Project. - . ;

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MARGA Vol. 8 No. 1 1985
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
A. T. MAHINDA SILVA
DR. CYRL PARANAVTANA
W. R. H. PERERA
DR. M. ALAUDDIN
DR MUSTAFAK MUJER
TUDOR O. EDEWENDRE
A former Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Lands. Consultant, Marga Institute.
Lecturer in Economics & Statistics, Faculty of Social and Management Sciences, University of Maiduguri, Nigeria. A former Lecturer at the University of Peradeniya and a Teaching Fellow at the Postgraduate Institute of Agriculture, Peradeniya.
A former Conservator of Forests. Consultant, Science and Technology Studies Division, Marga Institute.
Visiting Fellow, Department of
Economics, University of Newcastle, Australia.
National Expert, Bangladesh Planning Commission and former Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh.
Associate Director, Implementation Projects and Studies Division, Marga Institute, until his death on 26th April 1985.

NOTES TOWARDS THE STUDY OF ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURES IN FOOD PRODUCTION IN SRI LANKA
A. T. Mahinda Silva
These “Notes' are presented with serious limitations that will be obvious to the reader. They are fragmentary and disjointed and relate largely, albeit in outline, to the period 1963 - 1977, when the writer was continuously engaged as a public servant in the food production sector. The notes themselves are based largely on the writer's personal experiences and may therefore carry biases arising from a sense of personal involvement. In spite of these serious limitations, it was considered worthwhile to place these notes on record for several reasons.
As everyone knows, governments in all developing countries do intervene and direct the development of food production. The extent and manner of such state intervention, both direct and indirect, are well known. But, state support is usually discussed largely within the framework of conventional categories such as research, extension, subsidies, pricing policies etc. It is only in relatively recent years that attention has been focused on the fact that state intervention in food production carries with it organisational structures that are conditioned by the nature of the state, its political and social ideologies and the character of its functionaries. The organisational character of state intervention also keeps on changing with changes of governments, political and administrative elites. In such a context it is essential to think of the changing and fluctuating organisational structures of state intervention as an input in the food production sector which is as worthy of study as research and extension. Several international organisations and many national governments now pay increasing attention to the organisational aspects of agricultural development. For instance, the study on "Management of Agriculture” covering a large number of countries of Asia and Far East including Sri Lanka published by the Indian Institute of Public Administration in 1979 is an indication of these
geW COCerS.

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Agricultural Insurance Board ‘. . . 1973
Agricultural Development Authority. . . . 1978 Agrarian Research & Training Institute a o 1972 Mahaveli Development Board . . 1970 People's Bank. "க 1961 Sri Lanka, Sugar Corporation An AO d 8 1957 Survey Department .. a o u 1800
indirect services
The manner in which some of these institutions serve domestic agriculture is well known. As for some others, the services they perform are somewhat indirect, and therefore not as well known or appreciated. For instance, the Department of Census & Statistics plays a vital role in computing agricultural production statistics and conducting periodical censuses and other surveys, which are invaluable for evaluating performance and formulating policies. The work of the Survey Department is rarely before the public eye but the Department has played a vital role in all aspects of survey work necessary for the alienation of state land for agricultural development. The People's Bank and the Bank of Ceylon have been engaged in granting rural credit especially for short-term agricultutral production. The Petroleum Corporation came into the picture when it started producing a range of agro-chemicals required for domestic agriculture. The Agrarian Research and Training Institute undertakes research and training on the socio-economic aspects of the domestic agricultural sector, particularly in relation to the small farmer. Its work therefore is different from the agro-technical research conducted by the Department of Agriculture. The Forest Department is not concerned with food production, but rational policies in forestry are essential for soil and water conservation, Forestry, therefore, is a vital part of the food production base of the country.
The list of institutions given earlier is by no means comprehensive. For instance, fisheries is normally included as a part of the agricultural sector and inland fisheries in particular can be an important part of the rural food production programme.
The allocation of these departments and corporations as between different ministries has varied under different governments and even within the period of the same government. For instance,
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the Department of Agriculture and departments dealing with lands were under one Ministry from 1947 to 1956. Between 1956 and 1970 they were in separate ministries, but were brought together under one ministry again in 1970 and continued to be so until 1978, when they were assigned to different ministries.
The Department of Co-operative Development was under the Ministry of Agriculture and Food from 1965 to 1970, under the Ministry of Trade from 1970 to 1977 and has been under a new Ministry of Food & Co-operatives since 1978. Sometimes departments and corporations have been re-allocated to different ministries within the period of office of the same government. For instance, the Oils and Fats Corporation which plays an important role in the production and sale of animal feed and is therefore vitally connected with the animal husbandry sub-sector, was under the Ministry of Industries & Scientific Affairs from 1970 to about 1977. Towards the very end of the period of office of that government it was transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands. Animal Husbandry Research & Extension has always been a part of the Department of Agriculture. Since 1978, these activities, along with the National Milk Board which had functioned under the Ministry of Agriculture since its inception, have come under a new Ministry of Rural Industrial Development.
In tracing the evolution of the organisational structure for food production in the country, the focus of this study is mainly on the period 1963 to 1977. But the developments of this period cannot be assessed without some understanding of the highlights of the period prior to 1963.
Policy thrust
It is generally accepted that the policy thrust towards the rural areas which began to emerge clearly in the 1930's was stabilised, enlarged and given great dynamism after Independence in 1948. The basic features of this thrust could be identified in three ways:
(i) the restoration of ancient irrigation works and the cons
truction of new irrigation works, principally in the Dry Zone of the country.

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(i)
(iii)
the alienation of state land in individual holdings, principally to the peasant class for settlement and food production.
the establishment and progressive expansion of the services for land settlement and agricultural development (e.g. provision of subsidies, guaranteed prices, agricultural research, agricultural inputs, provision of infrastructure facilities etc.).
These three broad characteristics of policy have remained unchanged to this day although there have been variations in policy emphasis within this framework. These policies, which received accelerated momentum after Independence, also led to the creation of institutions and administrative arrangements, which could be identified in the following manner:
(i)
(ii)
At the national level, the personal bias of the Head of State and the Ministers in charge of Agriculture, Lands and Irrigation towards food production problems was a vital factor. D. S. Senanayake as Minister of Agriculture and Lands was in the habit of going on detailed field inspections, meeting farmers and field officers directly, presiding over District Agricultural Committee meetings at the district kachcheries and trying personally to understand and monitor what was actually happening in the field. He maintained the same type of approach towards agricultural matters even after he became the first Prime Minister. This is a tradition that has been followed by several Prime Ministers and Ministers of Agriculture, Land & Irrigation in subsequent years. It would not be incorrect therefore to say that the direct intervention at field level of the political leadership of the country in the food production sectoris an organisational arrangement that emerged during the immediate postIndependence era.
At the national level there was the growth of a number of large government departments (e.g. Land Commissioner's Department, Agriculture Department, Irrigation
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(iii)
(iv)
Department, Land Development Department, Survey Department) which began to function as the "hard core' government agencies for the peasant|small farmer sector. These departments have extended their services
vertically from Colombo to the districts, divisions and
village levels. This again is an important arrangement that developed long before Independence and has been taken over and continuously enlarged thereafter.
At the district and divisional levels, there was the utilisation of the provincial administration, principally the Government Agencies and their staff at all levels in the district, for the co-ordination and implementation of development work, including food production work. The institution of the Government Agent, which had its origins in British times, was recognised and respected by the people. The authority of the Government Agent has declined considerably in the context of changes taking place in recent years. Nevertheless, it has remained at the centre of the District, Divisional and Village level co-ordinating machinery of government and has proved extremely effective when the holder of the post had the necessary ability, qualities of leadership and was supported by the political level.
The District Agricultural Committee became an important institution for co-ordinating agricultural work in a district. It was provided for under Section 3 of the Irrigation Ordinance. Members of Parliament representing electorates within administrative districts, all district-level heads of departments and institutions connected with Agriculture, District Revenue Officers (now designated Assistant Government Agents) as well as a number of persons appointed to represent agricultural interests in the area were members of this Committee. It was expected to meet at least once in three months. The Government Agent normally presided over its meetings, It also often happened that Ministers in charge of Agriculture and Lands and Irrigation or even
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(y)
(vi)
(vii)
the Prime Minister visiting a district would chair such meetings. This added considerable prestige to the DAC which was a forum for discussing and evaluating all aspects of agriculture in a district. It could therefore take up matters of broad agricultural policy. It was also a forum where the district representatives of technical departments such as the Departments of Agriculture and Irrigation could meet the elected representatives of the people, the generalist administrators like the Government Agent and his Assistants, and through discussion resolve conflicts and problems. The Government Agent as chairman of the DAC was primarily responsible for exercising the function of co-ordination. The minutes or resolutions adopted at these meetings were forwarded by the Government Agent to the relevant Ministries and heads of departments in Colombo, thus establishing a line of communication between the district and the authorities at the centre. The views expressed by DACs were treated with respect and influenced policy-making at the national level to some extent.
Since the DAC was a relatively large body and met only once in about three months there developed in some of the important agricultural districts, an arrangement whereby an official sub-committee of the DAC under the chairmanship of the Government Agent would meet monthly or even weekly to review and co-ordinate agricultural work in the district. This sub-committee generally consisted of the district heads of the government agencies connected with agriculture.
In some districts a committee very similar to the DAC functioned at the divisional level under the chairmanship of the Divisional Revenue Officer for co-ordinating agricultural work at the divisional level and for keeping the Government Agent properly briefed on agricultural matters.
With regard to rural institutions, the years immediately following Independence witnessed the limited utilisation
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of the co-operative society and the rural development society in the agricultural sector. Both were organisationally linked to two government departments-the Co-operative Department and the Rural Development Department.
(viii) A noteworthy farmers' institution for paddy cultivation
was the Kanna meeting which was held at the commencement of each season for determining collectively such matters as the dates for water issue from the tank,
dates of sowing, fencing of fields, the variety of seed
paddy to be used, etc. These meetings were presided. over by the Government Agent or his representative and were attended by district and/or divisional level officers
of the relevant government departments.
Significant changes
All these administrative and institutional arrangements which indicate how the different levels of the administrative system were linked to the food production sector, emerged before Independence and were maintained thereafter. In general terms, they have been continued to this day but significant changes have also been introduced and we must now turn our attention to them.
With the enactment of the Paddy Lands Act of 1958, the institution of the Cultivation Committee and a new Department of Agrarian Services came to be established. This was a far-reaching change in the institutional set-up for paddy production in the country. Around the same time, the Minister of Agriculture and Food gave a distinctly new orientation to co-operatives by launching the policy of Multi-purpose Co-operatives. In the words of the Minister, “The Village Co-operative will also be entrusted with the task of the preparation, and after its approval by the Government, the implementation of the Agricultural Plan for the village.'
The Agricultural Plan of 1958 expressed the new role of cooperatives even more categorically: “This network of co-operative
2. Administration Report on the Ceylon Co-operative Movement for 1957.
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societies throughout the country capable of performing a multitude of services to the community, therefore constitutes a national asset of the first importance. It is admirably suited for the implementation of national plans of production, distribution, marketing, rural credit and essential public services...." The Paddy Lands Act, Cultivation Committees and the Multi-purpose Co-operative Societies introduced in 1958 have been intensively discussed from the point of view of their achievements as well as their failures.
In 1964, a comparatively minor but nevertheless significant organisational innovation was introduced by the Minister of Agriculture and Food when he appointed, with the approval of the Public Service. Commission, all 22 Government Agents as ex-officio deputies to the Departments of Agriculture, Agrarian Services, Co-operative and Marketing. This step was rendered possible because all four departments were under the Ministry of Agriculture and Food at the time. The departments concerned were not altogether happy with this ministerial decision because they tended to view the arrangement as an encroachment on the traditional lines of command of departmental organisations. The decision was vindicated in operational terms as every one gradually realised the additional co-ordinating strength that the districts received as a result. The Government Agents had for long been functioning as de facto district-level deputies to the Land Commissioner in respect of matters affecting Crown land, and the Food Commissioner in respect of matters affecting food supplies. The appointment of the Government Agent as an ex-officio deputy of four other important departments of government dealing with agriculture and food production was a policy recognition of the value of inter-departmental team work based on a common programme with the farmers as the beneficiaries. An example of this can be seen in the following: When the Agricultural Credit Scheme of 1963 was introduced by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the Director of Agriculture, Commisisioner of Agrarian Services and the Commissioner of Co-operative Development, who were heads of departments under the Ministry and responsible for the implementation of the credit scheme, sent their instructions to the districts regularly on circulars signed by all three. These instructions were implemented in the districts under
3. Agricultural Plan: First Report of the Ministry Planning Committee
Ministry of Agriculture and Food, 1958, p. 24. 9
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the supervision of an official sub-committee of the DAC presided over by the Government Agent and represented by the district representatives of all three departments whose heads had signed the joint circulars. This was an interesting and novel experiment in administrative co-ordination in the food production sector.
Crucial “watershed
In regard to the organisation and management of the food production sector, the period 1965 to 1970 was a crucial “watershed because the organisational structures that had evolved for over three decades were consciously taken in hand, refined and tightened. In doing so four factors appear to have played a decisive role.
The most important was the overall economic situation in the country. Feeding the nation on imported rice had become extremely difficult and the subsidised ration was drastically reduced in 1966. Foreign exchange constraints had made the imported food bill a national burden. Unemployment, especially among educated youth had become a major issue. Increasing the production of food and reducing food imports had to be pushed forward as cardinal matters of policy. The organisational arrangements of the 1965-1970 period were a direct response to this economic situation without which the need for a concerted effort at directing and managing food production would not have been so clearly seen.
The second factor was the publication of the Agricultural Development Proposals 1966 to 1970, prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food and published by the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs. It was not an agricultural plan in any true sense. Nevertheless, it clearly focused attention on certain areas of food production (paddy, subsidiary food crops, vegetables, fruits, milk, eggs, etc.) and the inputs and supporting services required to attain the specified targets within the given period of time. The task of implementing these proposals made it necessary for the Government, particularly the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, to start fashioning the machinery of implementation.
The third factor was the large-scale effort to utilise the district administration under the leadership of the Government Agent as

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well as rural institutions such as cultivation committees and cooperatives in this food production drive. In 1965 the Prime Minister selected about 12 senior officers of the Ceylon Administrative Service and appointed them as Government Agents of important districts, as a way of revitalising the district administration and the institution of the Government Agent. In the foreword to the Agricultural Development Proposals 1966 to 1970, the Minister of Agriculture and Food, commenting on the proposed machinery of implementation said: ". . . . . . in this respect field officers engaged in agriculture and particularly the Government Agents, have a crucial role to play. The recent decision of the Government to appoint senior and experienced officers as Government Agents will considerably strengthen the organisation for implementing these programmes at the district and village levels. Government Agents and public officers responsible for implementing these programmes are being given a clear idea of the implications of the programmes as broken up into their specific components in relation to their districts and areas of authority. It is also intended to evoke the participation of village organisations such as Cultivation Committees and Co-operative Societies in the implementation of this programme by assigning specific targets which will be worked out in co-operation with these institutions to be secured within their areas of authority in relation to the various aspects of production and marketing.'
The fourth and so far least documented factor was the organisational developments within the Ministry of Agriculture and Food itself. These changes which were made between 1965 and 1970 were maintained and further strengthened during the period 1970 to 1977, when the food, unemployment and foreign exchange problems. were more acute than even in earlier years.
Monitoring function
In 1965 the Ministry of Agriculture and Food established a small
Planning Unit with one full-time and one part-time officer to monitor
a few selected areas of the agricultural programme. One of the
4. Agricultural Development Proposals 1966-1970. Ministry of Agriculture
and Food, Foreword, 1966.
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first areas of interest of the Planning Unit was the import and utilisation of agro-chemicals. The monitoring was done by establishing a standing committee with representation from the importing, research and user organisations. As the Agricultural Development Proposals 1966 to 1970 began to be implemented, there arose the need to enlarge and strengthen the organisation in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food for co-ordinating and evaluating the implementation of the programme in all the districts. The Planning Unit was, therefore, gradually enlarged to a Development Division with a full time Director, Agricultural Development, several deputies and assistant directors and a few experienced officers to cover special subjects such as Agricultural Statistics. The establishment of the Development Division began to ensure that agricultural development problems received special attention in the Ministry, while the personnel and routine administrative matters that normally fill up Ministry time was directed towards officers outside the Development Division who carried at staff rank the traditional designations of Assistant Secretary, Senior Assistant Secretary, etc. The structural separation of a Ministry organisation between routine and traditional functions of administration and clearly demarcated development functions is now a common enough feature in many Ministries today, but it was an innovation in the 1960s. Most staff officers appointed to the Development Division were senior or middle-level officers of the Ceylon Administrative Service, later designated the Sri Lanka Administrative Service. In selecting officers for appointment to the Development Division care was taken to ensure that they had previous experience in the district administration, preferably in work relating to agriculture and lands. The Director, Agricultural Development, who was directly responsible to the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry (later redesignated Secretary) and to the Minister, was always a senior officer of the Administrative Service, who had had wide experience in the Public Service and especially as a Government Agent of a district.
A somewhat similar and parallel change was introduced to the kachcheries around 1965/66 when a post of Additional Government Agent was created in the cadre of practically every kachcheri in the Island. This was a direct result of the intensive campaign for food production that was being carried out from 1965. Its purpose

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was to relieve the Government Agent of the routine administrative and ceremonial functions and enable him to devote his energies to the task of co-ordinating the food production drive in the district. It is clear that by 1965-66 the institution of the Government Agent had moved a long way from being a Revenue Officer. He had now become the chief co-ordinator of economic development in the district. The office of Additional Government Agent has continued to the present day even though the original purpose for which it was created has now been largely forgotten.
During the period 1965 to 1970 there were other important features of the administrative frame which deserve mention. There was a Cabinet Sub-Committee on food production which met regularly under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister himself. The decisions reached by it were in fact treated as decisions of the Cabinet itself subject to formal ratification at a full meeting of the Cabinet. This sub-committee was a valuable arrangement at the centre for taking urgent decisions and clarifying and co-ordinating inter-ministry or inter-departmental problems as they arose in the course of the food production programme.
There was a National Advisory Committee (NAC) on food production consisting of agriculturists and some farmers appointed by the Government. The NAC met infrequently to express their views and recommendations on agricultural problems in different parts of the Island. The Prime Minister himself presided over it.
The Conference of Government Agents had long been a recognised institution. However, it was during this period that it received a special emphasis and there were regular conferences of Government Agents, sometimes lasting for two to three days and devoted exclusively to the agricultural and food production programme. The conference was presided over by the Prime Minister or by the Minister of Agriculture and Food. The arrangements for the conference were in the hands of the Development Division of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food and a great deal of preparatory work was always done to make the meeting meaningful and relevant to the issues of the day. A large number of background papers prepared either by the relevant ministries in Colombo or by individual
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Government Agents themselves were taken up for discussion in depth. The decisions and suggestions made at these conferences of Government Agents had a very important bearing on the formulation of policies at the time.
Annual Implementation Programme
It was also during this period that the Ministry of Agriculture and Food commenced the preparation of an Annual Implementation Programme (AIP) for each “Agricultural Year”, i.e. Maha and Yala seasons. Briefly, the AIP was prepared in the following manner:
The Development Division of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, in consultation with the relevant ministries and departments, prepared indicative targets of the extents that could be cultivated in the different districts in the different crops, the approximate yields that could be expected depending on weather conditions, and tentative estimates of the basic inputs such as credit, fertiliser, agro-chemicals, mamoties, tractors, etc., that would be required for the successful completion of the programme. These estimates were then forwarded to the Government Agents and the senior district-level officers such as District Agricultural Extension Officers.
On receiving these indicative targets the Government Agent and the district organisation initiated a series of discussions with the relevant institutions and farmers organisations in order to obtain their views, recommendations and criticisms of the proposed production programme. Generally, the institutions that were brought into this dialogue were cultivation committees and co-operative societies at the district and divisional levels. These discussions would go on for several weeks, at the end of which, a team of officers from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food and related ministries and departments would visit every district and have lengthy discussions with the Government Agent, his senior staff and representatives of cultivation committees and co-operatives whom the Government Agent invited for this conference. After these discussions there would be a mutually agreed production programme with supporting inputs for the forthcoming Maha and Yala seasons.
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The Ministry of Agriculture and Food then commenced the practice, of publishing the agreed AIP for general information and for purposes of monitoring progress. Gradually, the districts also started the practice of printing the district AIP. Subsequently the AIP came to be published in respect of each division showing the break-up in terms of responsibilities assigned to cultivation committees, co-operatives and any other relevant organisations.
The entire idea of an AIP and the manner in which it was executed and developed at the time was a unique phenomenon in the agricultural administration of the country. It was an attempt to establish a very specific dialogue between the centre, the districts, the divisions and the farmers' institutions. The indicative targets and the basis on which they were prepared were in fact "moved from “top to bottom' and from the "bottom to the top' again. It was also an attempt to secure the widest possible participation of the institutions and public officers responsible for the implementation of the programme. After the season commenced there was regular monitoring of progress in relation to every single district through numerous field visits as well aspersonal contact between the centre and the districts in the implementation process. At the end of each..season there was an attempt to make a final evaluation based on the AIP which had been prepared prior to the commencement of the season. The Government Agents' conferences regarding agriculture which were mentioned earlier were also organised to discuss and monitor the programmes in their different stages of implementation.
The above discussion would indicate that the organisational structures for administering and managing the development of food production were being gradually transformed (through innovative experimentation) to meet the changing demands of planning and mplementation. It is against this background that the Section on “Perspectives and Implementation Policies' in the Draft Agricultural Development Plan 1971 - 77 made a special reference to the role that organisation has played in increasing food production:
"There is an influential view that, the spurt of agricultural growth taking place in numerous parts of the world or the
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so-called “Green Revolution' is chiefly due to three factors, namely, good seed, fertiliser and good prices for farm products. The experience in Ceylon indicates that this is not an entirely valid assumption. For instance, in the case of paddy a good variety of seed-H4-was available and widely used from 1958. There has never been any restriction in the import and distribution of artificial fertilisers in the Island and unlike in many other countries a subsidy has also been available for fertiliser from 1951. The Guaranteed Price for paddy was introduced in 1948 and has been progressively increased. At certain times this price was double the world market price of rice. If the explanation of the "Green Revolution" has any validity in Ceylon, the co-presence of the factors of seed, fertiliser and price should have led to striking advances in paddy . production and specially in the yields per acre. But this did not happen until recent years. The explanation for this seems, to be in a factor that is often neglected in discussions on the productivity of agriculture. That neglected factor is simply an organisation which must move a consistent flow of not only goods and services, but also policies and ideas, from the village upwards and towards the village downwards. Organisation in its varied complex forms, both institutional and noninstitutional is, to use a currently popular metaphor, "the launching pad' from which agriculture can rise to higher orbits.' བ་
During the period 1970 to 1977 there was no Cabinet SubCommittee on Food Production or a National Advisory Committee on food production.
The Development Division of the new Ministry of Agriculture and Lands was strengthened and expanded on lines that were laid down during the 1965-70 period. An interesting development during this period was that technical officers such as agronomists and persons who had specialised in animal husbandry were released from the Department of Agriculture for various periods to work in the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, alongside other non-technical officers, so that there was forged a continuous link between the technical departments engaged in the agricultural programme, such

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as the Department of Agriculture and the policy-making levels of the Ministry.
The Government Agents' Conferences were also continued during this period but they increasingly became the concern specifically of the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands. Another interesting development during this period was the entry of the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs to areas of agricultural and rural development work, undertaking direct implementational responsibilities. The Ministry of Planning appointed its own staff of Assistant Directors of Planning, Planning Officers and Development Officers to kachcheries and the district administration, principally to supervise various projects which were started under the District Development. Council programme. The Prime Minister established a coordinating secretariat for the purpose of co-ordinating and monitoring the food production programme, which assumed special urgency in view of the scarcity of rice and wheat flour at the time and the stoppage of imports on a variety of popular food items which had been imported up to that time.
In the preparation of the AIP as well as in the implementation of the food production programmes, a great deal of emphasis was placed on a new institution, namely, the Agricultural Productivity Committee (APC) which was established under the Agricultura Productivity Law of 1972 (APL).
District Political Authority
Another important organisational development during this period was the creation of the District Political Authority (DPA). This decision was taken at the time to strengthen the food production programme which was said to be on a “war footing.' One of the most important changes introduced to support this production programme was the creation of a DPA for the purpose of mobilising the public for food production purposes and co-ordinating the work of government agencies at the district level.
The Academy of Administrative Studies conducted a workshop of Government Agents in 1975 on the DPA . The report of this workshop which has been issued in mimeograph form is a valuable
8

document for understanding the DPA system as it began to function at the time. Unfortunately, the report has a limitation in that the DPA's as well as the central government ministries and the Prime Minister's co-ordinating secretariat were not represented at this workshop. The views expressed, therefore, are exclusively those of the Government Agents who were then directly working with the DPA's and therefore had some valuable personal experiences to place before the workshop.
In the introduction to the report the co-ordinator of the workshop has made a useful and objective analysis of the ideas that emerged at the workshop. The institution of the DPA was described as providing a “hinge between the fields of politics and administration at the district level.” It was pointed out that the operation of this new institution was greatly influenced by the character of the DPA, the Government Agent and other key officers in the district administration together with the political forces that were operating in each district. The advantages of the institution were identified as the following:
(a) Strengthening the district co-ordinating functions of the
Government Agent;
(b) The relief afforded to Government Agents in transferring to the DPA the responsibility for the political component of the district administration; ܐ ܝ ܙ
(c) A more effective co-ordination of district administration
in relation to the administration at the centre;
(d) Enabling a greater degree of popular support and political
mobilisation at the local level.
The principal disadvantages of this institution were identified as the following:
(a) The lack of a clear definition in the roles and functions of
DPA and the Government Agent;
(b) The interference by the DPA in statutory and administra
tive functions of the Government Agent;
9.

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LAND HUNGER, AGRARIAN CHANGES AND GOVERNMENT POLICIES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF NINE VILLAGESIN SRI LANKA, 1955&1980.料
Cyril Paramavitama**
This comparative study based on the results of two sample surveys (in 1955 & 1980), attempts to examine how socio-economic forces affect the average size of holding and create fragmentation and accumulation.
The analysis of the results shows there has been a redistribution (in terms of accumulation and fragmentation) of paddy lands and highlands owing to government measures, rapid population increases and monetization. In the paddy sector, fragmentation was confined mainly to owner-cultivators while accumulation was observed mainly among non-cultivating owners. Over the period, the emergence of salaried classes, the rise of the share of owner-cultivators, the decline of the role of share-croppers and the proportion of paddy producers in the paddy economy can be observed. The relative importance of both highlands and lowlands as sources of income have also declined.
The study emphasizes the importance of introducing a package of government measures aimed at improving the condition of rural peasants so as to relieve the population pressure exerted on cultivable land.
introduction
In rural societies with rapidly increasing population one of the critical problems that can be observed is the population pressure
* I am grateful to Piyasiri Wickramasekara of the University of Sri Lanka
for constructive criticisms and suggestions.
* This material is based on a survey carried out by the University of Sri Lanka and supported by a grant from the Social Science Research Council of Sri Lanka. Chrisanthie P. Wickramarachchi provided able research assistance.
22

exerted on cultivable land and the resulting fragmentation of land through "inheritance'." Land in the rural environment is a means of livelihood, an economic asset, a security which can be used to raise money in case of emergencies and a measure of social standing. Lack of alternative job opportunities, the limited amount of available cultivable land, increasing population coupled with the abovementioned socio-economic norms and values have increased the dependency of villagers on land and created the problem of land hunger resulting in a large proportion of landless households and a significant proportion of households with uneconomic holdings.
In this context, government intervention programmes could play an important role in countering these trends. The objective of this paper is to analyse the operation of these factors in the context of a traditional rural setting in mid-country Sri Lanka.
Scope, Objectives and Methodology
This study is based on the results obtained from two sample surveys of nine selected villages, conducted in 1955 and 1980.” The area considered here is situated in the rural hill country of Sri Lanka adjacent to the plantation sector.
The original survey was undertaken by Sarkar and Tambiah (1957), who concluded that the traditional village economy was in the process of disintegration. The present survey was undertaken in 1980 to review the development in the village economy over the 25-year period.
1. The Law of inheritance practised in Sri Lanka provides for the division of
parents' lands equally among all the children, unless stated otherwise.
2. The 1955 socio-economic survey of Pata-Dumbara was a benchmark study which was carried out by Sarkar and Tambiah (1957) of the University of Sri Lanka. In 1980, a survey of the same nine villages was conducted by Paranavitana and Wickramasekara (1980).
3. The co-existence of organised and unorganised sectors is an important
outcome of the "colonial development pattern.'
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The population in the area' increased by 34 per cent during the period and the density of population per square kilometre increased from 355 in 1953 to 522 in 1981 (D.T.R.U., 1982) which indicates the pressure of population increase on land. The main activity of the majority of the people living in this area is cultivation of paddy in the lowland and mixed crops in the highland.
The villagers were exposed to increasing monetization, greater urban contacts and educational opportunities during the 1955-80 period. They also experienced new socio-economic relationships created by newly emerging cash-holding classes, mainly salaryearners and businessmen who were in direct competition with the already established land-owning class with regard to land. These groups were all interested in enlarging their social standing among the villagers. Since land availability in the villages was limited, their attention was focused on the meagre possessions of the peasants, who were for the most part subsistence farmers.
Several pieces of legislation were introduced by the Government during this period with a view to transforming the rural economy. The Paddy Lands Act of 1958 was intended to ensure security of tenure and regulate rents. The Land Reform legislation of the 1970s also affected the plantations which surrounded the villages under study.
This study examines long-term changes in the rural economy with regard to size of land holdings. An attempt is made to evaluate
4. The population figures for the Kandy District which includes the sampled villages were obtained from the 1953 and 1981 Census of Population. Reports of Sri Lanka (See D.T.R.U., 1982).
5. In the rural context, "lowland' refers to land used for cultivation of paddy and related crops which need plenty of water during the planting and growing seasons. On the other hand, "highland refers to land that is used for housing and dry crops (mainly mixed crops).
6. Mixed crops include mainly Coconut, Arecanut, Fruit, Clove, Tea, Cocoa, Nutmeg, Banana, Jak fruit, Cardamom etc. Most of these crops are mainly for own (family) consumption.
7. Land reform was carried out by the Government either through village expansion schemes at the expense of surrounding tea estates or through the distribution of existing government-owned land. Under the Landi Reform Laws of 1972 and 1975 all private land in excess of 50 acres was vested in the Government.
24

the rate of fragmentation of land between 1955 and 1980. Since different factors affect the size of lowland and highland holdings, these have been discussed separately.
The study also seeks to evaluate the relative importance of competing forces which determine the average size of holding. Some forces increase the rate of fragmentation, while some others arrest it. The introduction of legislation on land reform (1972 & 1975), tenancy regulation (1958) and village expansion schemes of the Government have had a restraining effect on fragmentation, whereas population pressure coupled with traditional inheritance practices tend to increase it. As holdings become very small, there is a tendency for owners to share produce among themselves instead of sharing the land. Moreover, alternative employment opportunities resulting. from rapid expansion of education, increasing demand for labour from neighbouring estates and urban contacts would have reduced the dependency on land so that the need for fragmentation would Ibe reduced.
Another hypothesis to be examined is that the rates of fragmentation and accumulation vary with the type of cultivator and occupational background of land-owners. An attempt is also made to find whether the richer groups in the village were able to accumulate and at the expense of others.
However, several limitations can be identified with this type of study.
(a) The validity of an analysis of dynamic changes by comparing two static situations and using a one-shot survey, can be questioned.
(b) Analysis only in part, of the direct impact of rapid population increases in this area owing to the use of the family as the principal unit of the study. -
(c) The survey on which the study is based is not a microlevel in-depth study of a selected village but that of a wider area consisting of a group of villages.
8. "Tattumaru' and "Kattimaru' are some of the produce-sharing methods
practised by villagers so that holding size would be intact.
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-Changes in the Paddy Sector
The average size of paddy holding has not changed very much over the period. It has increased marginally from 0.34 acre to 0.38 acre during the period. It is however clear from Table 1 that there has been a redistribution in the operational ownership and the extent in each category between 1955 and 1980. The landless group in the paddy sector has dropped slightly from 66 per cent in 1955 to 62 per cent in 1980. The redistribution was centred around the 2-5 acres category. The shrinkage of this group has added to both the lower and higher size categories. This brings into focus the operation of some forces leading to fragmentation and others which lead to land accumulation. According to the results, the proportion of persons who owned holdings less than 2 acres increased from 29% in 1955 to 35% in 1980, and the share of extent of this group increased from 52% to 60%. This result clearly indicates that there has been a certain degree of land fragmentation.
TABLE 1.
Paddy land - Operational Ownership
Number of Extent Percentage of
Size of holding Households (Per cent) extent per 1 %
(Per cent) of households
1955 1980 1955 1980 1955 1980
No land ... 66.2 62.1 O O O O
Less than 2 acres . . . 28.8 34.8 52.0 60.2 1.8 1.7
2 - 5 acres .. ... 4.3 2.1 37.7 15.9 8.8 7.6
5 acres or more 0.6 0.9 10.3 23.7 17.2 26.3
Sample size .. ... 506 756
Source: Sarkar & Tambiah (1957)
Paranavitana & Wickramasekara (1980)
At the same time, the share of the 2-5 acre category of total number of households has fallen from 4% to 2% and its share of total extent has fallen from 38% to 16%, a loss of 57% between 1955 and 1980.
'9. "Operational ownership' refers to the land obtained for cultivation: either one's own land or land obtained on share-cropping basis. The word 'owner ship' in this study mainly refers to "operational ownership'. One problem with this classification of 'ownership' is the possibility of double-counting, for a few households. This arises owing to declaration of the same piece of land (which is not legally divided) as their own land by several owners although it is cultivated by one owner.
26

On the other hand, there is also evidence to support the contention that a certain amount of land accumulation has taken place. The number of owners in the highest size category has increased from 0.6% to 0.9%. In terms of acreage, the share of this group has risen from 10% of total acreage to 24%, an increase of 131%. A part of this increase can be due to an increase inland accumulation through purchases by more fortunate persons and partly owing to obtaining land on share-cropping basis for cultivation.
Combining the changes in ownership and the corresponding extent, one can obtain a series on percentage of extent per 1 per cent of households. The results obtained (see Table 1) indicate that the percentage has dropped for all the categories of paddy lands except for the 5-acre or more category, in which case the percentage has increased from 17% to 26%. Thus there is evidence to suggest that the more fortunate (both land-owning and cash-holding classes) have accumulated lands through various means.
Average size of holding by type of producer
Table 1 does not shed any light on how different types of producers have behaved in the face of changing circumstances over the years. In the paddy sector, it is possible to argue that the rates of fragmentation and accumulation directly relate to the type of producer. In Table 2, average sizes of paddy holdings by type of producer are presented for 1955 and 1980.
From these results, several features emerge. Although the t(overall) average size has remained in the range of 0.35 to .38 acres over the period, the average size of holdings for different cultivators has changed between 1955 and 1980 in varying degrees. The average extent of non-cultivating owners has remained around 1.66 acres, and that of owners partly cultivating and partly giving out land on share-cropping' has increased from 1.55 acres to 2.29, a considerable gain of 48%. These results support the hypothesis that the practice of land accumulation predominates over that
10. Under the “share-cropping arrangement, a piece of land owned by an individual would be given to a tenant farmer for cultivation on the understanding that he pays a share of his crop as rent to the owner of the land. Under the Paddy Lands Act (1958), this share was fixed, but in practice, it has varied quite a lot depending on the relative strengths of the tenant and the landlord.
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TABLE ?| Production Relation inPaddy Cultivation in1955 and 1980
Non-cultivatingOwners partly·Owners cultivating owners who givecultivating-their own land andtheir land totheir own land . Owner-cultivating others’ Landless share croppers & partlygivingcultivatorslands on share-share-croppers for cultivation out o toshare-cropcropping basis195519801955 19801955 19801955 1980 | 1955 19801955 -28389---89134513010170278 Number of households(Per cent)(10.1) (13.6) (3.2) (2.8) (32)(47.8) (18.3) (10.7) (36.3)(25)(100) Extent of own land cultivated--~ by household (Acres)– — · 7,585,7563.3 68,5127.5 13.7_ — | —98.38 Extent of land cultivated by-- - share-croppers (Acres)46.43 62.23 6.40 12.62----|-35.19 18.65 , 67,15 46.44 102.34 Total (Acres)46.43 62.23 13.98 · 18.3763.368.5162.69 32.35 67.15 46.44 200.72 Extent owned per householdメ(Acres)1.661.63 1.55 2,290.710,510.54 0.45------ Ayerage extent cultivated by- メ household (Acres)-– 0.84 0.710,710,511,23 1.070.66 0.66|-
Source: Sarkar & Tambiah (1957) Paranavitana & Wickramasekara(1980)
Total
1980
280 (100)
87.96 139.94
227,90
OO Q/

rof fragmentation among these owners. It is also interesting to note that these two groups were mainly dominated by estate-owners, large businessmen and salaried classes in 1955 though their grip was slightly reduced in 1980 (see Table 3).
The practice of fragmentation emerges clearly from the results. The average extent owned per household for owner-cultivators has decreased from 0.71 acres to 0.51, a decrease of 28% over 25 years. Similarly, the average extent of those who cultivate their own land and land taken on share-cropping basis has also dropped from 0.54 to 0.45 acres. Compared with the holdings of non-cultivating -or partly non-cultivating owners, those of owner-cultivators are very much smaller. The ratio of the average size-holding of partly or wholly non-cultivating owners to that of owner-cultivators has increased from 2.51 in 1955 to 3.50 in 1980, an increase of 39%. This result clearly demonstrates that the relative importance of two opposing forces which are at work in determining the average size was different for non-cultivating owners and owner-cultivators.
The relative importance of different types of cultivators has changed considerably with the introduction of the Paddy Lands Act in 1958 (Table 2). The share of owner cultivators cultivating their own land and land obtained on share-cropping basis has decreased. These results indicate that the 1958 Act has reduced the opportunities for share-croppers despite the marginal increase of non-cultivating owners.
Furthermore, the 1esults show that the average extent cultivated per household has decreased for all the cultivators except landless share-croppers, whose extent remains unchanged, thus showing the pressure exerted on land by the rapid increase in population. It also noted that owner-cultivators have experienced the sharpest decrease in holding-size during this period, as their number increased substantially (an increase of 49%). Although the land available for cultivation on the basis of share-cropping has shown a decline, the average extent cultivated by a landless share-cropper remains unchanged because of the reduction in their number.
Survey findings also show that a majority of parents (about .66%) have not divided their own land among their children mainly
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because of its smallness. As a result, produce-sharing methods such as "tattumaru have been widely practised by the villagers, which in fact partly arrested the trend towards fragmentation.
Paddy Producers by Occupational Categories
The study next seeks to analyse whether the type of occupation has had an impact on the rate of fragmentation or accumulation. In Table 3 the results relating to paddy' producers by occupation and type of operational ownership are presented.
Of the paddy producers, a large majority are either wage earners (mainly casual labour and estate labour) or small highland cultivators (owning less than 3 acres of highland) whose share is generally high (over 60%) among all types of paddy producers except the non-cultivating or partly non-cultivating owners. This broad group has not only spread across all shades of producers but has also increased its share in respect of all cases except those of owner-cultivators. The presence of this group was strongly felt in the landless share-croppers category. The existence of a large group of casual workers and small highland cultivators clearly demonstrates the non-availability of job opportunities in other spheres.
On the other hand, the share of estate owners and businessmen in paddy cultivation has declined over the years and they are now confined only to categories of non-cultivating owners and ownercultivators. This reflects their declining role as landlords rather than as cultivators. In the case of non-cultivating owners, their share has dropped from 43% to 26%, which is significant.
However, the salaried classes category has increasd their share in every category of paddy producers except in that of non
cultivating owners. Even in this exceptional case, their decline is moderate. .
As expected, in the case of non-cultivating owners and ownercultivators, their share is relatively large. They have increased their
11. Under tattumaru, a piece of land owned by several members of the family »gುಚ್ಚಿ ಪ್ಲೀaltivated and its produce enjoyed in rotation by a member of the family.
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TABLE 3
Percentage Distribution of Paddy Producersby
·1955 and 1980
Non - cultivating or
Broad Occupational
Type of partly non-cultivating Owner CategoriesProducerOwnerscultivators 1955 19801955 1980 Estate-owners,Businessmen& Monks·432619| 10 Salaried classes兽 鲁 į... (30 229 20
Wage earners+ & smallhighland的
cultivators :* **而)21506460 Petty traders«village craftsmen参象 |• • •----79 Others* く· «» «»· ·521---- Total ..* ** • •100 , 100100 · 100 Number of households ... ! -每弟37 4689 · 134
Broad Occupational Groups, Partly Ownercultivators & partly LandlessTotal Paddy share-cropperso share-croppersproducers 攀 1955 19801955, 19801955 | 1980 6 - 72114 10 ) 81036916 6876 80 876567 1879696 *- ~ ,其人6~3• = s 100 100100 100100 100 513010170278 280
+ Wage earners include casual labour, industrial labour and estatelabour
-* include non-responded households Source: Sarkar & Tambiah (1957)
Paramavitana & Wickramasekara (1980)
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share in the case of owner-cultivators. However, the overall share of this group in paddy cultivation is not very large and has not increased significantly either during the period.
Non-Paddy Producers
The rate of fragmentation has slowed down owing to enlargement of the non-paddy producers” category. Because of the limited availability of paddy land in the villages, only a small fraction of the population increase has been absorbed into the paddy economy. Consequently, the relative importance of paddy producers in total employment would have dropped considerably along with rapid population increases.
TABLE 4
Paddy Producers by Occupational Categories, 1955 and 1980
Paddy producers as
O tional Per cent of total number Total number of ಜ್ಷಣ of households households
1955 1980 1955 1980
No. Per cent No. Per cent
Estate Owners, Busi
ressmen & Monks 65 76 58 11 38 5 Salaried Classes 79 41 33 7 106 14 Wage earners & small
Highland Cultivator 53 35 339 67 530 70 Petty Trader &
Craftsmen 39 23 62 12 79 10 eOthers 64 33 14 3 3 - Total 55 37 506 100 756 100
Source: Sarkar & Tambiah, (1957)
Paranavitama & Wickramasekara (1980)
Table 4 presents the proportion of paddy producers in each occupational category. Of total households, the proportion of paddy producers has declined from 55% to 37% over the 1955-80 period. This proportion has declined in all occupational categories except those of estate-owners and businessmen whose main interest is paddy cultivation. In this exceptional case, the share of paddy producers in the whole group has grown from 65% to 76%as a result of their declining relative importance in the village economy. Although
32

the proportion engaged in paddy cultivation has dropped in the case of salaried classes, their relative position in the village has increased from 7% to 14%.
The inability of the paddy economy to absorb the increased population is clearly reflected in the enlargement of the category -of small highland cultivators and casual labour in the non-paddy sector at the expense of the share of paddy producers in this category, which declined sharply from 53% to 39% between 1955 and 1980. The rapid increase in the proportion of non-paddy producers in this category can be partly attributed to the increasing attractiveness of home gardening, which resulted from higher prices fetched by mixed crops in the late 1970s and partly from the expansion of the casual labour category in direct relation to rapid population increases.
Distribution of Size-holdings of Highlands
Table 5 shows that the landless proportion has shrunk drastiically from 18% of the total number of households to a mere 5%. This may be explained in terms of the implementation of several pieces of government legislation. The Land Reform Law of 1972 and village expansion schemes made more highland available for distribution among villagers. Under the village expansion schemes, the Government had acquired land from surrounding estates and distributed them mainly among landless villagers, thus redressing the problem of landlessness to a certain extent.
TABLE 5
Highlands - Operational Ownership
Number of Percentage Size of holding households Extent extent per 1 %of
(per cent) (per cent) households 1955 1980 1955 1980 1955 1980 Noland 18。1,4。9 0 0 O O Less than 3 Acres 68.4 85.8 34.3 43.9 0.50 0.51 3 Acres or more 13.2 9.1 65.2 55.9 4.90 6.10
100.0 100.00 100.0 100.0 Sample size 506 756
Source: Sarkar & Tambiah (1975)
Paranavitana & Wickramasekara (1980)
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Page 22
extent from 52% to 76%. This large bulge in the middle of the distribution has occurred partly because of the Government's land distribution policies and partly because of fragmentation of land in the 2.35 acres or more category, whose share in the total extent has drastically fallen from 48% to 24.9%.On the other hand, the sharecroppers owning some paddy land (see Table 7) in the 1.65 acres or more category have increased their share of total number of households from 16% to 29%, and their share of total extent from 54% to 76%, thus showing strong evidence of land accumulation. This has been achieved at the expense of the less than 1.65 acre group whose share in the total extent has shrunk from 46% to 24%. It probably suggests that the land-owing class in the village economy have acquired highland holdings from the less fortunate stratum.
TABLE 8
Average size of Highland by Selected Groups (Acres)
Group 1955 1980 % change
Overal group is a ... 1.42 1.28 --10.0 Paddy-landless share-croppers . . . 0.63 0.76 20,6
Share-croppers with some paddy
land 0.94 1.26 34.0
Source: See Table 3 footnote.
Furthermore, the average holding size of highlands was estimated from the results given in Tables 5, 6 and 7, and presented in Table 8. In comparing the average size of holding for the entire group and that for share-croppers with some paddy land and those without any paddy land, it can be demonstrated that a certain amount of accumulation has taken place in the category of sharecroppers although the average (overall) plot size has fallen by 10%. Both groups of share-croppers have increased their average sizes although the overall average has shrunk considerably. It is also interesting to note that the average size of highlandholding of sharecroppers with some paddy land was not only bigger than that of paddy-landless share-croppers but also has increased more rapidly, compared with that of share-croppers with no paddy land. The above data support the inference that the share-croppers with some paddy land have accumulated more highland, compared with other owners of highland.
36

In summary it may be concluded that the rate of accumulation has been more rapid in the case of highland than with paddy land.
Average Household Income by Source
This section discusses the relative importance of the above changes in land holdings on sources of income of the average household. The results relating to average household income by source are presented in Table 9.
TABLE 9
Income by Source
(Per cent)
Source 1955 1980 % Change
From Highland ... 29.3 16.8 -42.7 From Lowland ... 11.0 8.1 26.9.سس From Occupations w . . . 53.8 61.0 13.5 From Other Sources .. 5.9 14.2 138.4
100.0 100.0
Source: See Table 3 footnote.
The relative importance of both highland as well as lowland as sources of income declined steadily during the period 1955-1980 and the rate of decrease was more rapid in the case of highland. Their combined contribution to average income fell from 40% in 1955 to 25% in 1980. In the meantime, occupations and other sources of income increased considerably in importance to compensate for the declining income from the paddy and highland sectors. These shifts in the composition of average income can be attributed to greater labour mobility, expanding educational opportunities, urban influence, etc. Thus the village economy experienced impor"tant changes leading to diversification of activity.
Summary and Conclusion
Despite its limitations, the study throws some light on fragmentation, accumulation and the impact of government measures on agrarian trends.
Although there has not been much change in the average size of the holdings there has been a redistribution of the operational
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Page 23
ownership of paddy land, leading to fragmentation and accumulation. With rapid population increases, there is clear evidence of fragmentation mainly among owner-cultivators whose share increased at the expense of share-croppers after the introduction of the Paddy Lands Act in 1958.
The practice of land accumulation has been widespread among non-cultivating (partly or wholly) owners who were mainly estateowners, businessmen, salaried classes and some small highland cultivators. The average size of holding of non-cultivating owners was much bigger compared with that of the other paddy producers.
Of the total number of paddy producers surveyed, a large majority are either casual labourers or small highland cultivators, whose share is high among every category of paddy producers. The share of the salaried classes has increased mainly among the categories of non-cultivating owners and owner-cultivators.
The inability of the paddy economy to absorb the rapid population increases was clearly demonstrated by the falling proportion of paddy producers in almost every occupational category and the bulging of the category of casual labour and small highland cultivators in the non-paddy sector.
In the highland sector, the landless proportion has shrunk as a result of government intervention through the village expansion schemes to alleviate the problem of land hunger. Although the (overall) average holding size has shrunk, a certain amount of accumulation has taken place in the share-cropper category, especially among those who own some paddy land. The results indicate that the richer groups in the village economy have acquired some highland holdings from the less affluent.
It is also seen that the relative importance of both highland as well as lowland as sources of income have declined considerably with the diversification of avenues of employment.
Policy Implication,
One can conclude therefore that owing to lack of alternative job opportunities the village economy was unable to absorb satis
38

factorily the pressure exerted by the increasing population. As a result, there has been a tendency for fragmentation and creation of increasingly uneconomic holdings which cannot meet the needs of expanding (in some cases, extended) families and of the swelling numbers of small highland cultivators and casual labour.
In this situation, the Government has to play a crucial role to relieve some of the pressure exerted by the increasing population on existing paddy land. If should concentrate on the creation of job opportunities in the rural areas through the public works programme and through the development of small-scale industries.
The proportion of landless villagers in the highland sector can be contained at a low level if the Government could continue with its village expansion schemes. It could also encourage highland cultivators to develop their lands systematically with minor export crops, vegetables etc. instead of less economic mixed cropping.
Another important way by which to reduce pressure onlimited agricultural land in this area is to resettle selected villagers in the areas under colonization schemes with agricultural opportunities.
References
. . D.T.R.U: Demographic Data Sheet, prepared by the Demographic Training
and Research Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 1982.
2. Herring R. J. "Policy and Ecology in the Origins of Discontinuities in the
Land Tenure System of the Hambantota District", in S. W. R. de..A.
Samarasingha, ed, Agriculture in the Peasant Sector of Sri Lanka, Ceylon Studies Seminar, Peradeniya: Wesley Press Colombo 1977.
3. Paranavitana, C. and Wickramasekara, P. The Report of the Socio-economic Survey of Pata-Dumbara conducted by the University of . Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. (Mimeograph), 1980.
4. Sanderatna, N. "Sri Lanka's New Land Reform', South Asian Review,
Vol. 6(1), October, 1972.
5. "Tenancy in Ceylon's Paddy lands: the 1958 Reforms', South Asian
Review, January, 1973.
6. Sarkar, N. K. and Tambiah, S. J: The Disintegrating Village, A socio
economic Survey conducted by the University of Ceylon, Part I, The Ceylon University Press Board Colombo, Sri Lanka, 1957.
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SOME THOUGHTS ON SOCIAL AGRO-FORESTRY IN RURAL SRI LANKA
W. R. H. Perera
The writer pioneered a Marga Institute study on Social Forestry and a Socio-Economic Survey of Two Villages in the Hambantota District in collaboration with the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna.
This article seeks to explain the motivation for such a study, the conceptual framework within which it was designed and undertaken, and to create a greater sense of urgency for the study of the subject than it usually receives. Reference to the study is made later on in the article.
Fundamental to any serious consideration of the subject is recognition of the integral relationship between man and the biosphere and the consequences thereof. This article seeks to present such a perspective and its implications in undertaking a pilot study.
It is not generally recognised that man and his environment are inseparably linked and that his entire welfare is directly dependent on the stability and proper functioning of his surroundings. More important is the fact that man and the environment are both subject to the natural laws governing matter and energy. Recognition of it must be a central feature in all development planning.
In man's headlong drive to attain happiness conceived as being the enjoyment of material possessions - a fact often considered to be attainable only by unbridled development - energy in its broadest meaning is an essential prerequisite.
In the past, homo sapiens graduated from being a mere gatherer of fruits and seeds and assumed the semi-sedentary role of cultivation of grains. He discovered fire and its uses. This was the spark that ignited and consumed, initially infinitesimally and imperceptibly but later gradually and still later in geometric progression, the natural resources of this fragile planet, the earth.
* This article reflects the writer's views, which are not necessarily those of
the Marga Institute.
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Historically, up to about 400 years ago, the only source of energy in any economy was the sun. From it we derived wind, running water and biomass. These were harnessed. Then, a popula-- tion's prosperity depended on its success in capturing, on a continuing basis, solar energy (whether from crops or biomass) and its derivatives. With energy sources being overharvested as population expanded, the concept of a "carrying capacity' came to have meaning.
Man's insatiable drive to attain material happiness found him
in the present unenviable scenario vis-a-vis his resources. Today,
we are only too aware of the multitudinous ramifications and the
inter-relatedness of the renewable and non-renewable energy re
sources, natural resources such as water and forests, and of the ad
vances in population control and technology. This fact poses the
questions - what is the present scenario and its energy-carrying capacity? Is there a carrying capacity for a specific land area, region
or country? These questions could be posed within the ambit of the availability of agricultural land, sunshine, water, food supply and in relation to the ethnic groups who use such resources, the social, cultural and political structures and economic organisation
of such area, region or country.
Water Resources
Let us think awhile about a renewable resource such as water, without which the biotic ecosystem cannot survive. It is the most important commodity for man's survival.
It has been estimated that of the total annual precipitation on earth, about 79 per cent falls on the oceans, Of the remaining. 21 per cent, about 13.4 per cent is estimated to be lost in evaporation, leaving 7.6 per cent for surface run-off and ground water recharge. At present half of this is considered to be beyond the control of man.
Of the earth's total water resources, some researchers have concluded that 93-97 per cent is salt water. A major part of the remainder is in the two polar regions. Of what is left, once again, a major part is underground with only a small fraction being surface fresh water.
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One of the most enlightening concepts of the twentieth century has been the growing appreciation of the complexity of the forest biomass and the part it plays as the “guardian” of water resources. As the eminent ecologist, Darlington, has philosophised, our relation, the orang outang, gorilla and chimpanzee, or going further back, the lemur, will fail to survive if their habitat is interfered with even a little. The emergence of man as the species that is supposed to be capable of occupying all the environments of the earth, has led to the mistaken belief that man has been weaned of the forest. But close study would make one realise that the forest (or trees) is still very much part of us or more properly, that we are still a part of the forest V
In spite of this awareness or perhaps for lack of it, the calamitous destruction of forests and trees continues. It has been estimated that, in a century, 10 to 15 million square kilometers (1 to 1.5 billion hectares) of the earth may be reduced to unproductive wasteland.
Deforestation
The reciprocal interaction i.e. of the natural systems on society through the mediation of social, technological, economic and political factors on the decision-making process is still largely unexplored and ignored. It is essential that society at large appreciate the environmental hazards of deforestation, the major role that forests and trees play in maintaining the social fibre of communities, especially rural communities. Also, the increasingly major role of forests and trees, as a renewable source of energy at least until there is an "electrifying' breakthrough in the energy field. All persons should be made aware of the available ameliorative action and its importance for the wellbeing of man.
The present galloping inroads into the woody tree resource, be it to quench an energy thirst, a land hunger or for some other reason, would soon result in the forest or the woody trees not only being a rarity for the urban dweller but also not being even a part of the rural landscape except in the deep hinterland.
The entire spectrum of degradation, environmental perturbation and remedial amelioration must be presented in intelligible
42

terms to the public, the rural folk and urban dwellers alike, so that society could take serious cognizance of the dangers that threaten their very existence and make forestry their own business by practising agro-forestry. In short, forestry should become everybody's business and not the business of foresters alone.
How could forestry or more correctly, agro-forestry become everybody's concern? Is social or community agro-forestry the answer? As a prelude to attempting an answer one must first look at the present scenario on community or social forestry. How does one define social or community forestry? How does it differ from the classical State or private forestry projects as we know them?
State forestry projects, be it for protection or production or for both, are undertaken by the State in the overall national interest and not specifically to serve only the needs of the community in the vicinity of the project. Similarly, a private forestry project would have as its ultimate objective the betterment of the lot of a private individual or a group of individuals.
Community or Social Forestry can be defined as forestry (and by forestry is meant all services - both quantifiable and non-quantifiable provided by a forest) for, by or through a local community, villages or a group of villages, a certain number of individual settlements or settlers, a single settlement or even a single settler. The objective is the production of goods and services to meet the needs of the local community. The inputs for such a project would come primarily from the local communities. This practice of social forestry should be intimately coupled with extension forestry services to the community or individual settlers.
Services to the Community
Perhaps reference to the preliminary study on Social Forestry which the Marga Institute undertook in collaboration with the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Ruhuna would serve to illustrate the link between social forestry and extension forestry services to the community. The two villages, Ethbatuwa and Kendeketiya, in which the project was located, are within the Hambantota
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District in the Dry Zone. The former is about five miles from the sea, while the latter is about 20 miles inland.
Although the Dry Zone has on the average 33.5 per cent of its total area legally defined as forest reserves a fair proportion of this. area is scrub at present with hardly any tree cover. Hambantota District has only 6.6 per cent under forest. It experiences rainfall only for a few months. A lengthy dry period extending over six months follows, during which only about 400 m.m. of rain fall.
The survey findings relating to the two villages include the follo-.
wing:
(a)
(b)
(c)
The availability of water for domestic use in both villages is far from satisfactory. The water turns saline during the dry season and a few families in both villages have to depend on tanks for their requirements.
The economic condition of both villages is poor. The average family size is six and most families live in small (less than 200 sq. ft.) wattle and daub huts with thatch. (palmyrah or coconut) roof. While the villagers of Kendeketiya subsist mainly on highland agriculture, those of Ethbatuwa cultivate paddy under the Walawe Scheme. Almost half the vegetable requirements of both villages. are grown within each village. Animal protein intake is small, consisting of dry fish once or twice a week.
The cropping intensity is low in the home gardens in both villages. Slow-growing trees such as mara, woodapple and margosa survive while a few quick-growing trees such such as teak are also to be found. It was difficult to ascertain accurately the villagers' requirements of forest produce
such as timber, fence posts and firewood. However, after
discussion with the inhabitants, of both villages it was computed that at an exploitation cycle of ten years 2,000 trees planted on 14 - 15 hectares of land would be necessary. If trees are also to be grown on the roadsides leading to the villages and within the villages and along fences, it was estimated that 1,000 trees per village would be required.
44

(d) At present the villagers obtain their requirements offence posts mostly from their own fences. The supply of firewood does not appear to be a problem at present, the womenfolk collecting their requirements once every few days.
(e) Day temperatures in the area are very high and villagers in the field stop work for about three hours between forenoon and afternoon. The growth of trees of large and medium canopy in strips could help reduce temperature levels, provide shade and help reduce the period of inactivity. Besides, the water absorption capacity of the soil could be increased and evaporation reduced. Trees of economic value would yield additional benefits and the introduction of a mixed tree cropping system related to the intensity and distribution of rainfall and soil conditions could help optimise the forestry resource.
Forests denuded
It is pertinent to recall that a few decades ago this region was clothed with magnificent and environmentally stabilising Dry Zone forests consisting of satin, palu, halmilla, wewerana, ebony and the then considered lowly etathimbiri of the ebony family and other middle-canopy species. These forests have since been denuded by the demand for timber-both licit and illicit — followed by unrestricted chena cultivation by an expanding population. This rape of the forests was caused not only to meet needs and because of ignorance of environmental consequences but also by short-sighted political, social and economic thinking, resulting in what one could soall an Ecological Desert - except for a 2,000-acre oasis, the Uswewa teak plantation. What is left of the natural forest is sparse scrub jungle, interspersed with a few widely scattered fall treesthe diseased remnants of the former high natural forests.
The Uswewa teak plantation was undertaken by the Forest Department in 1964-65 under a cooperative agro-forestry project. Many of the villagers of Kendeketiya participated in the project, having been allotted blocks of land to grow food crops while planting and tending the young teak.
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Besides providing environmental stability to the area, the plantation benefited most of the villagers, some of them illicitly, too. They enjoyed the produce of their allotments and also found employment in various aspects of maintenance of the plantation including teak thinning and harvesting. Some village houses have teak ceilings apart from teak furniture - a luxury most city dwellers cannot afford today !
Incidentally, it was the author of this article who initiated and coordinated the execution of the Uswewa plantation as a cooperative agro-forestry project.
Vogue Concept
Community or Social Agro-Forestry appears to be a vogue concept among global planners today. To fail to introduce this concept in any discussion of forestry and environment is considered to be a lapse of a grave order.
However, it is relevant to ask what the actual achievements have been. What have been the pattern and strategies of its implementation? Where are these forests? What benefits have accrued to the rural millions? Has Social Forestry in fact been practised although the concept was not consciously recognised both in rural and urban areas? Has this practice ceased to be in vogue with land holdings dwindling in area and because of technological and economic factors? What has been its contribution in relieving the burdens caused by overdependence on the use of non-renewable energy resources? How has its practice helped in shaping the environment? Or, could we conclude that, like the carpet knights of yore, many of the community agro-forestry advocates have been merely drawingroom community agro-foresters, living in a heady world of mere nebulous prognostications?
When the population of countries, especially in the Asiam. region, was a mere fraction of what it is today, public lands were classified or zoned for potential uses that appeared most beneficial at the time.
Forest and other government departments were initially custodians of public reserves, primarily regulating the release of forest
46

benefits. Their activities gradually expanded into the managing of forest land - for their development and the rehabilitation of the environmentally catastrophic increase of denuded lands. Denuda
tion was caused primarily by population explosion and its socioeconomic and political pressures.
Interrelated Problems
Two basic interrelated problems which exist throughout the Third World and have been a major factor in land denudation and environmental imbalance are -
1. A heavy dependence on a limited number of energy sources including imported energy, thereby causing severe economic stresses.
2. Indiscriminate use of wood as an energy source, coupled with heavy competition from other uses of wood and competition for the land that carries this renewable resource.
These denuded lands, apart from the severe environmental perturbations they caused, were and still are a vast resource for development under forestry, under the banner of the spectacular alternative of man-made forests.
Massive reafforestation projects were planned and executed, converting vast extents of denuded and degraded lands into thriving man-made forests - projects under the aegis of State or private agencies.
South Korea could well claim to be the first country that launched a programme practising the concepts of community agro'forestry, resulting in an amazing amelioration of the landscape. Suffice it to say the forestry development organisation was tightly knit and superbly controlled.
Many countries and several international agencies have since sought to promote the concept of community agro-forestry. How ever, most such efforts have resulted only in grandiose schemes with
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the promise of millions of acres of "miracle" trees, generating millions of kilowatts of electricity.
A sober assessment of the present state of the art, and a dissemination of the facts gathered, would not only be of relevance for pragmatic Third World policies, but may also help in exposing some nayths of drawing room community agro-forestry projects.
Areas for Future Research
Some areas for future study are
1.
2.
10.
Administrative and operational infrastructure.
The technique.
The quality and magnitude of political "participation and its impact.'
The impact of differing, social, economic, political and ecological conditions on the strategies adopted. How do they dovetail into an array of situations?
The expertise and their degree of practical experience.
The operational model and the strategies that have evolved,
bearing in mind that community forestry was a fairly vague
subject (though not admitted) with limited experience in its operation, thereby necessitating that its practice be an evolutionary process.
The "sub-conscious practice' of community agro-forestry
in many rural areas.
The role played by government and other institutionsactive participant-advisor or as a catalyst.
The executing authorities - their functions, the degree of control.
Cost/benefit analysis of both the direct, tangible services provided and the indirect services.
48

11.
2.
13. 14.
5.
Amelioration of perturbed environment.
Maintenance of environmental balance (e.g. soil and watershed protection; micro-climate). Qualitative and where possible, quantitative assessment.
Impact on rural economy, including employment.
The overall improvement in the quality of life. Is material adequacy coupled with environmental tranquility being achieved?
A definition of community agro-forestry within the ambit of forestry in its broadest sense.
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A few studies using farm level data estimate that the amount of “transferable surplus' labour in Bangladesh agriculture ranges between 10 and 13 per cent. Muqtada, however, found no such evidence although there exists surplus labour during "troughs' when farm labourers engage themselves in some non-farm activity. Saha emphasizes the production aspect of employment and argues that withdrawal of part of the labour force may not leave the level of agricultural output unaffected. The controversy notwithstanding, the problems of agricultural unemployment and underemployment remain extremely serious in Bangladesh.
The poor production performance of Bangladesh agriculture is widely believed to have resulted primarily from traditional and backward agricultural practices. As a result the strategy of agricultural development over the years emphasizes the adoption of a package of biological, chemical and mechanical innovationshigh Yielding Variety (HYV) and Local Improved Variety (LIV) seed, chemical fertiliser, pesticides and insecticides, mechanical irrigation such as Low Lift Pumps (LLPs), Shallow Tubewells (STWs), and Deep Tubewells (DTWs) - to broaden the modern technological base for rapid tranformation of the sector. This calls for an examination of its impact on the growth of land and labour productivities. Moreover, for Bangladesh with declining land-man ratios, the potential of such agricultural innovations for labour absorption assumes critical importance since it is this sector which must carry the entire labour force which cannot find nonagricultural employment. Although there does not appear to exist any serious conflict between the objectives of employment creation and productivity growth in the pursuit of a land-augmenting package
6. See I. Ahmed (1974), op. cit, Iqbal Ahmed, “Unemployment and Underemployment in Bangladesh Agriculture', World Development, vol. 6; R. Islam and R. I. Rahman "Surplus Labour in Bangladesh Agriculture - A Comment', Bangladesh Development Studies, vol. 6, No. 2.
7. M. Muqtada, “The Seed Fertilizer Revolution and Surplus Labour in Bangladesh Agriculture', Bangladesh Development Studies, vol. 3, No. 4.
8. S. K. Saha, "Our Population: An Economic Analysis' Journal of Manage
ment Business and Economics, Vol. 8, No. 4 (in Bengali), 1982.
9. During the 1970-1981 period, the average annual growth rates of GDP, agricultural value added and population were 2.98 per cent, 1.27 per cent and 2.59 per cent respectively. See. Statistical Year Book of Bangladesh Various issues).
52

of innovations, little is known on the extent of overall labour absorption in Bangladesh.
Against this background, the paper attempts to assess the employment situation in Bangladesh agriculture in view of changes. in land and labour productivities and subsistence pressure over the years. However, the measurement of agricultural underemployment without any reference to time and location conceals significant diversity. In terms of policy, disaggregation by location (district) and time (season) appears to be more meaningful. In the present study,the time horizon consists of a base period (1967-69, average for the years 1967-68 to 1969-70) and a terminal period (1978-80, average for the years 1978-79 to 1980-81). The base period witnessed the beginning of the introduction of modern technology while the terminal years marked a period where some progress was made with regard to the spread of technology and its impact experienced on the agrarian society. The three-year average figures are used to even out any yearly fluctuations, particularly in agricultural crop output. To facilitate aggregation output has been measured in value terms using the average 1978-79 to 1980-81 homestead prices of agricultural produce.
The paper is organized as follows: Section II presents the employment scenarios in Bangladesh agriculture during 1967-69. and 1978-80. Analysis of productivity growth is attempted in Section III while concluding remarks are presented in Section IV.
Agricultural underemployment
In this section an attempt is made to estimate the extent of agricultural underemployment in Bangladesh, disaggregated by season and by district, during the two periods - 1967-69 and 1978-80. Surplus, in the present context, is defined as excess of availability over requirement. Calculation of aggregate surplus conceals significant diversity with respect to time and location. Seasonal variations in surplus are important - surplus may appear in one season and disappear in another. It must be emphasized however, that the surpluses in one season are not available to meet the deficits in another as agricultural operations are specific to time. Seasonal estimates of labour requirement can be made by
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considering the crops grown in the kharif (June-November) and rabi (December-May) seasons separately.
Similarly, the locational aspect of the problem can be tackled by disaggregating the surplus by districts. There may be variations in surplus over districts which might encourage temporary movement of labour. Further, estimates in the present study are based on labour coefficients per acre of cropped area which are assumed fixed over time and place. Although labour coefficients higher than the ones used are unlikely, lower coefficients are possible in certain areas where man-land ratio is below the average. Therefore, deficits in the results indicate labour shortage on the assumption that labour-land ratios are the same in both cases. Just as the surplus is disguised, the deficit in this case is also not real.
In order to measure underemployment as defined earlier, estimation of the availability and the requirement of agricultural labour is necessary. The total available labour can be obtained from the census population figures, from which the civilian and agricultural labour force can be estimated on the basis of assumed participation rates. On the other hand, the requirements of labour in agriculture are generally estimated from farm-management enquiries in terms of standard mandays of work. In order to have requirements and availability in comparable units, available, agricultural labour force has been converted into standard mandays in this analysis. This entails standardization of male, female and minors into standard man units, which then can easily be transformed into mandays by assuming the total number of days in a year for which persons are available for work.
Supply of available labour
For the purpose of deriving the supply of available labour, the estimated population figures for 1967-69 and 1978-80 (average) in each district have been used. Assuming a participation rate of 35.56 per cent, the civilian labour force has been calculated for both periods. The figures for the agricultural labour force are derived on the basis of proportions of agricultural to civilian labour for each district according to the 1974 census. The agricultural labour force for each district, thus derived, has been converted into standard
54

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units on the basis of the composition of the agriculture labour force in the 1974 census. A conversion factor of 0.50 has been used for agricultural workers in the age groups 10 - 14 and 55 and above while female workers have been converted into standard man units using a conversion factor of 0.75. Finally, the labour force figures have been converted into mandays by assuming that each worker is available for work for 250 standard mandays (8 hours a day) per year. The figures are presented in Table 1. Over the 1967-69 1978-80 period, the increase in total available agricultural labour is about 34 per cent.
The requirements of labour in agriculture stem from activities in the different sub-sectors - crop production, livestock, fishery and forestry. The requirements in crop production can be worked out on the basis of estimated labour coefficients per acre if the cropping pattern is known. However, the use of labour coef. ficients per acre is subject to a number of limitations. There seems to exist no technological norm in the use of labour per acre for the production of different crops. Further, one is not expected to find any uniformity in the intensity of specific operations to be performed for cultivation. The number of ploughings, for example, depends not merely on the specific crop that is being cultivated but also on soil conditions and other factors which vary widely across regions. The frequency of irrigation and interculture may also vary from farm to farm. Moreover, the amount of labour used on family farms may also be determined by the total availability of labour because of work spreading among available labour. However, in the absence of any better alternatives, the average labour input per acre for different crops is used in this study.
The estimation of labour requirements for other sub-sectors. -livestock, forestry and fishery-poses special problems. In the absence of any similar coefficients, some ad hoc measures had to be employed. The total employment in these sub-sectors for the year 1975-76 is taken from Clay and Khan.' Adapting the growth rates for these sub-sectors from FAO, the projected employment 10. E. J. Clay and M. S. Khan "Agricultural Employment and Unemployment
in Bangladesh' Agricultural Economics and Rural Social Science Papers, No. 4, Dhaka: BARC, 1977.
11. FAO "Working paper on Agricultural Employment and Appropriate
Technology', (Perspective Study of Agricultural Development in Bangla desh), Rome : Policy Analysis Division, 1974
56

figures for them are calculated for 1978-80. For the period 196769, the total employment in these sub-sectors is calculated in a similar way. Finally, these are disaggregated over districts on the basis of the assumption that labour requirements are proportional to value added during the two periods by these sub-sectors in each district.
For the purpose of seasonal analysis, it is assumed that the working days are equally split over the two seasons - kharif and rabi. The labour requirements for crop production are based on the disttrict-wise cropping pattern data for the relevant periods. For the annual crops (e.g., sugarcane, tea etc) and the non-crop sub-sectors the labour requirements are equally distributed between the two. seasons. The labour coefficients utilized in the study are presented in Table 2.
Labour Surpluses
The results of the calculations, based on the above assumptions, are presented in Table 3. It shows that there exist substantial labour surpluses in the agricultural sector during the two periods. Over" the 1967-69 period, the aggregate net surplis in the country appears. to be over 25 per cent of the primary working force. Except in Chittagong H.T., there are surpluses in each district varying within a range of 8.9 per cent in Diriajpur to about 34 per cent in Comilla. During the 1978-80 period, the situation has not changed much except that the surpluses have grown relatively larger. For Bangladesh as a whole, there appears to exist a substantial labour surplus to the extent of over 43 per cent of the available labour force. Again there appears labour deficit only in Chittagong H.T. While surpluses in other districts are quite high, above 50 per cent of the available labour in some districts - Dhaka, Comilla and Rajshahi. There also emerge substantial regional variations in the rate of surplus30.8 per cent in Mymensingh to 53.6 per cent in Comilla. However, these figures do not depict the tremendous seasonal discrepancies which are revealed in Tables 4 and 5. These tables present the estimated surpluses for the two seasons - kharif and rabi-separately for the two periods. Over the 1967-69 period, during the kharif season, there are net deficits in the country to the extent of about 14 per cent of available labour. Surplus of labour force exists in
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TTABLE 2
Labour Coefficient Per Acre for Different Crops
Mandays per Acre
With Irrigation Crop Without
Irrigation Modern Traditional
Methods Methods
Aus
Local . . u 64 -
HYV .. a y 68 71 98
Aman
Local ..., 4 66 - -
HYV . . 69 81
Boro
Local . . . . 85 --- 120
HYV .. 117 125 162
Wheat
Local . . a 38 -
HYV . . d. 55 58
Jute 113 117 - Sugarcane .. 150 144 ܫ - Tobacco .. 203 - - Pulses o a , a 35 50 Oilseeds . . 34 43 -Cotton . . . ... : 80 84 - Tea 54 60 . Potato 83 -- 89 Spices 97 - Vegetables .. 114 \_____ 154 Fruits 27 - 43
Sweet Potato ... 48 - -
(Other cereals 37 52
Source: Bangladesh Planning Commission "A Study on All Agricultural Crops', Second Plan/Perspective Plan Study Report Series (mimeo.)
58

three districts - Chittagong, Comilla and Sylhet. All other districts end up with deficits - ranging between 1.3 per cent and 56.9 per cent of available labour. However, analysis of the rabi season reveals -existence of a substantial labour surplus in the country's agricultural sector - about 65 per cent in the aggregate. All the districts during this season, except Chittagong H.T., indicate existence of surplus ranging between 30.5 per cent in Sylhet to 79.3 percent in Rangpur. The seasonal analysis of the 1978-80 period also reveals a similar pattern. During the kharif season, although there appears to exist a deficit only in Chittagong H.T., surpluses in many other districts are not very significant. A surplus of above 40 per cent of available labour exists only in four districts - Dhaka, Chittagong, Comilla and Sylhet. The aggregate surplus in Bangladesh during the season is about 20 per cent. For the rabi season, every district except Chittagong H.T. ends up with surplus varying between 50 per cent to more than 78 per cent with the aggregate net surplus being 66.6
per cent of the available labour in the country's agricultural sector. The analysis thus reveals significant regional as well as seasonal variations in the requirements of labour relative to its availability -during both periods.
The labour availability-requirement data in Tables 4 and 5 reveal two important aspects of the employment scenario over the years. In the first place, despite persistent population pressure the overall situation remains much the same during the rabi season. This is due to the concentration of irrigated crops during the season AS can be seen from Table 2 presented earlier, the labour requirements are substantially higher for irrigated crops than those for the non-irrigated ones. Substantial increase in irrigated acreage of crops during the rabi season has led to a significant increase in the demand for labour. Also there has been a marginal increase in the relative 'share of rabi crop acreage. It increased from about 17.2 per cent of the gross cropped area during 1967-69 to 19.7 per cent during 1978-80. As a result, although the rabi season employment situation has not improved, it has not deteriorated further during the later years.
Second, the position has changed considerably during the kharif season over 1967-69 and 1978-80. From a net deficit of
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about 14 per cent during 1967-69, the 1978 - 80 kharif season: appears to have a labour surplus of 20 per cent. While during 196769 all districts except Chittagong, Comilla and Sylhet had net deficits during 1978-80, all districts except Chittagong H.T., emerge as labour surplus. This is due to the fact that although HYVs of rice have been introduced and a significant change in cropping pattern has taken place, cultivation of rainfed HYVs (i.e., without irrigation) does have very little impact on the demand for labour. Unirrigated HYVs of rice despite significantly high output potentials, have virtually the same labour requirements as those for the local varieties. Therefore, replacement of local Aus and Aman rice by their rainfed HYV counterparts adds little to the overall demand. for labour during the kharif season. Further, the shift in acreage from jute to different varieties of rice over the period also has a depressing effect on the demand for labour as jute has a substantially higher labour requirement (see Table 2). All these changes have resulted in a deterioration of the employment situation during the kharif season.
Variation in requirements
Since crop production overwhelmingly dominates other agricultural activities, it is the variation in the requirements of labour for crop production that turns out to be critically important in determining labour surplus. Table 6 provides information on labour utilisation per acre (man days) and the elasticity of employment with respect to crop output. As can be seen from the Table, the average labour requirement appears to have increased from 72.9 mandays during 1967-69 to 74.0 mandays during 1978-80 owing to changes in cropping pattern over the period. Labour utilization per acre has actually declined in Faridpur, Sylhet and Rajshahi over the period. Except in Chittagong and Noakhali the increase. in labour absorption per acre is only marginal in all other districts. Although there has been a significant increase in the per acre labour requirement during the rabi season, it appears to have actually declined during the kharif season. This points to the inadequate and insignificant net impact of technological and other accompanying changes in the agricultural sector on labour absorption.
The elasticity of employment with respect to crop output, total as well as seasonal, also points to the limited impact of output
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64

changes on labour absorption. The aggregate elasticity for Bangladesh as a whole is only 0.11, which is - 1.17 during kharif season and 0.75 during rabi season. The elasticity is positive for all districts during the rabi season, varying between 0.53 in Kushtia to 5.07 in Dinajpur. The numerical value of elasticity is more than unity in eleven out of seventeen districts. During the kharif season, the value is negative in seven districts, and more than one in five districts. Over the two seasons taken together, the elasticity is negative in three districsts - Dhaka, Comilla and Khulna - while it is more than one in only three districts - Chittagong H.T., Rajshahi and Dinajpur. In most of the districts the elasticity of employment with respect to crop output turns out to be very low. Thus, during the period under study, changes in cropping pattern and output seems to have produced marginal impact on total labour absorption.
The value of the elasticity coefficient during the rabi season suggests that labour requirement has not gone up pari passu with , the increase in crop output. The negative value of the elasticity coefficient during the kharif season implies that the net impact of crop technology and accompanying changes thereof have an employment reducing effect. The increase in the labour requirement per acre during the rabi season and a net reduction of labour requirement per acre during the kharif season provide further evidence in this regard.
Changes in land and labour productivities
This section examines changes in land and labour productivities over the period 1967-69 to 1978-80. An attempt is also made to identify any emerging regional pattern in productivity growth with a view to identifying underlying factors. Finally, the relationship between technological change and labour absorption is also analysed.
Table 7 presents data on land and labour productivities as well as land-man ratios by districts during 1967-69 and 1978-80. Land and labour productivities are defined respectively as gross output per cropped acre and gross output per man year ofrequired labour, while land-man ratio refers to the amount of gross cropped land per man-year of available labour. For Bangladesh as a whole
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66

land productivity increased by about 15 per cent, which is less than half the population growth during the period. Labour productivity increased by a little over 14 per cent while land-man ratio declined by more than 25 per cent.
The picture of overall productivity growth conceals important inter-district differences. The information presented in Table 7 suggests that the growth in land productivity has been lower than the national average in seven districts and only in Noakhali has it exceeded population growth. Labour productivity exceeds population growth only in Bogra. It is lower than the national average in eleven districts of which four have recorded negative growth. Land-man ration declined in all districts, the highest decline being registered by Pabna, followed by Chittagong H.T., Dhaka and Kushtia while the lowest is in Rangpur.
Table 8 presents data on regional pattern of productivity growth. On the basis of growth in land productivity four groups of districts have been considered :
Group I : Dhaka, Mymensingh,"? Chittagong, Noakhali, Bogra and Kushtia (where the annual growth rate exceeds 1.5 per cent.)
Group II : Chittagong Hill Tracts, Comilla, Rangapur and Pabna (with growth rate between 1.0 and 1.5 per cent).
Group III : Faridpur, Rajshahi, Dinajpur, Khulna, Barisalo* and Jessore (where the growth rate is below 1.0 per cent).
Group IV : Syhlhet (with negative growth rate).
As can be seen from the Table, the annual growth in labour productivity exceeds 1.5 per cent in Group I while in Group II and III it is below 1.0 per cent and negative in Group IV. Land-man ratio declines in all groups, the highest being in Group IV followed by Groups I, III and II. Concerning per acre labour requiuement, the changes appear to be consistent with those in land and labour
12. Includes Tangali, Jamalpur and Kishoregang. 13. Includes Patuakhali.
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productivities. Per acre labour requirement has the highest increase in Group I followed by Group II nd III while it is negligible in Group IV. -
Regional factors
Turning to the factors that underlie the regional pattern of productivity growth, the present analysis considers only land productivity. Labour productivity growth is also likely to be influenced by the same set of factors as they are highly correlated (the coefficient of correlation between the two measures of productivity being +0.98 in 1967-69 and +0.93 in 1978-80).
Two factors are generally, believed to influence productivity: subsistence pressure and technology. The intensity of subsistence pressure is usually measured by density of population and land man-ratio. In the present study, land-man ration is taken as a proxy for subsistence pressure. For technology, one could consider the proportion of gross cropped area irrigated, quantity of chemical fertilizers applied per acre and the proportion of HYW area in total cropped area. Since these variables are highly correlated between them, their simultaneous inclusion in a single equation poses a serious multi-collinearity problem. As a measure of technological change, therefore, the proportion of HYV area alone is used as an explanatory variable.
The relationship between these two variables on the one hand, and land productivity on the other can be determined a priori. One would hypothesize, land-man ratio and land productivity to be inversely related. On the other hand the HYV variable and land productivity are likely to be directly related.
In an attempt to make empirical investigation into the above issue, the district level cross-section data are used to assess the influence of these two variables on productivity. The estimated regression equations are presented in Table 9. During 1967-69, the coefficients of the explanatory variables have expected signs, The value of R is reasonable (above 50 per cent). The coefficients of the HYV area variable is highly significant; but the coefficient of the land-man ratio variable lacks statistical significance. During
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1978-80, explanatory "power of the variables is high (nearly 88 per cent). The signs of the coefficients are consistent with a priori expectations. All the coefficients are statistically significant. The absolute value of the coefficient of the HYV variable declines significantly between the two periods. This implies declining impact on productivity with greater expansion.
TABLE 9
Land Productivity Growth, Technological Change and Subsistence Pressure: Regression Estimates
Coefficients of Dependent. Intercept Independent variable 2 variable R
Y Χ1 Χ2
Period II . . 15825 -.0248 10.1398米米米 0.5034
(.2024) (2.8499)
Period II . . 1.3361 , —2131* 2.3590*** 0.8786
(1562) (0.2667) Notes: Y - Land Productivity
X1 - Land-Man Ratio
X2 - Proportion of HYV cereals area in gross cropped
- 2ca.
Figures in parentheses represent standard errors of
estimated coefficients.
* and *** respectively denote that the value of the coeffi
cient is significant at 10 and 1 per cent levels.
The impact of technology on per acre labour requirement is evaluated interms of regression equations as presented in Table 10. During 1967-69, the coefficient of the technology variable is positive and R? is reasonably high (over 55 per cent). During 1978-80, the
TABLE 10
Labour Utilisation and Technological Change-Regression Estimates
Coefficient Independent
Dependent Intercept Variable (X2, Proportion . . . Variable Y of HYWarea in gross R2 (Labour Utilisation) cropped area) Period II .. ... 68.92 122.90%k (26.71) 0.5547 Period II .. ... 68.12 25.47%* ( 2.34) 0.8769
*** • Significant at 1 per cent level. Note: Figures in parentheses are standard errors of estimated coefficients.
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variable has high explanatory power (nearly 88 per cent) and coefficients during both periods are highly significant. The absolute decline in the value of the coefficients over the two periods suggests that with greater spread of the HYV technology, the employment impact has reduced substantially.
Conclusions
The above analysis indicates that under the existing technology there are more people dependent on agriculture than it can support at other than an inadequate level of living. Yet, once the structure of the economy is taken into account, there appears to be little scope of dependence for employment opportunities on the non-agricultural sectors. The implication is that the size of agricultural labour force is residually determined by the extent of labour absorption outside agriculture.
The adoption of modern innovations in Bangladesh agriculture, despite their initial successes, has failed to provide significant and sustained impact on productivity and employment. The empirical analysis shows that there exists substantial surplus labour in Bangladesh agriculture. The underemployment problem becomes especially serious during the boro season which is largely due to the limited availability of water for irrigation. This calls for effective measures to increase the area under irrigation which covers only around 15 per cent of total cropped area in the country during recent years. Limited expansion of irrigation sets an effective constraint on the spread of HYV cultivation during the boro season. Similarly, proper schemes for water management during the kharif season would make it feasible to cultivate HYVs of rice in many areas of the country. Any scheme for employment generation should, therefore, be considered as a part of a broader scheme for rural development in the country. Of course, this does not deny the need for purely relief-cum-employment schemes during periods of temporary distress. Similarly, the variations in underemployment rate over districts can be meaningfully utilized to formulate appropriate regional schemes for rural employment generation.
It must be emphasized that the existence of surplus labour in our analysis is not necessarily synonymous with the presence of
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transferable surplus to the same extent. The measurement of transferable surplus involves considerations of a number of factors besides average labour coefficients - labour-intensity index across farms and regions, more detailed breakdown over time of specific operations in crop production, nutritional levels of the workforce and other socio-economic factors. Further, the present analysis focuses only on activities in the agricultural sector with no account being taken of the ancillary activities therein.
The estimates of changes in average land and labour productivities over the period reveal important inter-district variations. Subsistence pressure as measured by land-man ratio and changes in technology (proportion of HYV area in gross cropped area) turm out to be significant determinants of land productivity over the period. While the significance of subsistence pressure has increased, the impacts of technology on both productivity and employment reveal a declining trend over the years. In the face of a rapidly declining land-man ratio only a much higher growth rate in yields could have increased productivity faster than what has been achieved.
The existence of low productivity and the high level of underemployment in Bangladesh agriculture is the result of a number of factors: rigidity of land supply, limited substitutability between and and labour at existing technology, the seasonal nature of agricultural operations and above all, a low level of technological development reflected in an inadequate supply of complementary innovations. Moreover, the existence of an inadequate and nonconducive institutional framework and agrarian structure militate against the widescale adoption and diffusion of agricultural innovations. Policies designed to bring about desirable transformation in the mode of production involving productive forces and production relations are necessary to create a favourable and adequate socioeconomic environment for the success of the innovations. Unless major changes are initiated and implemented to transform the agrarian structure and broaden the technological base, there is little hope of attaining sustained agricultural productivity growth.
72

THE MARGA INSTITUTE’S EXPERIMENTAL VILLAGE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
Tudor O. Dewendre
Introduction
It is now generally recognised that developing countries aims not only at the rapid development of their economies but also at rapid improvement of the skills and potential of their people. This implies that the development effort must concentrate on accelerating. the process of economic development as well as strategies of human, development.
These objectives require the optimal mobilisation of resources. and the free, informed and purposeful participation of the people so as to promote their sense of responsibility for nation-building and achievement of the goal of self-reliance, and to foster their aspirations for improving the quality of their life. Among the implications of such a goal-oriented strategy of economic and human development is the imperative of a shift of focus from western development models to appropriate local ones, from ideological to practical considerations, from large-scale projects to small-scale ones, from the urban to the rural sector, from the people's "needs' presumed by planners to the “felt needs' articulated by rural communities. It implies that development projects should, in the first instance, reflect the "felt needs' of the people. These would vary from village to village and be influenced by such factors as social and cultural background, value system, way of life and people's, aspirations. The people's "felt needs' are ascertainable by inquiry and investigation and are also expressed by the people themselves through their representative institutions åt village, divisional and district levels, The projects conceived and formulated by them may need refinement for the purpose of execution, their feasibility requires evaluation and their implementation calls for budgetary allocation. The projects would also require monitoring in their implementation phase and periodic review when they are: operational.
It is within this conceptual framework that the Marga Institute undertook a programme of Village Development Planning with
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four different models of rural development in four different parts of the country in order to assess their relevance to the planning and implementation of village development programmes in those specific areas and the extent of their replicability elsewhere. These models emerged out of the practical experience and fund of knowledge gathered and the insights which the Institute had gained from its continuing village studies in several locations over a period of about eight years. A special feature of these studies was the holding of a series of dialogues with village people in their locations in order to gather information about them, their problems, needs and aspirations, resources, and their socio-economic and cultural background and how they conceive of the development of their own village and their role perceptions in that process. These models are located in the villages of Walgampaya, Kelegama, Mulgama and Pannala. In the last-named village the Institute's Research and Experimental Centre for Rural Economic Diversification (RECRED) has also been established.
The Development Models (1) Walgampaya Village Development Project
Walgampaya is an ancient village in the Kandy District and lies eight miles southwest of Kandy. During British rule part of the village had been carved out for a tea plantation. As for the peasant holdings, their ownership had been fragmented over the years.
The Walgampaya Village Development Project dates back to an experiment which the Marga Institute undertook in 1979 to provide a model of both intensive and diversified development which initially identifies unused and under-utilised capacity in the resources available to the village and then seeks to bring them into full productive use. This model attempts to demonstrate how, despite limited resources, efficient and intensive exploitation of land and optimal use of manpower could result in a highly diversified economic unit with agricultural, non-agricultural and agro-based industrial-cum-commercial activities which contribute substantially to increased incomes and employment. An important element in the strategy adopted for Walgampaya is the development of an appropriate institutional framework so that village organisations assume responsibility for selected items of work in the programme,
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and progressively take over the tasks of management and implementation on a self-reliant basis.
. (2) Kelegama Village Development Project
Unlike Walgampaya which is in the Wet Zone, the village of Kelegama is in the Dry Zone in the north-western part of the country and lies in the Puttalam District. It is a relatively isolated village, with the nearest urban centre of Anamaduwa, being seven miles away. Its main resource consists of small village tanks (reservoirs) which are its chief economic asset and provide water for the villagers to cultivate their land and to derive their family incomes. The village is nearly two square miles in area (1260 acres) and comprises three hamlets varying in size and population. About 15 per cent of the surface area comprise 16 tanks. The approach to village-level participation in the development of this village is therefore quite different, for instance, from that of Walgampaya. Kelegama depends for its survival on rain-fed minor irrigation tanks. The measures adopted in this village will therefore have considerable relevance for villages of a similar type elsewhere in the Dry Zone.
(3) Mulgama Village Development Project
The village of Mulgama in the Kandy District is about 21 miles away from the district capital, and differs significantly from the other two villages in that its economy is highly dependent on wagelabour in the estate sector. Its total area is about 270 acres and consists of four small hamlets. It is bounded by two tea plantations, one State-owned and the other by private persons. The land-man ratios and the very limited resource base in the village indicate that there is scope for developing its resources as a means of augmenting the incomes of village households. The efforts in this village are geared to examine how a variety of supplementary activities can be promoted by the more intensive use of the available potential of both land and manpower with a view to enhancing household incomes and upgrading the socio-economic conditions of the village.
(4) RECRED, Pannala
The fourth component is the Research and Experimental (Centre for Rural Economic Diversification which has developed
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out of a Marga Institute Research and Training Programme initiated in the village of Pannala in January 1978. This Centre is located on a 48-acre coconut estate within the Coconut Triangle and is in the Katugampola electorate in the Kurunegala District. It lies. within the Intermediate Zone. The Centre supports the activities and programmes of the villages of Walgampaya, Kelegama and Mulgama as well as provides models of rural economic diversification which can be replicated. It is intended to demonstrate the feasibility of introducing a wide range of economic activities at the village level itself, beginning with agricultural diversification in the form of multi-cropping under coconut, inclusive of horticulture and floriculture. It also includes activities such as aquaculture and animal husbandry, the latter comprising poultry and dairy farming. Another aspect of diversification is the introduction of a number of nonagricultural activities such as food-processing, utilising the products of the village of Pannala and the surrounding areas, which will form parts of an extension programme. Also included in the project is the production of coir products for which raw material is readily available locally. The Pannala Centre is therefore aimed at evolving a model of Rural Economic Diversification with a component of Rural Industrialisation which can be replicated at the micro-level.
The Walgampaya Model
Walgampaya has a population of 1,320 consisting of 221 households. The village as a whole is not prosperous but it has a high literacy rate. Land is the chief resource. Of the total extent of 254 acres, highland comprises 193 acres and paddy 61 acres. Under the Land Reform Law of 1972 an extent of 40 acres of a tea estate called Kotagala (115 acres in total extent) was distributed among landless people in the village in quarter-acre blocks. In paddy cultivation, the largest holdings were between 2-5 acres and were owned by only four families. There were principally four castes in the village-Goyigama 41%, Bathgama 20%, Berawa 20% and Badahela 10% - but the castes which were traditionally lower in the hierarchy had succeeded in gaining important positions, socio-economically and politically, through their membership and control of rural societies.
Considering this background, three steps were taken initially towards the formation of the Village Development Plan:- -
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(1) A detailed socio-economic survey of the village was carried out. This entailed collection of basic village data on agro-climatic conditions, rainfall, soils, land resources, water, minerals, cropping patterns and the social and economic infrastructure.
(2) A study of the social structure of the village, its network
of relationships, patterns of land ownership, manpower
and other productive resources, income distribution and leadership patterns.
(3) A detailed household survey with a view to identifying resources available to each household and its own perceptions of possible improvement.
The methodology of information-gathering was mainly a structured questionnaire and interviews. On the basis of this data a micro-level plan was prepared with the focus on bringing into full productive use the latent capacities of both highland and paddy cultivation and other local resources. The essential components of the programme included intensive cultivation of homesteads, cultivation of small extents which had hitherto not been used, processing of agricultural produce and other local raw material to provide employment in small-scale agro-based industries, handicrafts and cottage industries, horticultural and floricultural activities, upgrading of the tea smallholdings, rehabilitation of the paddy tract, bee-keeping and the promotion of minor export crops.
The project began on a modest scale with the following activities:
(a) A nursery to supply clove seedlings for cultivation in villagers' homesteads with a view to generating new sources of household income
(b) Assistance to tea smallholders to improve their allotments by organising pruning of the bushes, application of fertiliser and provision of the infrastructure for marketing.
(c) Organising a poultry farming programme for small
farmers d
(d) Opening a small Vocational Training Centre in carpentry
for village youths
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(e) Promoting a small programme in floriculture for interes
ted youth, and
(f) Undertaking a comprehensive study of the paddy sector
with a view to improving paddy yields and incomes.
In order to stimulate awareness among the villagers that the under-utilisation of existing resources and failure to exploit the potential for development could be to their detriment and lead to stagnation, and in order to mobilise their support, several village seminars were held. This not only promoted better understanding and appreciation of the tasks ahead but also entailed exchange of ideas between the government extension officers and the villagers. The dialogue was particularly in respect of paddy cultivation, tea smallholdings, minor export crops, fisheries, poultry farming. bee-keeping and cottage industries.
In formulating a set of proposals for this project, the Institute was mindful of the various difficulties such as the paucity of skilled manpower and the scarcity of financial resources. In 1980 the real incomes of the village households revealed that about 85 per cent of the families received less than Rs. 4,000 a year. Also, landlessness was acute. It was in these circumstances that it was decided to introduce several activities such as the provision of community wells for domestic water supply, irrigation and other facilities for agriculture, soil-testing and conservation measures, paddy cultivation and the growing of vegetables, yams and short-term crops, so as to engage in them as wide a cross-section of people as possible. It was also felt that the raising of cloves, pepper, nutmeg and coffee nurseries, the intensification of home-gardening, horticulture and orchid culture, the development of tea smallholdings, inland fisheries, and bee-keeping would contribute appreciably to economic diversification while the establishment of a Carpentry Training Centre could help the local youth with skills which were much in demand in the area.
The several ventures proved rewarding in that it was possible for the first time in the current decade, for the 61 acres of paddy land in the village to be fully cultivated and 193 acres of highland belonging to 187 families to produce sufficient to enable the villagers
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to improve their family income and achieve a better standard of living. The raising of nurseries enabled families to obtain planting material for intensive cultivation of their homesteads and thereby to make better use of their land, water, soil and sunlight and to earn improved incomes. Thirty youths from the village were trained. in Orchid Culture and have taken a keen interest in tending their orchid plants which have helped them to gain additional incomes. The development of tea smallholdings (approximately 78 acres) and the formation of a Tea SmallHolders' Association has enabled. the tea smallholders to benefit fully from the government subsidies as well as to organise the marketing of their tea leaf at favourable prices. The Carpentry Training Centre turned out 30 skilled youths, some of whom are now self-employed and earn good incomes while. others have found employment in business establishments, and yet others have gone to West Asia for very remunerative employment.
Implementation of the present phase of the Walgampaya threeyear project began in 1983. It envisages enhancement of the profitability of existing economic activities as well as the introduction of a package of new economic activities relevant to local conditions. Among the positive aspects of such a project are that it concentrates. on small-scale labour-intensive activities based on locally availableresources. The programme was prepared in consultation also with dynamic village leaders who were pragmatic in approach and whose present socio-economic position has been to due their own efforts. Due consideration was given to cost-benefit factors throughout the planning and implementing of the programme. Y
One of the challenging problems, however, is the effective and . total transfer of responsibility for the management and continuance of the development programme initiated by the Institute, to the local population by the end of 1986. It is recognised that phased withdrawal of the Institute from the management responsibility is essential for self-reliant development of the village and for the people to realise that it cannot continue to be dependent too long on the Institute. From the outset the Institute's Project Officer has acted as a catalyst and mobiliser and, in the absence of an active and generally acceptable grassroots'-level organisation, he had to work in the main through individual local leaders who had won the people's acceptance. As the development activities intensified,
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action was taken to establish a Management Committee with local representatives for the Carpentry Training Centre. At present, the Institute's team responsible for the Walgampaya Development Programme consists of an Associate Director (in overall charge) and a full-time Consultant based in Colombo, a Project Officer who visits Walgampaya three days in the week, a Project Co-ordinator stationed in the village, the Carpentry Instructor in charge of the Carpentry Training Centre and two youths from the village who act as supervisors of specific activities. The Project Officer continues to be the main link between the Institute and the village and is 'Chairman of the Carpentry Training Centre Management *Committee, which meets once a month in order to decide various issues relating to the functioning of the Training Centre. In recent times, this Committee has also become a consultative body in regard to other development activities carried out under the project and has played a leadership role in the decision-making and implementation process,
Nevertheless, this Committee has certain shortcomings, which the Institute has recognised and which it seeks to overcome. The *Committee consists of the Projects Officer, (Chairman) and six other members, two of whom are leading businessmen in the village whose business activities included the supply of timber to the Training Centre, and one person who is employed in a well-established furniture-manufacturing establishment. The other two members belong to the village elite and have no special knowledge or interest in carpentry. There is no practising carpenter from the village on the *Committee nor are there any representatives of the ex-trainees of the Centre. These deficiencies have been recognised and efforts are being made to appoint two ex-trainees and a practising carpenter to the Committee as early as possible. The delay in resolving this problem is partly due to the need to ensure that the new appointees would serve the community better than those already on it.
Meanwhile, the question whether the organisation of people around certain economic activities alone is the best way to mobilise the village population as a whole has been examined in some detail. In Walgampaya, which is divided both on class as well as on caste lines, the majority of the population are passive and do not partici
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pate in the development process. The issue then arises how the powerdess and the non-privileged can participate in the development process, especially to satisfy their basic needs from day to day, if not on a long-term basis, and how they can be motivated to participate in their own self-development. The mere appointment of representatives of these groups to committees of management or to executive committees of local organisations may not achieve the desired results. The Institute has therefore been carrying on a continuous dialogue with local village leaders and others in order to help establish the proper institutional framework for the people's full participation in the development programme. The progress achieved has been encouraging. Further, the Institute has found a suitable site and prepared the building plan for a fully-fledged Development Centre for the village which will have its own secretariat, development services such as the supply of expertise and knowhow, a rudimentary laboratory service and the like. A group of senior village leaders with a strong sense of commitment have also banded together to shoulder the future responsibilities and work towards the common good. At a recent workshop in which they participated there was much evidence of positive thinking, and they have since been entrusted with the task of reviewing their project proposals and formulating a Development Plan for the village ensuring the people's fullest participation. Their proposals are awaited with much interest.
The Kelegama Model
Kelegama is a typical "Dry Zone” Village with a cropping pattern based primarily on seasonal rains, but sometimes using water stored in the irrigation tanks. Although precise data on the number of such villages in Sri Lanka that depend on small tanks are not available, it is estimated that at least 10,000 such villages (i.e. around 40 per cent of all villages in the Island) depend on such small village tanks for the cultivation of about 400,000 acres of paddy. Kelegama can be described as a relatively isolated village where urbanifluences and the process of modernisation have not had the same impact as in the more accessible parts of the rural sector.
Of the 1,260 acres which comprise the village of Kelegama, about 190 acres are taken up by 16 tanks and about one third of
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the remaining acreage consisting of both paddy (around 200 acres) and highland is owned by the villagers. The remainder (900 acres of highland) belongs to the State but is occupied by villagers either on lease or as encroachers. In terms of accessibility to land, it is evident that this village is in a much more advantageous position
than most other villages. In Kelegama most family-holdings are
between three and ten acres each. Nevertheless, the village has substantial under-utilised resources of highland and paddy land, chiefly because of the irregularity and inadequacy of water supply for agriculture and the absence of appropriate technology and organisation.
The broad strategy for development in this instance has therefore been to take into account the factor of water for agricultural and domestic purposes, the organisational and investment forms which would promote a fuller utilisation of the available resources for paddy cultivation, and the adoption of suitable technologies which would result in greater returns from highland cultivation and livestock-rearing. Complementary to the programmes of economic development, it was considered necessary to provide some welfare facilities which would help to improve the living standards of the people, particularly in housing, health and nutrition.
The development programme formulated for the village emphasises capital investment in domestic water supply and lift irrigation, the restoration of six tanks (reservoirs) for paddy cultivation, highland cultivation by conservation farming methods, livestock development including the training of dairy workers and the development of rammed-earth housing.
The restoration of village tanks and the repair of the distributory channel system were intended to enable the optimal use of the water impounded in the tanks during the rains. They were also intended to reduce the demand for manpower required at the height of the cultivation and harvesting seasons and to ensure a steady supply of water for cultivation even to the “tail-enders' who often suffered as a result of the lack of proper maintenance of the channel system
and the free flow of water.
While the system of paddy cultivation in Kelegama is typically traditional, the highland cultivation now practised by the people
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is a "slash and burn' operation which is based on a rotation of crops either seasonally or annually. The chief characteristics of such highland cultivation are its total dependence on the rains, the gradual depletion of its soil fertility and its high labour intensity. The problems confronting the irrigated highland cropping in Kelegama are those besetting the entire Dry Zone, for which no satisfactory solution has still been found. Since capital investment in tubewell irrigation was out of reach for the Kelegama farmers and since no suitable perennials of any economic value could be grown on these lands, it was proposed that a series of systematic trials in avenue planting of trees under local conditions be undertaken in this village.
In regard to animal husbandry there was a good potential for devęlopment, particularly in milik production which could provide valuable nutrition for children and additional incomes for the family. The available cattle were generally used for ploughing paddy fields and the dung was hardly used as fertiliser or manure. The lack of labour and the absence of proper grazing grounds, particularly during periods of paddy cultivation, also contributed to the neglect of animal husbandry. If the twin problems of tending and feeding could be solved, animal husbandry could become a lucrative subsidiary occupation. It was in this context that capital investment was proposed for the building of a dairy centre and the training of dairy workers.
In the case of housing, most of the houses are of wattle and daub walls, mud floors and thatched roofing. Well constructed brick and tile houses were out of reach to most families, but equally good houses with rammed-earth walls, could be built, the soil being suitable for the purpose of ramming. A programme of creating awareness through demonstration by building the alms hall of the village temple with rammed earth was undertaken and the necessary moulds and equipment for those interested in replicating the experiment were provided. However, it is yet to be seen to what extent the demonstration model would be followed and how enthusiastic the villagers would be about rammed-earth housing.
The di gging of six wells on a “shramadana' (donation of labour) basis to provide water for domestic and lift irrigation purposes
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although originally planned for, did not materialise for a variety of reasons. The chief of them was the difficulty of the local people to donate their labour for the digging of wells as they eked out their living as daily-paid casual labour. Moreover, they were doubtful whether the wells would produce enough water because of the severe drought then prevailing and the absence of water even at 40 feet below surface. They also said they had no experience in the digging of such community wells, which called for considerable expertise. Eventually, one community well 10 feet in diameter was constructed on a contractual basis and now provides drinking water for 12 households. In other words, only one well out of six which would have catered to the needs of 60 households has so far been constructed.
In regard to tank irrigation for paddy cultivation, the project envisaged the restoration of six village tanks for the storage of rain water for cultivation purposes. Only one of these tanks was restored in time to receive and store the water from the rains which occurred from September to November. This water now irrigates around 70 acres of paddy land owned by 85 families. The remaining 60 families depend on the other five tanks which have a little water to cultivate 80 acres of paddy lands, but are doing so without any certainty of the normal rains expected in March without which their crops would be a complete failure. Here, too, one tank and the channel systems of three tanks have been repaired on the basis of paid casual labour, while the fencing of the paddy land irrigated by the restored tank has also been done by wage labour.
Nearly 250 people have been engaged in highland cultivation -of cowpea, green gram, chillie, kurakkan, ginger and maize, but the yields have been disappointing mainly owing to the lack of rain and the infertility of the soil. Consequently, the incomes the people derived have been so poor that they have had to work as casual labour in the neighbouring villages to eke out a living.
In order to protect the fertility of the soil and to prevent soil erosion, experiments are now being carried out using the system of conservation farming based on the method of avenue planting. A demonstration plot of 1 1/2 acres has been established by the Institute and this is serving as a replicable model in which the villagers have begun to take some interest. But here, too, the enthusiasm
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of the villagers has grown very slowly because of their scepticism. about the success of any cultivation in the absence of an adequate supply of water.
The establishment of a dairy centre was envisaged as the main plank for the development of animal husbandry which had been neglected for generations, mainly owing to the lack of proper grazing grounds and the absence of appreciation of the value of milk as a food or its sale as an alternative source of income. At the outset a baseline study of animal resources was carried out and arrangements were made with Ceylon Nutritional Foods (Nestle's) to establish a milk collecting centre in August 1983. This, however, could not be done owing to the severe, drought, which necessitated the animals being driven to sources of water far away from the Village. Nevertheless, it was possible, with the assistance of the Government Veterinary Surgeon, to have all the neat cattle and buffaloes in the village vaccinated against disease and to adopt several measures for the development of animal husbandry. The Kelegama Milk Producers' Cooperative was established and steps were taken to establish eight blocks of grassland in Kelegama with the help of Nestle's. The Milk Producers' Cooperative now consists of 25 members who supply around 140 litres of milk per day (valued at approximately Rs. 700) to the collection centre. The establishment of the Co-operative also motivated the members. to have direct contact with the Veterinary Department whenever they required its services. It also helped them to establish new linkages outside their villages.
The house built of rammed earth as a demonstration model took over one year to motivate two village leaders to construct their own houses of rammed earth. As a result, more people are looking forward to constructing their own houses of rammed earth, but the main constraint has been the lack of funds for the purpose of providing the stone and cement initially necessary for the foundation.
Although the foregoing narrative does not indicate any substantial progress in the development activities of the village as envisaged in the project proposal, there are some positive gains which cannot be ignored. At the outset, most of the villagers showed little interest
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in the development of their village as a whole primarily because each household was preoccupied with its own problems of dayto-day sustenance. But, gradually as they realised the benefits that could accrue to them from the development activities, the villagers were willing to participate corporately towards the satisfaction of those felt needs which had remained unmet for decades. Perhaps, the catalyst in the change process comprised the youth, whose growing realisation that they would be the biggest beneficiaries of the development activities that were envisaged, motivated them to action and to enthuse others to join in work that would help improve their family incomes and standards of living. In addition, the leadership in the village which had hitherto been confined to two or three elderly people, gradually became broad-based with younger and more educated persons playing a dynamic role in the development activities. As a result, there was a marked change in the influencestructure and patterns of behaviour which helped promote greater social cohesion and collaboration. How far these trends would continue needs to be watched with interest and the lessons they provide will no doubt be valuable for the future.
The Mulgama Model
Mulgama is a traditional Sinhalese village 270 acres in extent and reduced to economic and social insignificance by the development of the tea plantation sector. It is bounded by two estates, one private and the other owned and managed by the State Plantations Corporation. Situated 21 miles from Kandy, it is accessible through a narrow and steep macadamised road one mile off the Calaha Pupuressa road. The village of Mulgama, itself comprising the four small hamlets of Pitawalagama, Pannarawalagama, Ududeniyagama and Pahalagama, stands 2,700 feet above mean sea level.
Seventy acres of the hill slopes have been laboriously converted into terraced paddy fields while 110 acres have been converted into home-gardens containing coconut, jak, banana, arecanut and other perennial trees. There are in addition 80 acres of poorly-managed tea in small plots and ten acres of uncultivated land. The water required for paddy cultivation is tapped from two perennial streams which flow through the village.
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The total population of the village at the time of first survey was 1,030, living in 185 houses but constituting 236 households. All of them were Sinhalese and Buddhist. Nearly one third of the population was below 15 years of age while the age group 15 to 54 years accounted for more than half the population.
Most of the people earned their livelihood either as agricultural labourers in the neighbouring tea estates or as self-employed persons on their small plots of land. There were, however, 57 persons who were employed as teachers, in other departments of the State or în other capacities outside the village.
During an action-oriented research study on traditional infant care and weaning foods in Mulgama, carried out by the Marga Institute during 1979-1982 under the United Nations University Project on Sharing of Traditional Technology, village households with infants were encouraged to introduce fresh cow milik as an infant food in place of powdered milk. About 20 cows were purchased by interested households on loans provided by the local bank and at present over 70 per cent of the infants are being fed on fresh cow milk. In this way, some measure of self-reliance and the use of local resources have been promoted in the village.
In view of the severe limitation on land resources, there was a need for a new perception of agricultural resources with emphasis on its exploitation outside conventional criteria and with greater focus on the development of human skills and know-how rather than on the accessibility to new lands. The thrust of development had therefore to be in the diversification of economic activity with substantial technological inputs which would result in greater productivity on a more self-reliant basis. Thus, the main diversified economic activity was aimed at the adoption of different forms of intensive agriculture, animal husbandry and a range of simple rural industries.
The capital investment in agriculture and animal husbandry was on the terracing of the hilly land and the supply of water for cultivation, the development of plant nurseries and market-gardening, floriculture and mushroom cultivation, and the development of dairy farming through the training of traditional veterinary
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practitioners and the provision of basic veterinary service. In the sphere of small industries, the capital investment was on the establishment of a Craft Centre to train interested youth, both male and female, in wood-work, basket-weaving and textile manufacture while some support was also intended for the development of kitul products such as treacle, jaggery and fibre. It was recognised that while the strategy for development was diversified, the success of the approach was largely dependent on the effective transfer of relevant technologies. The development of local skills in intensive agriculture and home-gardening was to be by trained personnel as well as experienced farmers, of whom there were many in and around Kandy. The development of skills in wood-work, basket-weaving, bamboo craft and textile manufacture was also to be effected through the employment of skilled craftsmen for appropriate periods.
The traditional outlets for surplus manpower in the village had been the tea estates around, and in a few instances, in settlement in new colonisation schemes in the Dry Zone. In the socio-economic survey of the village it transpired that there were 200 unemployed or under-employed already in the village, and it was on that basis that the diversification programme was planned to provide gainful self-employment opportunities within the existing resource base but with new approaches to the exploitation of such resources. These activities envisaged the provision of 54 units under intensive agriculture, 50 units in mushroom cultivation and 60 units in woodwork, basket-weaving and handloom textiles. The programme was also designed to incorporate an element of working capital which was recoverable. The success of each individual undertaking was therefore measurable by the level of repayment of the working capital. It was, however, envisaged that 15 per cent of the working capital would go towards the cost of materials etc. during the period of training and would therefore not be recoverable from the participants in the training programme.
The entry point into the village development project was marketgardening, about which most of the villagers knew something, but in which only a few of them engaged. Initially, nine villagers who had the land and experience in this activity but no funds for the purchase of seed, fertiliser and agro-chemicals, were selected and
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provided with the necessary assistance and guidance. Of them, fivewere able to repay the loans they received, three lost their crops. owing to bad weather and one lost his crop owing to damage by cattle. On the second occasion, 17 villagers participated in marketgardening but unfortunately they all lost their investments and crops owing to very bad weather. The lessons learnt from these tw
attempts were three-fold:
(i) that although water is readily available, bad weather can destroy the crops, and producers have little or no means of controlling such eventualities
(ii) that the crops need careful nurture to maximise output
(iii) that a proper marketing organisation is necessary if they are to avoid being exploited by middlemen and city merchants and obtain reasonable prices for their produce and earn higher profits.
Remedial action in respect of these problems has since been taken and the third attempt is now under way. Ten villagers are participating in the current effort. Of them six are new entrants to the programme while four had participated previously. The results are awaited with much interest.
In regard to floriculture, ten women joined the project and each was provided with 50 anthurium plants initially, in November 1984. They were provided with special training and technical guidance and have taken a keen interest in the care of the plants and have also added to their original stock. They will soon be deriving a regular income from the sale of cut flowers, which no doubt, would motivate others also to take to floriculture.
In order to provide vocational training and a means of selfemployment for interested youth, a Carpentry Training Workshop and a Bamboo Craft Centre were established. There are now 12. trainees in carpentry and nine trainees in bamboo craft. Of the former five have been at the Centre from its inception and have acquired sufficient skill and competence to enable them to set up in self-employment. But, they have been handicapped by the lack of tools and suitable accommodation. The Institute is exploring the possibility of providing them each with a set of tools and helping them to secure the necessary accommodation.
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As for the sale of products of the Centres, there has been some difficulty because of the limited purchasing power of the local people. The possibility of marketing these products in neighbouring villages is therefore being explored.
This factor emphasizes the need for producing items for which there is a demand and which are readily marketable at a price within the reach of the people and for the establishment of a sales organisation that would facilitate their disposal.
The introduction of these supplementary activities into Mulgama with a view to the more intensive use of available potential of both land and manpower resources has not had any appreciable impact on enhancing household incomes and upgrading the socioeconomic conditions of the village as a whole. The small interventions made so far have, however, been exploratory and are catalytic in character. The villagers are alive to the potential for development and are gradually becoming aware of the under-utilised capacity and resources in the village. The Institute will continue to motivate the local people to action, and support them with -essential inputs and incentives.
Research and Experimental Centre for Rural Economic Diversification (RECRED)
This Centre was established in January 1978 on a 48-acre coconut estate at Pannala, which lies within the Coconut Triangle, in the Kurunegala District. It is 43 miles from Colombo. Initially, it was a Work-in-Training Centre where rural youth were provided with training in agriculture. Its first residential training programme was for 15 youths of the area, who eventually completed their training in October 1980. They were awarded certificates of training as well as grants of Rs. 1,500 each to enable them to utilise their knowledge and skills to develop their own lands or to set up in self-employment since efforts to obtain separate allotments of land for them in the district or in the Mahaweli development area proved futile.
Since the response to the advertisement calling for applicants to join the second training course was very poor, in spite of personal
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contacts and encouragement, a study was carried out at Pannala to ascertain not only thereasonsfor the lack of interest in agricultural training but also to identify the resources and needs of the area. This study revealed that youths of the area were generally not interested in following any training in agriculture which did not guarantee them employment on completion of their training or the allocation of blocks of land to them for cultivation and self-employment. It also revealed that there was a large potential for the improvement of the lot of the small farmer through the optimal use of the limited land, water, sunlight and other resources available to them, and that the Centre could play a significant role in providing them with the necessary technical guidance and support. These findings supplemented the knowledge, experience and insights which the Marga Institute had already gained from its village studies and -confirmed the conclusion that there was an urgent need for a Research and Experimental Centre for Rural Economic Diversification which would support the activities and programmes of different villages as well as provide models of development that would meet the specific requirements of their respective socio-economic conditions.
The programme formulated for the Centre was based on the fact that there was substantial under-utilised capacity in the village economies - paddy lands whose productivity can be increased, homesteads that could be diversified and more intensively cultivated coconut land which could be inter-cropped and multi-cropped, 'small extents of uncultivated land that could be put to agricultural use, agro-based 'small industries that could be developed, and new activities such as floriculture, bee-keeping, animal husbandry and mushroom cultivation that could provide a variety of new incomeearning opportunitites. Underlying the formulation of this programme was the belief that there was a big potential for improving the overall socio-economic conditions of the respective villages and consequently of the quality of life of the villagers.
The strategy adopted in this case was to deal with village economies as under-utilised units of production and as working ”under capacity.” In order to maximise their capacity it was recognised that the most urgent need was proper organisation, technical expertise, managerial know-how and working capital. It was proposed
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initially to test some of the models and carry out trials in the villager of Pannala where the Centre was located. The pattern of investment envisaged in the project was therefore quite different from that which was required for a normal development plan, which relies. heavily on the creation of new productive capacity with new and additional capital. While, it was expected to create such additional capacity, the capital inputs proposed were minimal. The main emphasis was on the full and efficient use of already available under -utilised capacity in the village. The vital factor was the process by which the villages could be motivated to receive under-utilised resources both in the individual households as well as in the community as a whole and to co-ordinate efforts and act together to optimise the use of these resources. For this purpose a variety of demonstration models in multi-cropping, home-gardening, vegetable-growing horticulture, agriculture, poultry farming, dairy farming, biogas generation and so on were developed and a series of seminars and workshops were conducted to facilitate the process and enable villagers to get a better understanding and appreciation of the possibilities of economic diversification and the possible strategies they could adopt in furtherance of their own advancement.
One of the main objectives of the Research and Experimental Centre for Rural Economic Diversification at Pannala was to serve as a focal point for field-level operations and to provide the expertise for research and experimentation, particularly relevant to the villages. of Walgampaya, Kelegama, Mulgama and Pannala and the neighbouring villages. The different models established at the Centre: helped in the dissemination of technical knowledge and information in the sphere of agriculture, animal husbandry and small agro-based industries that were possible in the given circumstances. The periodic. Workshops and seminars held on special subjects such as beekeeping, ornamental fish-rearing, multi-cropping, floriculture, home-gardening, dairy farming and poultry-keeping not only provided a forum for the discussion of . common problems and experiences but also helped to update their knowledge and reorient their ideas in terms of the changing environment. At first the villagers around did not readily visit the Centre or establish any links with it or its staff. But, gradually with Centre staff going out into the field and providing extension services which the village
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sorely lacked, very healthy relationships developed between the villagers and the Centre, which they began to recognise not as a “foreign institution' but as part of their community.
The Home-Gardening Project initiated by the Centre illustrates very well the linkages the villagers have developed and the benefits that have consequently accrued to them. When the project was initiated very few homesteads agreed to participate. This was mainly due to the fact that the villagers were not farmers bu: casual workers in the neighbouring coconut and fibre mills and on estates. Many of them had no real experience or orientation to home-gardening nor did they have implements such as mamoties nor the time to devote to the cultivation of their home-gardens because of the nature of their casual employment. Others were so greatly weighed down by their domestic problems that they gave little thought to the increase of their family incomes by cultivation and other mcans. The Centre therefore decided to provided the necessary technical guidance and inputs to interested villagers in the form of seed packets, seedlings, fertiliser packs, pesticides and agricultural tools. By October 1983, 17 villagers had successful home-gardens growing vegetables under rain-fed conditions, and in some instances, they were able to market their excess vegetables in Pannala town. With the commencement of the 1983 Maha season, a further 16 villagers joined the project and by the middle of the season, the total engaged in home-gardening was 44. This clearly demonstrates that with appropriate incentives and motivation, the villagers could be helped to optimise the use of their limited land and resources for the purpose of enhancing their family incomes and improving their levels of living.
Another sphere in which the Centre has been able to motivate the villagers to optimise the use of their limited land and resources is through the multi-cropping of their coconut smallholdings. At first, the villagers did not consider the matter seriously. They had many excuses to offer including lack of time, non-availability of water, domestic preoccupations and so on. But after several visits to the Centre and discussions with the staff, the villagers began to consider multi-cropping of their smallholdings possible and rewarding. With the issue of banana suckers, coffee plants and pineapple suckers raised at the Centre, free of charge to the interested
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villagers and the technical assistance and guidance provided by the staff they began to pay increased attention to their nurture and the results have proved encouraging. There are now 37 smallholders engaged in the multi-cropping of their land and receiving substantial benefits from their efforts.
The Centre has also been able through its floriculture, beekeeping, dairy farming and agriculture projects to provide the necessary motivation and incentives for villagers interested in these activities to start their own projects at home with the assistance and guidance of the Centre staff. In the case of floriculture, one of the notable results has been the formation of an Orchid Growers' Society comprising 21 young educated women. They have set up Small orchid units in their own homes, and, while adding to their stocks systematically, they began to sell cut-flowers, for which there is a ready market and from which they now derive an appreciable
COE.
The Dairy Unit integrated with biogas generation has also evoked interest among some of the villagers in the area who have sought the assistance and guidance of the Centre to establish their own units. They have realised that milk could serve both as nutrition as well as a source of additional income and that cowdung and urine could be used for biogas generation, which could provide them with energy for cooking, lighting and other purposes and that the residues could be used as fertiliser for their fields at no cost at all. Action is now being taken to help the interested villagers to construct their cowsheds and biogas digesters under expert guidance.
The Centre has also conducted experimental trials in Biological Nitrogen Fixation and the use of azolla as a supplementary feed for poultry and as a nitrogen fixer and weed controller for paddy fields. It is also collaborating on a project for the Tissue Culture of Orchids and Foliage Plants. These experiments have demonstrated the feasibility of “taking science to the village' and have provided the villagers with a new orientation in regard to the importance of scientific inquiry and the use of appropriate technology for the deve\lopment of their agriculture and animal husbandry. They have also helped to disseminate scientific knowledge and catalyse the villagers to a scientific approach to their problems in agriculture and animal husbandry. ^
94.

Some lessons learnt from the Experimental Village Development Project
One of the problems encountered is that of identifying the under -utilised capacities and resources in a village. What is at issue is not the identification process itself but who should do the work-an. external agency or the villagers themselves? An allied question is how could the use of the under-utilised capacities and resources be optimised? It is generally accepted now that aggregation to the whole level is the best way of doing the latter.
A second question that arises is the internalisation of the deve
lopment process. Experience has shown that village development
projects initiated and assisted by an organisation external to the village tend to create a relationship of dependence and once the
project is completed the peoples' motivation exhausts itself. Conse
quently, there is no carry-over for self-reliant or self-sustaining activity. Such a tendency towards dependence can be obviated by ensuring the participation of the beneficiaries or the target group from the outset itself so that they share the responsibility of decisionmaking and implementation throughout the period of the project. and bear the onus themselves thereafter.
A third question that arises is how scientific knowledge and processes could be used and applied at micro-level for the benefit of the village. Research to be meaningful and appropriate in this context must be disaggregated and decentralised. The scientists must go to the field and experiment alongside the peasants because the processes of validating and testing the research is very important even though it may be difficult. The success of the experiments must be demonstrable if they are to be replicable. The villagers must observe, learn and subsequently do them themselves.
Another area of concern is the integration of the various. development activities so that they could cohere in a self-reliant process. For example, a home-gardening project should be linked. to a nutrition programme that also feeds information to school children and mothers so that the project would have a multiple impact and a multiplier effect within the village itself.
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Another aspect of integration is the need for building institutions or structures in order to ensure continuity of that development process and to promote self-reliance. For example, a rural deve... lopment society may not be the ideal prototype institution unless the people themselves can participate freely and responsibly in its activities and have scope for displaying initiative. -
Linked to the question of structure-building is that of training for leadership, particularly development leadership, which comes but slowly. Although this leadership can grow around entrepreneurs they are so few in the village that the tendency is for monopolists to emerge rather than genuine leaders who can place the welfare of the village as a whole above personal advancement. The question of village level leadership has complexities that derive from tradition, social organisation, role-playing, and in recent years, - party politics. Increasing divisiveness within the village compounds not only the problem of leadership-building but also development itself. The lesson of Marga's own observation is that agencies external to the village must avoid trying to foist on the village “leaders” of their own choice. Leaders must be allowed to emerge, but leadership must be proved in action. Where such potential is discerned it needs to be assisted and encouraged. Action-oriented research aimed at social change and undertaken in collaboration with and the active participation of members of the target group tends to produce its own change agents or potential leaders. Hence the imperative of purposeful participation of the people in villagedevel development.

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