Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 41 No. 15. July 3 1978
The Green Revolution
The Green Revolution
Like other countries of S.E. Asia, Malaysia embarked on this programme in the second half of the '60s, laying heavy emphasis on use of high agricultural technology to raise rural productivity and income. The government hoped the resulting prosperity would stave off communist led revolution and reduce peasant discontent without having to undertake land reform at the expense of the landowning classes' interests.
'Green Revolution', essentially, is the introduction of high-yield varieties (HYV) of rice plants (known as miracle rice) to enable double or triple cropping annually with the considerable input of pesticide fertilizer and optimum irrigation.
a) | construction of irrigation works |
b) | providing subsidies to farmers to buy fertilizers and pesticides |
c) | providing credit to farmers, and |
d) | stabilisation of prices of rice. |
Under the heavy subsidies of government, rice production increased by 170% between 1957 and 1972 with only a 28% increase in acreage or land under padi cultivation. But the Green Revolution made little effect on rural poverty. Chemical inputs and uses of machinery are beyond the means of the poor farmer. Government credit is insignificant and biased against them, turning farmers to the traditional money-lenders who always charge a higher rate of interest.
Double-cropping | Single-cropping | |
---|---|---|
Owner-farmer | 70% | 94% |
Tenant-farmer | 84% | 99% |
After the introduction of double-cropping, incidence of poverty among owner-farmers fell by about 25% and 15% only among tenant-farmers.
In the rural population, the rice peasants benefited most because they were able to afford the input necessary for high yields. This prosperity trend led some landlords to go into padi cultivation with high technological agricultural inputs and, at the same time, expand their padi lands and take in hired labour. A trend to gradual capitalist development in the countryside is now emerging.
Likewise the same trend is appearing in the cash crop (rubber small-holding) sector with the poor small-holders getting poorer and the rich ones becoming richer.
The introduction of high agricultural technique has undoubtedly benefited the multi-national corporations. They supply all the materials except cheap labour, which makes Malaysia almost self-sufficient in rice but, ironically, more economically dependent on the west and therefore less self-reliant.
General Comment
The Green Revolution and both the FELDA and MUDA schemes (analysed in previous issues) have shown that there is no way within the existing economic system for the great majority of peasants to achieve substantial and permanent improvement in their livelihood.
Peasants' Reaction
Throughout Malaysia peasant groups have resorted to opening up 'state land', directly defying government laws, because they have been left with no choice. It is estimated that there are 10,000 families squatting on 40,000 acres of 'state land' in Pahang. In areas with less peasant squatters, the government has acted ruthlessly by putting peasant leaders into jail, for example Hamid Tuah.
He was charged and detained under the Internal Security Act for taking a group of 200 peasants to clear 100 acres of jungle land. In 1974 thousands of peasants organised themselves for a hunger demonstration in Baling.
It is likely that governmental action could suppress peasants appropriating land, but there is a force which unites the peasants to open up land in defiance of official edicts in order to satisfy the need of themselves and their families for a minimum level of subsistence.
This is the end of the general background of the structure of the Malaysian economy.