MARKET AGRICULTURE

MARKET AGRICULTURE

Contrast all of the above to agricultural organisation in modern
market societies. Here, farms are typically located within a complex
network of supporting suppliers and outlets in time and space, from
which a wide range of inputs are purchased and to which outputs
are sold. Crop farmers use formulaic combinations of fertilisers,
pesticides and irrigation, employ agricultural machinery that is
regularly serviced and use skilled, hired labour. In animal
husbandry, there is similar dependence on bought-in feedstock and
veterinary and transport services. Such farming practices are
embedded in a modern, interdependent market society and they
could not survive without it.
What goods modern farmers produce depend on what prices and
profits they can gain from the market. Whether it be organic foodstuffs
or genetically modified crops, the market-driven producer
will farm that which brings in the best returns.
El Salvador was eventually transformed – economically, politically
and socially. Coffee dominated the economy and those who
did not have coffee had little else. Land owning structures, land
use patterns, labour relations and the distribution of economic
and political power all changed. El Salvador is now a country
where economic growth has occurred – though its benefits have
been unequally distributed. Landless rural peoples have little
control over their destinies and so the only remaining ‘tradition’
which dictates what occupations poor people follow, what goods
they produce and how they produce them is the continuing tradition
of economic powerlessness. Their choices today are in fact
more limited than in the past, thanks to the institutions that
have overturned earlier social custom and have re-shaped their
society.
Source: Burns, Bradford ‘The Modernization of Underdevelopment:
El Salvador 1858–1931’ reprinted as chapter 10 in Wilbur C. K. and
Jameson K. P., The Political Economy of Development and Underdevelopment
McGraw-Hill 1996.
© 2004 Tony Cleaver
The production methods employed are similarly dependent on
market signals – where technical progress has brought down the
price of machinery, seed varieties and/or breeding stock, the farm
will be highly CAPITAL INTENSIVE. Alternatively, if the price of farm
labour is cheaper, farming practices may be less capital intensive
and more ‘hands on’.
Finally, the rewards to farming will be divided between
landowners, creditors, labourers and management according to the
rates of RENT on land, INTEREST on capital, WAGES or PROFITS that rule
in the market place. Certainly, if resources are not guaranteed the
going market rate – whether it be a worker’s wages or interest on a
loan – then the resource involved, labour or capital, will seek better
employment elsewhere.
Freedom to move is an essential pre-condition of any functioning
market and it is a key feature of this economic system that
distinguishes it from traditional and planned systems. Consumers
must be free to change their purchases, and resources their employment,
if the market system is to work efficiently.
MOBILITY can only be meaningful, however, if people have effective
choices. If there are no alternatives then there is little freedom.
Very poor people, in particular, may be unable to afford the glamorous
variety of expensive products that are displayed on advertising
hoardings and similarly unable to afford the upgrading of skills that
might allow them to seek more rewarding employment.
For such reasons, certain governments in the past have
attempted to introduce planned systems that guarantee all peoples
in society access to basic essentials such as food, shelter, education
and health.