Intensive Peasant Farming

What is expected

• You should be able to describe the main features of the system and explain the associated population density.

• Monsoon lands of SE Asia on fertile river plains around the Indus and Ganges.

• Named examples: Kerala (India), Kedah (Malaysia)

• Huge numbers of people living in densely packed, nuclear villages.

• High densities are possible due to high fertility of the land and high yields.

• The Ganges Valley is known as ‘the land of the million villages‘.

• ‘Busy’ landscape dominated by villages, terraced hillsides and flooded padi fields.

• Farms are small and fragmented as holdings may have become sub-divided over different generations due to inheritance systems.

• Equatorial / monsoon climate (high temperatures and high rainfall with wet and drier season).

• Fertile soils - alluvium, silt or lava soils• Long growing season and fertile soils

makes the area ideal for growing cereals – mainly rice but also wheat, barley and pulses.

Inputs

• Physical factors – flat land, terraced slopes, impervious soils, sufficient water to flood fields

• Known as rice padi fields• Natural fertiliser after seeds have

been planted.• Labour• Animals

Low level of technology and machinery. Work is mostly done by hand. The high population densities/large family sizes means that labour shortages are not usually a problem.

Labour Intensive

Animals used to pull ploughs

• Water buffalo used for ploughing/preparing the land – more suited to small fields than machinery.

• Rice crop – seedlings are traditionally grown in nurseries and then transplanted by hand into the padi-fields (or sawahs).

Fields flooded

Children used as cheap

labour

• Fields are allowed to flood during the wet season.

• Soil bunds/embankments – help to retain water in the padi-fields.

• Some water is stored in the wet season and released during the drier season to irrigate the crops

Terraced field and trees planted to

prevent soil erosion

What would be the social impact of modernisation?

• The green revolution has been responsible for many of the dramatic changes in areas of intensive peasant farming. These changes have affected the people, their way of life and the landscape. They have created some good and some bad effects.

• The green revolution was based on the use of high yielding varieties (HYVs) of rice, maize and wheat.

• Increased and improved mechanisation, irrigation and the increased use of agrochemicals (fertilisers and pesticides) were also important.

• Higher yields mean people are better fed and may even have surplus crops for sale or export.

• Increased yields have meant a drop in food prices for local people in some areas.

• Faster growing HYVs allow an extra crop to be grown each year.

• Yields are more reliable as many new varieties are more disease-resistant.

• HYVs need a reliable and controlled water supply and much greater amounts of machinery and agrochemicals. These greatly increase farmers' costs.

• Only rich farmers, who can afford to invest in these changes, will benefit.

• Those who can't afford the extra cost of modernisation run into debt and can end up being forced off their land.

• Mechanisation and farm amalgamations have led to rural unemployment and migration to already overcrowded cities.

• Overuse of irrigation has led to salinisation of soils.

• HYVs are more susceptible to pest damage.

• Increased use of pesticides has poisoned other types of wildlife in the environment.

What and where

• Found throughout South East Asia including India.

• Several different crops may be grown depending on the climate.

• In wetter areas, rice is the main crop.• There are several different varieties

of rice which can be grown but the most important is wet rice.

Main Features

• Small fields due to land tenure.• Rice being planted under water.• Lack of mechanisation.• High number of workers.• Use of animals.• Embankment used to retain water.• Slopes terraced to maximise land

use and conserve soil and water.