Table Of ContentLabor, Markets,
and Agricultural Production
Labor, Markets,
and Agricultural Production
Jan Douwe van der Ploeg
Translated by Ann Long
First published 1990 by Westview Press
Published 2018 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ploeg, Jan Douwe van der, 1950–
Labor, markets, and agricultural production / Jan Douwe van der
Ploeg; translated by Ann Long.
p. cm.—(Westview special studies in agriculture science
and policy)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8133-7827-3
l. Agricultural productivity—Case studies. 2. Produce trade
Case studies. 3. Agricultural laborers—Case studies. I. Title.
II. Series.
HD1433.P57 1990
338.1′6—dc20 90-12404
CIP
ISBN 13: 978-0-367-01336-3 (hbk)
Contents
Foreword, Norman Long Vll
Acknowledgments xiii
1 Heterogeneity and Styles of Farming
Reproduction, Incorporation, and Differential
Commoditization, 12
The Labor Process in Agriculture, 26
The Coordination of Domains, 28
Notes, 33
2 Dairy Farming in Emilia Romagna, Italy 37
Goals in Farming: The I- and E-Options, 40
The I-Calculus, 54
The E-Calculus, 67
Thin and Fat Cows, 73
The E-Calculus and Its Link to a High Degree of
Incorporation, 76
Craftsmanship as a Specific Structuration of the Farm
Labor Process, 78
Craftsmanship and the Creation of a Frontier
Function, 92
Entrepreneurship as a Specific Structuration of the Farm
Labor Process, 95
On TATE: The Technological-Administrative Task
Environment, 106
Social Relations of Production and the Farm Labor
Process, 116
The I-Calculus and Its Relation to Incorporation and
Institutionalization, 120
Mountain Farmers and Intensification, 124
Styles of Farming as Social Constructions, 126
Back to the Mountains, 131
vi Contents
Concerning Scale and Social Relations of Production:
A Supplementary Argument, 134
Scale: Capitalist and Cooperative Farms, 138
Notes, 144
3 Potato Production in the Peruvian Highlands 151
The Farmers and Their Enterprises, 154
Labor, 159
Oxen, Livestock, and Dung, 163
Capital, 163
Farm Labor: The Production of Soil Fertility, 174
Farm Labor: The Reproduction of Seed Potatoes, 183
Farm Labor: The Process of Potato Production, 193
Harvest Estimates and Per Hectare Yields, 196
Towards an Explanation of Heterogeneity in Farm
Practices, 197
Notes, 202
4 Peasant Strugles, Unions, and Cooperatives 205
Luchadores del Dos de Enero, 205
Profit and Loss: A Historical Analysis, 225
Trabajemos y Luchemos ("Let Us Work and Fight"):
Towards a Progressive Intensification of
Production, 228
The Luchadores Plan, 246
Social Struggle and Autonomy as Prerequisites for
Intensification: A Comparative Analysis, 252
Notes, 255
5 Commoditization and the Social Relations of Production 259
Value and Commoditization as a Differential Process, 262
The Impact of Commoditization, 268
Similarities and Differences, 272
Commoditization and the Social Relations of
Production, 277
Commoditization and the Reproduction of the Agrarian
Question, 281
Notes, 283
Bibliography 285
About the Book and Author 299
Index 301
Foreword
It is a pleasure to introduce this thought-provoking and innovative
book that challenges present models and analytical perspectives on
agricultural development, particularly as it comes from the Wageningen
stable of rural and development sociology, where for the past few years
a group of us have been struggling with some of the same theoretical
and empirical problems. Its pedigree, however, goes back to the founding
fathers of Wageningen sociology: to Rudie van Lier, who-though deeply
skeptical of man's ability to steer the course of social change-thought
that a major task of development sociology was to develop a critical
and reflexive theory of intervention processes, and to E. W. Hofstee,
whose contribution to the understanding of differential farming and
cultural patterns in the Netherlands represents an important foundation
for contemporary rural studies. The book also builds upon the stimu-
lating work of Bruno Benvenuti (until recently also based at Wagen-
ingen), who developed an analytical approach to the study of institu-
tional incorporation in agricultural contexts in Europe.
Yet, at the same time, the work is very much a product of the
author's own distinctive background, field experience, and personal
involvement with farmers and farmers' organizations in the Netherlands,
Peru, and Italy. Unlike many practicing rural sociologists, Jan Douwe
van der Ploeg is a countryman born and bred who early in life came
to know the meaning of agrarian struggle. He comes from Friesland,
from a family with strong farming and farmers' union connections, and
although he now spends much of his time in mental labor, with pen
rather than pitchfork in hand, he is never happier (as this book clearly
reveals) than when discussing the concept of the "good cow" or the
social significance of manure or varieties of potatoes. He also delights
in being where the action is, whether this be with members of a
Peruvian cooperative defending their right to work and to treat land
as a collective asset and not simply as a commodity or with Italian
dairy farmers seeking to combat the negative effects of market incor-
poration by devising strategies aimed at retaining control over the
organization of their own labor processes.
vii
viii Foreword
Woven throughout the analysis are three crucial issues central to
developing a critique of existing theoretical approaches to agricultural
development: the significance of heterogeneity in farming practice and
farm organization; the analysis and importance of commoditization and
institutional incorporation for shaping farm labor processes and farmer
strategies; and the importance of farmer organization and political
struggle for the outcomes of incorporative processes.
While previous research has recognized diversity in farming, it has
frequently been assumed that this diversity is especially characteristic
of "backward" or "low-output" forms of agriculture that will eventually
give way to "modern," "high-output," and technologically more stan-
dardized types. Diversity is reduced, therefore, to what van der Ploeg
calls "a secondary characteristic of agricultural systems," representing
either the survival of previous (and now less appropriate) forms of
production that one day will wither away altogether or minority patterns
that deviate from the central tendencies. Either way, of course, heter-
ogeneity is side-tracked theoretically, leaving us with theories (whether
couched in modernization or political economy terms) that concentrate
upon explaining general statistical tendencies and assume normatively
that empirical diversity is an expression of varying degrees of entre-
preneurial success or of the uneven pattern of capitalist development.
Van der Ploeg counters this rather warped type of reasoning by doc-
umenting the significance of variability in both so-called peripheral and
central economies. He argues that heterogeneity in farming practice and
farm organization is a structural feature of agricultural production
everywhere and that it requires analysis and theorization.
The way forward, he suggests, is through recognizing that farmers
themselves play a critical role in the construction and reorganization
of farm practice. That is, they are, as Giddens succinctly put it,
"knowledgeable and capable" social actors who set about resolving their
own problematic situations through mobilizing resources and relation-
ships and through attempting to impose their own normative definitions
on the physical and social world around them. Differences in farm
practice, then, are the result of differences in farmer strategy, rationality,
and access to internal and external resources. A crucial point in his
argument, however, is that there are likely to be several equally viable
and profitable solutions that entail different degrees of market and
institutional integration, different time perspectives, and different cul-
tural commitments. Hence, we find among dairy farmers in Italy two
contrasting types of farming logic that underpin the difference between
strategies based upon "intensification" and those based upon scale
enlargement and relative "extensification." Similar contrasts are evident
among potato producers in highland Peru. Somewhat paradoxically,
Foreword ix
however, the technological and credit package introduced by government
agencies designed to intensify production has led to strategies that are
characterized by short-term planning, high costs and risks, dependence
upon limited input and output markets, and generally lower benefits;
in short, the strategies are characterized by several negative features
associated with extensification. Improved technology and credit have
also resulted in the destruction of various relatively "cheap'' forms of
non-wage labor.
These findings prompt van der Ploeg, at various points in his
analysis, to embark upon a theoretical reappraisal of commoditization,
giving attention to the ways in which "the means and objects of labor
increasingly enter the process of production as commodities." Building
upon an earlier critique of certain commoditization models (see Long
et al., 1986; and Long and van der Ploeg, 1988), he argues that
commoditization is a highly variable historical process that takes many
forms and is inherently contradictory in its outcomes. The chapters
devoted to the Italian and Peruvian cases provide a detailed picture
of the many mechanisms by which commoditization penetrates the
farm production process. But they also advance his central theoretical
position that despite the pressures of the market and the state, farmers
nevertheless possess the capability of containing or resisting commodity
relations. They can, that is, adjust their farming strategies in order to
benefit from non-commodity forms and from local agricultural knowl-
edge and practice, thus creating some degree of autonomy vis-a-vis
external institutions. This process is illustrated by van der Ploeg's finely
honed comparison of "1-" and "E"-type Italian farmers who adopt
different strategies with regard to cattle breeding, fodder provision, and
mechanization. It is also shown in his account of how some Peruvian
peasant producers draw upon their extensive knowledge (art de Ia
/ocalite) of different phenotypical conditions and genotypical varieties
to select and exchange seed potatoes rather than purchasing "improved"
varieties developed and promoted by scientific research establishments.
Certain other types of farmers internalize the normative standards and
follow the procedures of "modern" scientific farming in order to actively
seek what they see as the benefits of commoditization.
Yet, whichever strategy predominates, agricultural decision making
and the organization of the social relations of production in agriculture
rest firmly in the hands of the farmer himself, even if he chooses to
submit himself to the vicissitudes of the market and of price mecha-
nisms. Therefore, farmers are active strategists who attempt to come
to grips, both cognitively and organizationally, with the problems they
face, rather· than merely cogs in the wheels of change.
