Land Reform, Technology, and Small-Scale Farming: the Ecology and Economy of Gilaki-Rashti Rice Cultivators, Northern Iran.

Abstract

This study examines the changes and constraints upon Iranian farming practices resulting from the Shah's land reform, or "White Revolution." Gilaki-Rashti rice farming in northern Iran is analyzed in the context of its peasant ecology and economy. The major findings of this study are: (1) L and reform freed about 60 percent of all tenant farmers and created small-scale owner farmers. The remaining tenant farmers as well as agricultural laborers were left unprivileged. The Shah's success in attaining social and economic goals was less than hoped despite the official end of l and reform in 1971. (2) Farming practices of the Gilaki-Rashti rice growers are changing but remain uncoordinated. Such changes are constrained by other aspects of traditional culture. (3) Labor displacing technologies such as power tillers and threshers tend to amplify inequalities already discernible among owner farmers. (4) The sexual division of labor slows down the diffusion of some types of technology. (5) Faced with modernization, new interaction spaces are emerging in traditional society. Farm operations are becoming further integrated into the national economy. Two analytical frameworks, that is, a systems approach and Chayanov's theory of peasant economy, are coordinated and applied to the subject. A focus on the behavioral aspect of owner farmers clarifies the importance of the consumer/worker ratio as regards the intensification of farming activity, input-output relations, and the responsiveness of Gilaki-Rashti farmers to changes in agricultural technology. Only residuals which cannot be explained by Chayanov's theory are regarded as influenced by the market economy.