Turner B L, Ali A M
Center for Technology, Environment, and Development (CENTED), George Perkins Marsh Institute, Worcester, MA, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1996 Dec 10;93(25):14984-91. doi: 10.1073/pnas.93.25.14984.
Bangladesh is dominated by a small-holder agrarian economy under extreme stress. Production shortfalls, increasing economic polarization, and chronic malnutrition are persistent, but major famine has been diverted in part by significant growth in agriculture. This recent history is open to both Malthusian and Boserupian interpretations-a history we explore here through a test of the induced intensification thesis of agricultural change. This thesis, framed by variations in the behavior of small-holders, has grown from a simple demand-production relationship to a consideration of the mediating influences on that relationship. The induced intensification thesis is reviewed and tested for 265 households in 6 villages in Bangladesh from 1950-1986. A time-series analysis of an induced intensification model provides relatively high levels of explained variance in cropping intensity (frequency and land productivity) and also indicates the relative impacts of household class, environment, and cropping strategies. On average, the small-holders in question kept pace with the demands on production, although important class and village variations were evident and the proportion of landless households increased. These results, coupled with evidence that agricultural growth involved intensification thresholds, provide clues about Malthusian and Boserupian interpretations of Bangladesh, and suggest that small-holder agriculture there is likely to continue on a "muted" path of growth.
孟加拉国以处于极端压力下的小农农业经济为主导。产量短缺、经济两极分化加剧以及长期营养不良问题持续存在，但大规模饥荒在一定程度上因农业的显著增长而得以避免。这段近代历史既可以从马尔萨斯主义角度解读，也可以从博塞洛普理论角度解读——我们在此通过对农业变革的诱致性集约化理论进行检验来探究这段历史。该理论以小农行为的变化为框架，已从简单的需求 - 生产关系发展到对该关系中介影响的考量。本文对1950年至1986年期间孟加拉国6个村庄的265户家庭的诱致性集约化理论进行了回顾与检验。对诱致性集约化模型的时间序列分析在作物种植强度（频率和土地生产力）方面提供了相对较高水平的可解释方差，同时也表明了家庭类别、环境和种植策略的相对影响。平均而言，相关小农跟上了生产需求，尽管明显存在重要的阶层和村庄差异，且无地家庭的比例有所增加。这些结果，再加上农业增长涉及集约化阈值的证据，为孟加拉国的马尔萨斯主义和博塞洛普理论解读提供了线索，并表明那里的小农农业可能会继续沿着一条“温和”的增长道路发展。
