Agriculture and Equitable Growth
Westview Special Studies
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About the Book and Author
Specifying those conditions under which low-income countries might be able to achieve equitable growth and reduce mass poverty is a major issue in development theory and policy. Given the preponderant role of the agricultural sector as a source of income and employment in the early stages of development, it is not surprising that much of the theorizing about equitable growth is concentrated on the relationship between agricultural growth and poverty reduction. The adjacent Indian states of Punjab and Haryana have been remarkably successful in achieving rapid agricultural growth and in reducing significantly the proportion of the population below the poverty line. The author uses the case of Punjab-Haryana to test two competing theories of equitable growth: the idea that a "sectoral shift" toward agriculture must be a key component in planning and the converse approach that shifts in agricultural policies, programs, and investments will be ineffective in reducing poverty unless accompanied by a major "structural shift" toward a more equal distribution of land and a more broadly based control of the institutions supporting agriculture. The experience of Punjab-Haryana generally suggests that the rural bias of agricultural policies and programs despite the absence of a structural shift in land ownership has reduced rural poverty.
John R. Westley is mission director for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and has previously held AID assignments in India, Kenya, and Ethiopia.
Agriculture and Equitable Growth
The Case of Punjab-Haryana
John R. Westley
First published 1986 by Westview Press, Inc.
Published 2018 by Routledge
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Westley, John Richard, 1942
Agriculture and equitable growth.
(Westview special studies in agriculture science and policy)
Bibliography: p.
Includes Index.
1. Agriculture and state--India--Punjab. 2. Agriculture and state--India--Haryana. 3. Income distribution--India--Punjab. 4. Income distribution--India--Haryana. I. Title. II. Series.
HD2075.P8W47 1986 338.1'85455 85-31586
ISBN 13: 978-0-367-00860-4 (hbk)
For more than a decade, there has been a great deal of interest on the part of development economists and planners in the conditions under which low-income countries might be able to improve their performances in reducing mass poverty. One aspect of this renewed interest in the distributional impact of development has been an effort to identify cases of "equitable growth" based on a comparative assessment of the development experience of various countries. India, the country with the largest number of people in absolute poverty, according to the World Bank's estimates, has not figured among the countries discussed as possible cases of equitable growth. However, development performance has varied greatly in different parts of India. Two of India's fifteen major states, Punjab and Haryana, have not only achieved reasonably rapid growth in per capita income, but have also been successful in reducing the percentage of the population below the poverty line well below the levels generally achieved at similar stages of development either elsewhere in India or elsewhere in the developing world.
This quite remarkable development performance has not been noted in the development literature in these terms, nor has any systematic effort been made to explain the success of Punjab-Haryana in achieving equitable growth. There have been a number of book-length studies of agricultural development in Punjab or in Punjab-Haryana (which were parts of the single Indian state of Punjab until 1966); these include the works cited in the bibliography by Day and Singh, Ghosh, Gupta and Shangari, and Randhawa. However, these authors cite little data for the period after 1970 and do not explicitly and systematically relate agricultural performance to the reduction of absolute poverty. I hope that this study will help to fill this gap.
John R. Westley
I have benefited greatly, in carrying out this study, by Professors James Weaver, Cynthia T. Morris, and the late Charles Heimsath. They were particularly helpful in sharpening the theoretical approach of the study and showed extraordinary patience in coping with the problems of guiding research being conducted on another continent thousands of miles away. In India, I am especially grateful to my colleague M. C. Gupta--who arranged visits to several Haryana villages; helped establish contacts with the statistical organizations of Punjab, Haryana, and the central government; and was an inexhaustible source of useful information on the society, politics, and economy of Punjab-Haryana. Without the encouragement and forbearance of my wife Joan, of course, none of this would have been possible.
