Cambridge University Press Comparative Studies in Society and History

Demographic and Economic Aspects of Poverty in the Rural Philippines
Author(s): Aram A. Yengoyan

Source: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Jan., 1974), pp. 58-72
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Demographic and Economic Aspects of
Poverty in the Rural Philippines
ARAM A. YENGOYAN
The University of Michigan
Poverty in Southeast Asia has been analyzed in numerous w

high population densities, dietary deficiencies, war, dis
there has been no single systematic work which attemp
socio-economic and political forces which create the ev
poverty. Although rural poverty in Southeast Asia is w
most ways represents poverty in its most acute form,
not dealing with poverty per se. My aim is to discuss
economic and population factors such as types of culti
requirements influence the variety and intensity of rural
rural Philippines. In particular the hypothesis under inves
where a landscape is economically committed to a single cropping
activity (such as an export crop) which is highly labor intensive, the worse
aspects of rural poverty commonly emerge. Furthermore, where a regional
landscape is characterized by a diversity of agricultural patterns-some
labor intensive crops, some capital intensive crops-the scale and char-
acter of rural poverty is of a different order or at least of a different
magnitude.
A few concepts employed in this paper will first be briefly discussed. In
the analysis of rural poverty, the concept of labor is a critical measure in
determining the degree of poverty. Labor as utilized in this essay refers to
the total aggregation of individuals who compose the required work force
in any economic system. All economies require different inputs of labor;
consequently in the long run population processes such as birth rates and
indices of fertility are viewed as responses to differential levels of labor
inputs and agricultural requirements. Thus where certain agricultural
Financial assistance for the research for this paper was from the Ford and Rockefeller
Foundations Program in Support of Social Science and Legal Research on Population
Policy. The field work in Capiz in 1970 was supported through a Fulbright-Hays Faculty
Research Fellowship. I wish to thank Mr. R. Estacio for his generous assistance and for his
lknowledge of fishpond ecology which made this study possible. The paper was written during
the time I was a senior Fellow at the Population Institute, East-West Center, Honolulu
(January-August 1972). Special thanks to Robert Harrison and Alan Howard for their critical
arguments on some of the ideas presented in this article.
58
ASPECTS OF POVERTY IN THE RURAL PHILIPPINES 59
crops are highly labor intensive such as sugar, rice and cotton as plantati
or non-plantation crops, the resulting rural populations associated wi
these cropping patterns will be larger. In such cases the degree of lab
absorption to maintain production levels is critical in determining t
character of the rural landscape, and various cropping patterns wil
require different labor inputs. An example of the inter-relationship betwe
population process and economic conditions has been noted by Geer
(1963) in his historical analysis of sugar, rice and Dutch colonial polic
in nineteenth-century Java.
Poverty has been defined in numerous ways depending on the cultu
context and economic criteria. In its broadest aspects, poverty in it
structural form as well as organizational attributes has a number of cross
cultural parallels. Lewis (1966, 1968) through extensive work in Mexi
City, Puerto Rico, New York City and India has demonstrated that povert
develops along similar processes and can be viewed as a cultural syste
which possesses many of its own features regardless of the specific contex
Empirically, various levels of poverty can be measured and quantitati
differences are notable, but the qualitative features of poverty can right
fully be designated as a culture or subculture which possesses a structure
form.' Rural poverty is a situation in which segments of the labor fo
are embedded in a system of relationships characterized by inadequa
daily diet, low annual per capita income, and a lack of access to econom
options or alternatives allowing choices to be recognized as viable mea
of acquiring socio-economic ends. All of these features are interconnected
though singly they are quantifiable. There are other criteria for defining a
measuring poverty, but for our purposes only the characteristics list
above will be utilized.
In the Philippines, the types of rural poverty generated by particular
ecological, economic and demographic situations are highly variable.
To analyze how demographic and economic factors affect poverty I
will compare two contrasting cases in which differential processes should
indicate how poverty evolves and crystallizes. The comparison will be
between Capiz, a province in northern Panay Island, and Negros Occi-
dental, a province on the western side of the island of Negros. Both
provinces are located in the western Bisayas. In each case I will discuss
the economic structure, populations, and how economic options partially
determine the character of the rural social environment. A more specific
discussion of Philippine rural poverty and its causes has been done by
Von Oppenfeld (1959).
1 See Poverty amidPlenty: The American Paradox, The Report of the President's Commission
on Income Maintenance Programs (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1969); The
People Left Behind, A Report by the President's National Advisory Commission on Rural
Poverty (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1967); David Simpson 'The Dimensions
of World Poverty', Scientific American 219 (4), November 1968, 27-35.
60 ARAM A. YENGOYAN
CAPIZ
The province of Capiz consists of 1,016 square miles

with a population of 315,079 in 1960. By 1970 the po
394,000, though the final census is not complete. The
Capiz consists of highly productive fishing areas wh
Estancia, Iloilo and north to Masbate and Tablas islan
areas are utilized for the commercial production of
artificial creation of fishponds from mangrove swamps.
are planted in rice and sugar which interdigitate th
the foothills and interior mountains. Sugar is the m
foothills and is now expanding rapidly into the inter
valleys.
In general, there are four dominant economic activities (deep sea fishing,
fishponds, rice and sugar), but none of these can be empirically or analy-
tically separated from one another. The movement of excess labor and
capital from one economic activity to another produces a mosaic network
in which options are available to absorb surpluses in capital and labor.
Commercial fishponds and deep sea fishing are capital intensive activities,
while sugar and rice cultivation require high labor intensity due to the
absence of mechanization. Each system of production differs in capital
investment, in knowledge of agricultural practices, in marketing networks,
and in the amount of labor input. The mosaic pattern is expressed in the
flow of excess labor and capital from one economic activity to other econ-
omic pursuits which are basically complementary to each other. There was
considerable freedom to move labor and capital between alternative
uses.
My fieldwork in Capiz dealt with the ecology and econom

of commercial fishponds where certain varieties of fish ar
harvesting and shipping both to local markets and to Manil
tion of fishponds requires detailed knowledge of various en
factors (rainfall, sunlight, water temperature, salinity, growth
other planktonic food matter, etc.). Fishponds are highly pr
presently fishpond cultivation is ranked second in net profit thr
Philippines. Capital is the key to high fish production since
fishpond sites, which vary in size from one-quarter to three h
pond, must be completely leveled so water can be managed with
The average area of ponds per owner is about five to ten h
many of the large producers in Capiz either own or lease u
hectares per owner/operator. Developing of fishponds req
initial capital input, but once the development is complete, fut
outlay is seldom required except when virgin swamp lands a
for future development. To develop one hectare of land fro
ASPECTS OF POVERTY IN THE RURAL PHILIPPINES 6i
swamp to a completed pond costs approximately 5,000 pesos

6.2 pesos). Fishponds are connected to salt water sources through e
canals, dikes, and gates by which riverine waters are controlled an
to maintain desired amounts of water salinity (60-70 percent s
and water levels.
Ponds are stocked with different varieties of fish but the most common
is milkfish or bangos (Chanos chanos), a rapidly growing herbivore which
survives on algae and other planktonic diatoms. Milkfish fry are obtained
from the surrounding sea at selected times of the year when the fry are
hatched. Fry are stocked in nursing ponds at 10,000 per hectare, but as
growth increases the stocking rate decreases to correspond with the
potential amount of food sources. At the fingerling stage, ponds are
stocked at 3,000 per hectare and at the final formation pond stage the
stocking rate is from 2,000-2,500 per hectare. Each growing stage is
initiated and terminated by the growth rate and the transporting of
fish to different size ponds through a network of canals. Upon completion
of growth, the fish are harvested at sizes varying from three to seven fish
per kilo. Harvesting occurs normally from two to four times a year per
hectare depending on the technological and ecological sophistication of
the pond owner/operator. The price of Chanos chanos varies from 1.40 to
3.50 pesos per kilo during the year. The actual price is determined by the
number of fish per kilo; in the colder winter months when fish growth
is reduced, the price is thus increased due to limited supply and other
factors, such as prices in Manila and the availability of transportation to
Manila and other markets.
The only significant labor intensity periods occur when the ponds are
being developed. Mangrove trees, roots, and stumps must be pulled
out and cut by hand. After all vegetation is cleared, the pond must be
leveled and dikes of ten to twelve meters at the base must be constructed
along with secondary canals and gates. However, during normal operation
labor is required only in the form of overseers or watchmen (bantay)
who check water levels, food supplies, oxygen content and salinity.
Normally four watchmen can take care of twenty to thirty hectares of
productive fishponds.
Harvesting also requires labor, usually ten to twenty men, for the
basketing and processing of fish from the pond to a truck. As the water
empties from a pond into a main canal, fish gradually collect into a small
channel and move towards the main gate. Here they are gathered into
baskets, weighed and carried to a waiting truck. Yields are measured in
50 kilo baskets. Gross income per hectare of pond averages from 1,500
to 2,000 pesos per hectare per harvest. Thus the total gross income is based
on the area under cultivation times the number of harvests per year.
Although villages (barrios) are found in fishpond areas, most permanent
62 ARAM A. YENGOYAN
laborers reside alongside the fishponds. The barrio is primarily a polit

unit whose formal composition consists of a dispersed settlement patt
where owner/operators and laborers live on their areas of exploit
Migratory labor for the construction of fishponds moves from job to
as the need arises. Fishpond owners whose land holdings are ove
hectares commonly maintain their residence in the poblacion (tow
in Roxas City. Among fishpond owners, family sizes range from t
five children with a marked preference for males who will event
inherit and operate the fishponds. Male preferences are not only verb
stated but the composition of families statistically indicates that c
'male quotas' are desired. Family size among owners is lower than
which has been recorded for families whose livelihood is in sugar and
cultivation. With a perceivable ideology that many offspring are mor
a burden than an asset, family size among fishpond owners and o
operators is gradually decreasing from generation to generation (Y
yan, 1971, has a more detailed statement on sex preferences and econ
differentials). Since family labor is not sought and the partition of fis
among many inheritors causes problems of land fragmentation
total decrease in fish production, most operators are consciously limi
the number of offspring. Family sizes among permanent laborers are
consequently any excess of labor over what can be locally absor
relocated into sugar and rice cultivation.
Deep sea fishing is also highly capital intensive. The purchase of ves
equipment, paying of laborers, replacement costs and occasional
murrage fees require the pooling of capital, which is usually done am
siblings. In Capiz the large fishing operations are family affairs in w
siblings and other close kinsmen have combined their capital for acqu
and maintaining high production. The large operators maintain t
five ships which continuously rotate their trips so that at any on
one ship is in port supplying fish for the local markets in Capiz as w
those which are iced and sent to Manila. Among small-scale ope
family labor can be important since women and children assist i
gathering and retailing of shellfish and marine food resources either
household consumption or for sale to local markets. However, e
labor even among the small operators is encouraged to migrate an
employment in rice cultivating areas or as cane workers. Capital gain
seldom utilized for the purchase of new vessels. In most cases investm
of profit and new capital goes into the purchasing of rice and, prefe
sugar lands which return a quick profit. A more detailed discussion o
process will appear later.
The deep sea fishing industry for northern Panay has been excellen
described by Szanton (1967a, 1967b, 1971), and in general his acco
the commercialization processes in Estancia would also be applic
the fishing industry in Capiz. However Szanton (1967b: 31) notes that the
Chinese in Estancia are minimally important in the total volume of fish
marketed. In Capiz, the Chinese in Roxas City are the major controlling
interest, not only in the purchasing of fresh fish, but also in the dried fish
trade. Chinese influence in the local economy is also further enhanced by
the ability to provide loans of up to 10,000 to 20,000 pesos to individuals
in the guarantee that they possess full claim on their fish harvests.
In fishpond and deep sea fishing economies, upper limits are encountered
at which time reinvestment of further capital occurs in other activities
which are complementary to either fishing or fishpond cultivation. The
basis behind such action is their rationale that it is more adaptive to
diversify one's holdings rather than to commit one's total resources to a
specified niche which might not always be lucrative and profitable. Also
with the increase in the value of potential fishpond land and the high cost
of purchasing vessels and imported engines, it has become a financial
necessity to reinvest excess capital in non-competing economic activities.
Rice and sugar cultivation provide contrasting cases in which labor is
continuously absorbed and production is maintained and increased
through labor intensity activities. In Capiz, rice cultivation is characterized
by a high rate of tenancy with 60 to 70 percent of all laborers being land-
less tenants. Absentee landlordism is high. However, owners usually
keep in contact with laborers through occasional visits. Rice cultivation
is still not mechanized; consequently human and animal (the carabao)
resources are the major capital inputs. Furthermore, the amount of rice
land which is irrigated is not more than 10 percent of the total rice area;
thus the new IRRI rice varieties have had little impact in increasing
production or in increasing the potential value of rice fields. Contractual
agreements between owners and tenants vary with from 40 to 60 percent
of the crop going to the owner; however, in specific localities which are
densely populated the contractual agreements are commonly 70 to 30
in which tenants take less than one-third of the total crop yield. The typical
barrio settlement pattern is found in rice cultivating areas where each
family maintains its household in the barrio proper. Also tenant families
are much larger than those recorded for family units among fishpond
owners and laborers. Families of seven to eight children are common;
such a situation is a rarity among families who are employed in fishing and
fishpond activities.
With the recent and current emphasis on sugar production, the increase
in sugar cultivation has provided a new need for labor. Sugar has expanded
into the foothills and low mountain areas of central Panay; however in
many areas around Dao, Cuartero, Sigma, Dumarao, and Dumalag rice
lands are being converted to sugar cane. The existence of sugarmills
(centrals) in President Roxas, San Juan and more recently in Calinog-
64 ARAM A. YENGOYAN
Lambunao and Passi has permitted the opening of new sugar fields from
secondary forest growth and grasslands. Feeder roads have permeated
areas which were once inaccessible. In Capiz 40 to 50 percent of all
cultivators are small owner/operators whose total area under cultivation
is three hectares or less and whose production is markedly low. Production
per hectare varies according to the amount of land under cultivation and
the extent to which fertilizer can be amply applied. In general, large
holdings produce more sugar per hectare in comparison to small ones
(i.e., under three hectares) due to capital investment in increasing labor
and fertilizers. In southeast Capiz, some 10 percent of all registered sugar
planters mill over 70 percent of the cane processed in San Juan. Sugar is
not only more appealing due to its high international and domestic price,
but also crop loans are obtainable on one's sugar crop from the Philippine
National Bank and from the mill operators who provide monetary ad-
vances on a crop thus binding cultivators to process their cane at a par-
ticular mill.
Sugar, like rice, requires a vast amount of labor for intensive weeding,
replanting, harvesting, cutting and processing of the cane from field to
mill. In some areas certain activities such as plowing have been mechanized
through the use of tractors, but in general, two-thirds of all cultivators
operate fully on human and animal labor. The organization of sugar
production is similar to what Lynch (1970a, 1970b) describes for Negros
Occidental, although sugar in Capiz has yet to produce the over-elaborate
structure of commercialization which characterizes the sugar industry
in Negros.
The modes of economic adaptation in Capiz provide viable alternatives
through which capital and labor are shifted from one particular economic
activity to another. With the existence of different economic tasks which
are complementary to each other the crystallization of involuted social
structural patterns has not evolved to impede populations from seeking
more opportune alternatives.
Excess labor moves from fishponds and deep sea fishing economies
to rice and sugar cultivation, both of which have the ability to absorb
labor for increasing specialization of agricultural tasks. Furthermore,
high labor inputs are causally interrelated with the maintenance of in-
creasing sugar and rice production. Fields are weeded and re-weeded with
closer scrutiny and in general all phases of the cultivation cycle are able
to absorb more labor. The fertility of local populations which are involved
in rice and sugar cultivation is high due to this continuous process of
labor absorption. Not only do these two crops survive on the high internal
fertility of the population but they also act as centripetal forces for in-
migration and population displacement. Labor excess is not absorbed in
the two fishing activities.
The flow of capital into different economic sectors works in the opposite
direction. Among fishpond owners excesses of capital are reinvested in
sugar and rice in that order, although prior to the current emphasis on
sugar the preference was for rice lands. Large-scale deep sea fishing
operators also reallocate their profits into sugar and rice; however, their
degree of reinvestment is not as great as fishpond operators.
In general there is a common consensus that rice is safer than sugar since
technological knowledge in rice cultivation is widespread and the required
capital is less. However, the events of the past five years have shifted the
balance in investment trends toward sugar cultivation which is more
profitable but requires more technological skills and capital.
With rice cultivation, the large landlords nearly always try to shift
capital gains into fishponds though their rate of profit return is much
lower in comparison to full time fishpond operators. In many cases, rice
cultivators who have purchased fishponds will lease them until they
acquire the necessary scientific and environmental knowledge for efficient
operation. Investment in deep sea fishing seldom occurs due to the neces-
sity of possessing large amounts of capital to make this option a viable
profit-producing venture.
Large-scale sugar cultivators also prefer investment in fishponds. Sugar
planters have more capital to invest, and in recent years the trend of
continuous sugar investment has become widespread because of the
favorable price structure. Under normal circumstances the shift of capital
and labor between sugar and fishpond cultivation is very common and
provides the critical means of creating and maintaining options.
The cases of investment from one economic activity to others are
presented in Table 1. For fishpond operators, 100 percent of all reinvest-
ment in other crops occurs with sugar and/or rice cultivation. Among
large-scale deep sea fishing operators and families, 89 percent of reinvest-
ment is in sugar and rice production. With sugar planters, only 70 percent
TABLE 1
Number of Investors by Economic Activity and Direction of Capital Investment
Invest.
Number Invest. in Invest. Invest.
of in deep sea in in Invest. Invest.
Crop investors fishponds fishing sugar rice FD/DSF rice/sugar
Fishponds 28 0 15 6 0 7
Deep sea
fishing 9 1 6 0 0 2
Sugar 37 19 2 0 5 11
Rice 17 11 0 4 - 0 2
66 ARAM A. YENGOYAN
of excess capital went into fishponds and deep sea fishing activities, while
65 percent of excess capital among rice field owners has been invested in
the complementary options. This decrease in investment in optional
economic activities among rice and sugar operators is due to the increasing
interest in sugar as a fast cash-producing crop.
NEGROS OCCIDENTAL
The province of Negros Occidental covers an area

with a population of 1,332,323 as of 1960. Altho
figures are not completely tabulated the populati
million.
The system of options and alternatives through wh
labor are relocated for the maximization of oppo
absent in Negros Occidental. The western half of
almost completely devoted to sugar production whic
industry in the Philippines though it is still not mec
discussion I will not attempt to consider the indu
there are many descriptions of this topic. Charles
Theodore Friend (1963) have provided basic studie
its relationship to the national government as well a
Runes (1939) and, more recently, Lynch (1970a,
the standard of living conditions among cane labo
sugar cultivation continually absorbs labor; thus i
the high internal fertility of its permanent labor fo
part-time, non-permanent laborers from surrou
Iloilo and Antique. These laborers, known as sacadas,
Negros between milling seasons, but in many ca
permanently to Negros and are unemployed for abou
until the new milling season starts again.
In general, excess capital and profit among large
small owner/operators is either reinvested in acq
cultivation or banked or spent on personal consumpt
of crop diversification and other outlets for maintai
reluctance to mechanize, profits are seldom reinv
except for land.
The over-abundance of labor poses the most critical
in Negros. Labor migrations occur to meet the pe
in sugar production. It has been argued that in so
Occidental labor has reached a point of zero value
labor force produces redundancy with no increase in
At present, this argument cannot be supported
since the relationship between labor inputs and
by hectare is still unclear. But like other seasonal
be an excess of labor in one phase of the cultivation cycle may be a sho

in another. Nevertheless, labor and its excesses are 'locked-in' to a
monoculture system with little or no viable cropping alternatives available
to them. A complex of debt-credit arrangements, the lack of withholding
power, and other spatial prohibitions inhibit the shifting of labor to more
remunerative or alternative forms of economic activity.
Poverty among cane workers is also well described by both Runes
and Lynch. Although Runes' work is in the late 1930s and Lynch's survey
of living conditions pertains to the late 1960s, the results in both cases are
quite similar. Wages among laborers are low, below the four peso minimum
daily wage, but Lynch (1970a: 27) argues that low wages are not neces-
sarily linked to farm size or edaphic conditions. It has long been argued
that low wages result from small owner/operators who cannot pay the
minimum wage and thus force laborers to accept a lower wage in return.
Wages have increased from half a peso a day to three and four pesos;
however, the general standard of living among cane laborers has gradually
decreased and worsened. Lynch (1970a: 29) notes that the educational
attainment of sugar-cane workers is now as low as in Sulu province in
1960. Elementary school graduates among permanent cane workers amount
to 17 percent which ranks with Sulu in 1960 when it was considered the
'least educated' and the 'least literate' province in the Philippines.
Dietary factors also indicate a consistently high level of poverty among
sugar laborers. Runes (1939: 41) reports that 93 per cent of the yearly
income of a laborer went into food and clothing with food amounting to
82 per cent alone. Although Lynch does not provide comparable data, one
may infer that the distribution of income for food, clothing, and other
items at present has not significantly changed, though the amounts for
each necessity are relatively larger. Furthermore, Lynch (1970a: 14) reports
that diets among Negros plantation laborers are markedly lacking in
protein, and when compared to five other provinces the protein basis in
the diet ranks the lowest.
Although educational and dietary factors critically demonstrate the
upper thresholds of poverty in Negros, the lack of access to economic
options for labor to move into is also an important determinant in
structuring poverty. In Negros, the almost total commitment to sugar
has embedded the rural proletariat into a set of activities and relation-
ships in which viable economic alternatives are absent. In some cases,
minor redundant jobs such as small services and vendors have emerged,
but in general this type of activity has led to the emergence of a lumpen-
proletariat which is basically as poverty stricken as its rural counterpart.
With the existence of a sugar industry based on labor intensity and the
absence of mechanization, the internal population must respond to labor
demands in maintaining and increasing levels of production. Since milling
68 ARAM A. YENGOYAN
seasons are not on a twelve month basis, the laboring po

fully employed and in most cases it is generally un
inability of laborers to readapt to other economic pu
general absence has brought about a condition in whi
trial labor force forms a rural proletariat in which p
gradually emerges into an involuted set of social stru
which are crystallized.
CONCLUSIONS
The evolution of poverty as the result of certain ecolog

forces is clearly demonstrated in the comparison b
Negros Occidental. In Capiz, educational attainment, c
and the presence and pursuit of economic alternatives a
been reported for cane workers in Negros. The exi
cropped landscape in Capiz provides a pattern of ex
excess labor and capital move in different but complem
Excesses in labor are continually absorbed in contr
activities, while the flow of capital reinvestment in
systems promotes the maintenance of crop diversificat
in retaining a balance between ecological factors an
Not only does the diversification of economic activities
the level of poverty, but it also has an important funct
the ecosystem through which economic activities m
Subsistence and cash crops grown in Capiz are nume
a situation which somewhat resembles a quasi-mature
human interaction and intervention always reduces t
floral species. As long as diversity of cropping patte
balance between man and plants is not drastically d
single monoculture plantation crop (i.e., sugar), t
of crop diversification will render a viability throug
labor can be manipulated. At present the socio-econo
Capiz still retains a delicate balance between human
ecological imperatives. How long this process will contin
ability to maintain crop diversity.
In Negros Occidental, the cultural landscape is now
plantation crop-sugar-which not only requires high
maintain production, but also demands the intensiv
application of fertilizers to promote crop growth.
rapidly depletes soils of their basic nutrients, fertilizer
ously utilized. This total human and capital commi
sealed off any opportunity for crop diversification
necessary for maintaining a quasi-mature ecosystem, bu
the magnitude of the prevailing poverty. And it is thr
tion of economic activity that viable alternatives and options can be
generated for the displacement of excesses in labor and capital to other
economic niches. McPhelin (1970: 44) also notes the necessity to diversify
when he states:
Sugar alone cannot be counted upon to provide all the jobs needed by a growing labor
force and by the workers who ought to get displaced by rational mechanization. Nor
need it be the only source of income for planters and millers. At present, perhaps the
most clamorous demands made on the leading class are in the area of ingenious entre-
preneurship: more job-creating activities need to be undertaken; capital must be
accumulated, say, in a provincial development bank. There is need for a committee of
good men to make this their preoccupation-how to make joint-production profitable:
for example, of cattle, pigs, poultry, fish, fruits, other agricultural products; what uses
to make of bagasse, molasses, and such; whether the province can support a fertilizer
plant; what other lines of job-creating investments suggest themselves.
The implications of my argument have direct bearing not only on the

areas under investigation but elsewhere in Southeast Asia. The single
monoculture landscapes of northern Java, the central plain north of
Bangkok, and the central Luzon plain are all characterized by labor
intensive cropping patterns. The case in Java, where sugar production was
accommodated to the demands of rice cultivation and vice versa, is well
documented by Geertz (1963) who also notes that the high population
densities and the ensuing rural poverty are the end results of this co-
adaptation of two crops whose ecological and labor requirements are
similar. Rice and sugar are both labor intensive and these two cropping
activities coexisted into the 1930s as long as Dutch capital flowed into sugar
production which maintained and supported the economic system. With
the collapse and gradual decline of sugar production during the depression
and the subsequent evaporation of Dutch capital in the 1930s, the northern
plain of Java became a single rice-producing area which barely supported
its massive rural population.
The Javanese example has another parallel in central Luzon where
rural poverty is generally considered the most acute in the Philippines.
The existence of an obsolete plantation system and the presence of a feuda-
listic landlord system gave rise to the Sakdalista movements in the 1930s
and the Hukbalahaps in the 1940s.2 Like Java, the agricultural landscape
of central Luzon is primarily devoted to the cultivation of rice and the
commercial production of sugar, both of which survive on high labor
inputs. The population growth of the latter half of the nineteenth century
in central Luzon, especially Pampanga, was partly a response to meet
the demands of cropping activities. In-migration also compounded the
population problem and the resulting poverty.3
2 Eduardo Lachica (1971) provides an excellent descriptive and analytic account of rural
unrest in central Luzon.
3 Recently John Larkin (1971) has discussed population and economy in Pampanga with
comparative interest in the process of involution in Java.
70 ARAM A. YENGOYAN
Nutritional status among agricultural laborers in Capiz and Negro

Occidental is difficult to evaluate since detailed health studies amon
cultivators are not available. Beyond the facts reported by Lynch (1970a),
there is a paucity of available information with which to make sol
comparisons. However, recently Gross (1971) and Gross and Underwo
(1971) have shown that caloric deficiencies among families of sisal laborer
in northeast Brazil are related to the number of household consumers
in that the nutritional status of children subsequently deteriorates as the
number of offspring per household head increases. This phenomenon
evolved with the conversion from a subsistence economy to sisal production
as an export crop. In this case, sisal gradually generated its own permanent
labor force in which wages were poor, thus forcing more family members
into the labor market in order to maintain household incomes at existence
levels.
The parallels between sisal and sugar production, both as export and
dollar-producing crops, are worthy to note. Sugar continually absorbs
labor for the maintenance of production levels thus eventually forcing
all available household labor into a wage economy which leads to the
abandonment of subsistence farming and a decrease in the number of
children who are formally attending schools. This commitment to sugar
in Negros Occidental has brought about a cul-de-sac in which labor and
production are mutually and fatalistically intermeshed in an involuted
evolutionary cycle. My impression is that the household nutritional status
of sugar laborers would parallel the situation described for sisal production
though the particular quantitative values would vary.
In a global comparison of the relationship between sugar as an export
crop and the evolution of rural poverty one finds a number of marked
parallels. In nearly all cases where sugar has been maintained at viable
production levels through increasing labor inputs, those aspects of rural
poverty which have been discussed tend to emerge. The West Indies,
especially Jamaica, Cuba, Trinidad and Barbados, are a case in point.
With little or no attempt to mechanize sugar production, the commitment
for maintaining production levels relies on the increasing utilization of
labor. The existence of rural poverty throughout the sugar plantation
economy of the West Indies is well known. The sugar-producing areas of
Hawaii up to the late 1930s also paralleled the case of Negros Occidental
and the West Indies. Labor in Hawaii was obtained through successive
waves of immigrants (Japanese, Chinese and since 1906 Filipinos) to fulfill
the needs of sugar production. However, by the 1930s the ILWU started
to unionize cane laborers and by the 1950s the cost of labor became
prohibitive and financially unrewarding. Under such conditions sugar
operations were mechanized as a means of offsetting the effects and aims of
organized labor. Yet even to this day, poverty in Hawaiian sugar planta-
tions still lingers on though not in as acute a form as in Negros Occide

However, there are other cases in which sugar became a domin
export crop and yet this type of poverty was avoided. In coastal Qu
land, sugar production from the 1930s to the 1950s required the utiliza
of south Europeans to fill labor needs. Labor was brought in but withi
few years the immigrants were able to accumulate savings, eventua
purchase their own land or to move into other occupations. In this case
absence of a consistent, stable and hopefully increasing labor sup
became so acute that the Australian sugar industry in Queensland
forced to mechanize.
If sugar production is maintained at profitable levels either through
mechanization or increasing labor inputs which are supplied through a
high birth rate, we have few cases in which sugar has been able to return
from strict labor intensity to mechanization. In Hawaii organized labor
forced mechanization, in Queensland the unavailability of labor brought
about mechanization, and now in Cuba Castro is attempting to mechanize
the sugar industry through government intervention, although an ample
labor force is available.
The relationship between high fertility and poverty is not unique to
sugar. Similar parallels are found in cotton cultivation when one com-
pares cotton production in the lower Nile valley around the end of the
nineteenth century to the American south prior to 1830 when cotton was
still king. Such co-variations may also exist with other crops.
In summary, this paper has attempted to delineate how population
processes and economic imperatives adapt to bring forth certain forms of
rural poverty. The interplay between environment, population and econ-
omy produces social conditions of which rural poverty is one outcome
under specified conditions. In each case, particular socio-economic factors
such as land tenure arrangements, tenancy rules and rates, marketing
organization, and social structure condition the specific manifestation of
poverty. But the evolution and magnitude of rural poverty and the prole-
tarianization of agricultural laborers may be analyzed and comprehended
through the utilization of demographic parameters as responses to econo-
mic imperatives.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Friend, Theodore (1963) 'The Philippine Sugar Industry an

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Geertz, Clifford (1963) Agricultural Involution, The Proce
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Gross, Daniel R. (1971) 'The Great Sisal Scheme', Natural H
Gross, Daniel R. and Barbara A. Underwood (1971) 'Technol
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Costs: Sisal Agriculture in Northeastern Brazil', American Anthropologist,

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Houston, Charles 0. (1954) 'The Philippine Sugar Industry: 1934-1950', Journal of
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Lachica, Eduardo (1971) Huk: Philippine Agrarian Society in Revolt, Manila: Solid
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Larkin, John A. (1971) 'The Causes of an Involuted Society: A Theoretical Appro
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Lewis, Oscar (1966) 'The Culture of Poverty', Scientific American, 215: 19-25.
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Lynch, Frank (1970a) A Bittersweet Taste of Sugar: A Preliminary Report on the Sugar
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McPhelin, W. (1970) 'Observations on Negros Occidental (July, 1969)' in Frank Lynch,
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Yengoyan, Aram A. (1971) 'Sex Preferences, Economic Differentials and Family
Planning: A Case from Capiz'. Paper read at the Association for Asian Studies
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Demographic and Economic Aspects of Poverty in the Rural Philippines

Author(s): Aram A. Yengoyan

The University of Michigan

Poverty in Southeast Asia has been analyzed in numerous w

The province of Capiz consists of 1,016 square miles

My fieldwork in Capiz dealt with the ecology and econom

swamp to a completed pond costs approximately 5,000 pesos

laborers reside alongside the fishponds. The barrio is primarily a polit

The province of Negros Occidental covers an area

be an excess of labor in one phase of the cultivation cycle may be a sho

seasons are not on a twelve month basis, the laboring po

The evolution of poverty as the result of certain ecolog

The implications of my argument have direct bearing not only on the

Nutritional status among agricultural laborers in Capiz and Negro

tions still lingers on though not in as acute a form as in Negros Occide

Friend, Theodore (1963) 'The Philippine Sugar Industry an

Costs: Sisal Agriculture in Northeastern Brazil', American Anthropologist,

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