The World Bank and the Small Farmers

Abstract

The new emphasis of the World Bank on lending to the 'small farmer' in fact means an attack on the self-provisioning peasantry aimed at forcing them into closer participation in the market economy. This aim is sometimes achieved forcibly, as in settlement projects, and sometimes through manipulation of price relationships or through a change in tenure systems to create a private market in land: institutional credit as well as private usury can lead to debt peonage.