The Paradox of De-agrarianization:

Toward an Understanding of Agriculture in Contemporary Southeast Asia

Abstract

Various social changes have taken place in the rural areas of Southeast Asia since the late twentieth century. There is an academic view that the whole of these changes can be understood as “de-agrarianization”, in view of the labor shift out from the agricultural sector, decreased economic dependence on agriculture, and so on. On the other hand, considering the continuing growth of the agricultural area and production, the aspect of “agriculturalization” is also apparent during the same period. This study aims to examine this seemingly paradoxical view of contemporary rural Southeast Asia, the paradox of de-agrarianization. Based on national-level statistics, some relative values in the region, such as the ratio of the rural population and share of GDP in the agricultural sector, have decreased drastically (namely, relative de-agrarianization); however, the actual size of the rural population has not decreased and the agricultural sector has been developed in terms of area and yield. The continuous agricultural development behind industrialization can be explained partly by rich endowments of ecological resources in the region. Under uncertain natural conditions in the tropics, applying the theory of risk homeostasis from applied psychology to the livelihood strategy of rural households, the expansion of a household’s share of non-farm income (less farming-associated risk) can proceed alongside agricultural intensification using modern technology (risk-taking behavior). This suggests that the paradox may reflect the coexistence or co-prosperity of agriculture and the non-farm sector, or “co-agrarianization”, in contemporary Southeast Asia.