Rural development in Eurasia and the Middle East : land reform, demographic change, and environmental constraints

320 Pages·2001·20.595 MB·English

by  Pavlaković, Vjeran, Engelmann, Kurt E.

Rural Development in Eurasia and the Middle East

Rural Development in Eurasia
and the Middle East
Land Reform, Demographic Change,
and Environmental Constraints
Edited by
Kurt E. Engelmann
Vjeran Pavlakovic
Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies Center
at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies
University of Washington
in association with
University of Washington Press
Seattle and London
Copyright 2001 by the University of Washington Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rural Development in Eurasia and the Middle East : land reform, demographic
change, and environmental constraint / edited by Kurt Engelmann and Vjeran
Pavlakovic.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographic references and index.
ISBN 0-295-98047-8 (alk. paper)
1. Rural development-Case studies. 2. Rural development-Russia
(Federation). 3. Rural development-Asia, Central. 4. Rural development-
Africa, North. 5. Rural Development-Middle East.
I. Engelmann, Kurt. II. Pavlakovic, Vjeran. III. Henry M. Jackson School of
International Studies. Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies
Center.
HN49.C6 R87526 2000
307.1’412’0956—dc21 00-060703
Contents
Introduction, Kurt E. Engelmann vii
1 / Change in Russian Agrarian Reform, 1992-1998:
The Case of Kostroma Oblast 3
Stephen K. Wegren
2 / Continuity in Rural Russia 45
Gregory Ioffe
3 / Rural Population Change in Russia, 1959-1998 62
Dmitry Sharkov
4 / Land Reform and Farm Reorganization in the Kyrgyz Republic:
A Legal Perspective 87
Renee Giovarelli
5 / Agricultural Sector Reform and Rural
Development in Uzbekistan 117
Jim Butterfield
6 / Managing Transnational Waters of the Aral
Sea Basin: A Geographical Perspective 140
Philip Micklin
1 / Agricultural Development and Environmental
Constraints in Northwest Africa 185
Will D. Swearingen
8 / Agricultural Development or Sustainable Agriculture:
The Case of the Middle East 210
Michael E. Bonine
9 / The Smallholder in Turkish Agriculture:
Obstacle or Opportunity? 239
Paul Kaldjian
Contributors 279
Index 281

Introduction
Kurt E. Engelmann
The centrality of agriculture in the wide-ranging and variously defined process
of development is difficult to overestimate. In economic terms, the ability or
inability of agriculture to provide inputs to industrial production, create a surplus
of capital, generate hard currency through exports, supply raw materials and
foodstuffs for the urban/industrial sectors, and offer a market for finished
consumer goods is crucial to sustained economic growth. In demographic terms,
changes in the agricultural sector are closely linked to urban-rural population
dynamics, as changes in the agricultural means of production, wage rate,
demand, and related factors prompt rural-urban migration, supplying labor
necessary for industrialization. The pace of this migration in comparison to the
ability of the urban and industrial sectors to absorb migrants greatly affects the
structure and quality of city life. In environmental terms, the sustainability of
agriculture determines the duration and rate of the rural sector’s positive
contribution to overall economic changes. Agriculture in turn depends on urban-
industrial sectors for its development: the industrial sector for fertilizer,
pesticides, and other inputs; the governmental sector for health, education,
medical, and other social services; the service sector for loans and insurance;
and the academic-scientific sector for innovations in cultivation, storage, and
transportation. Urban-rural interrelations can be exceedingly complex,
especially in the presence of transnational economic linkages, as actors in
industrial and other sectors can be dispersed across a wide array of local,
regional, national, and international political boundaries.
Developmental processes vary significantly over space, and much of the
contemporary literature on development focuses on the “successes” and
“failures” of development in specific geographic areas. The “dragons” of East
Asia and Southeast Asia have been used as models of export-driven growth,
before and after the recent financial crisis. Latin America, and India to a lesser
extent, have been used as examples of, inter alia, rural development’s
dependency on land redistribution. And sub-Saharan Africa garners a great deal
of attention as the “troubled” macro-region in terms of economic growth, food
self-sufficiency, population dynamics, political and economic decision-making,
viii Kurt E. Engelmann
and other aspects of development. Since agriculture plays a prominent role in
these regions, the study of developmental processes there has resulted in a rich
literature on agrarian development spanning a wide range of theoretical and
political perspectives.
The countries of the former Soviet Union and the Middle East (including
North Africa) possess unique and somewhat divergent characteristics relevant to
the study of agricultural development. The former Soviet bloc, including Eastern
Europe, is experiencing agricultural decollectivization on an unprecedented
scale. The process of transforming collective and state farm systems is crucial to
the agricultural development of these areas, particularly in the former Soviet
Union, where collectivization was more deeply entrenched than in Eastern
Europe. North Africa and the Middle East, taken together, contain the largest
single arid zone on the planet, which presents distinct, if not unique, challenges.
Political, demographic, and other factors combine with the constraints of mild-
to-severe aridity to establish a wide array of developmental outcomes in this
region.
The purpose of this volume is to explore contextual issues that influence the
course of rural development in Russia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. It is
not the purpose of the book to examine economic aspects of development
(economic growth and agricultural productivity) per se. Rather, the challenges of
arid lands and land reform, and approaches to these challenges, form the core
conceptual foundations of the book. The book also addresses two other issues of
relevance to rural development — demographic processes and governmental food
policies — which are integrally related to arid lands agriculture and land reform.
A factor affecting all of these issues is the role of the state and related
political entities. As in other areas of the world, the state, reflecting different
political environments of ideology and power relations, has played a critical role
in these countries in establishing legal, political, and bureaucratic structures that
promote or retard developmental processes. In addition, state actions, such as the
distribution of land and other fixed assets, the mobilization of human resources
and capital for large-scale projects, the regulation of migratory patterns, and the
promotion of food self-sufficiency, have also shaped and constrained rural
developmental processes.1 The state has in turn been affected by local and
national political forces that influence rural development policy decision-making
and implementation. This dynamic interaction between state and other political
forces is a major determinant of developmental trajectories in Russia, Central
Introduction ix
Asia, and the Middle East, with considerable spatial variation across these
regions.
Central Asia as a Transition Zone between Russia and the Middle East
The geographic regions selected for this volume may appear to be wide-ranging
at first glance. In terms of physical geography, Russia’s landscape differs
considerably from that of the Middle East. Natural conditions in the former
range from arctic desert to steppe, while natural conditions in the latter are
characterized primarily by desert or semi-desert. Irrigation occurs in only a
small portion of the Russian Federation, primarily in the southern area of the
country between the Black and Caspian Seas. In contrast, irrigation provides the
basis for crop cultivation in much of the Middle East. In terms of economic and
political features, Russia is faced with overcoming seventy years of Soviet rule
and attempting to make a transition from the Soviet system to a more market-
oriented and democratic system. In contrast, only a handful of states in the
Middle East were influenced by the Soviet developmental model. Most are faced
with legacies of a different sort, inherited from colonial and neocolonial
regimes.
Central Asia, defined for the purpose of this volume as the former Soviet
states of Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan,
provides a convenient intersection point between Russia and the Middle East.
Central Asia serves as a prime example of a transition zone, a geographic region
that shares human or physical characteristics with two or more adjacent regions
and provides a conceptual bridge between the two.
Central Asia closely resembles the Middle East in terms of physical
geography. Arid and semi-arid conditions predominate in both regions, with
mountain ranges collecting and distributing moisture to rivers and streams,
many of which are seasonal in nature. Dry farming (non-irrigated agriculture) is
possible only in isolated spots in mountain foothills (the piedmont zone).
Elsewhere, crop cultivation depends on irrigation, from either surface or sub­
surface sources. A variety of other physical features — soils, flora, and fauna —
are shared by the two regions to various degrees. The importance of water
affects a wide array of human phenomena in both Central Asia and the Middle
East, from settlement to the international management of rivers. Some recent