Frank Ellis (economist)

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Frank Ellis is a noted agrarian development economist who has specialised in the livelihoods approach to addressing poverty in the developing world. He is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Global Development (formerly DEV) at the University of East Anglia. His most noted publication is perhaps his (1988, 1993) Peasant economics: Farm households in agrarian development. [1]

Selected publications

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Agrarianism is a social and political philosophy that promotes subsistence agriculture, family farming, widespread property ownership, and political decentralization. Adherents of agrarianism tend to value traditional bonds of local community over urban modernity. Agrarian political parties sometimes aim to support the rights and sustainability of small farmers and poor peasants against the wealthy in society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peasant</span> Agricultural laborer or farmer with limited land ownership

A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants existed: non-free slaves, semi-free serfs, and free tenants. Peasants might hold title to land outright, or by any of several forms of land tenure, among them socage, quit-rent, leasehold, and copyhold.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rural area</span> Geographic area outside towns and cities

In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry are typically described as rural, as well as other areas lacking substantial development. Different countries have varying definitions of rural for statistical and administrative purposes.

Agroecology is an academic discipline that studies ecological processes applied to agricultural production systems. Bringing ecological principles to bear can suggest new management approaches in agroecosystems. The term can refer to a science, a movement, or an agricultural practice. Agroecologists study a variety of agroecosystems. The field of agroecology is not associated with any one particular method of farming, whether it be organic, regenerative, integrated, or industrial, intensive or extensive, although some use the name specifically for alternative agriculture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sharecropping</span> Use of land by a tenant in return for a share of the crops produced

Sharecropping is a legal arrangement in which a landowner allows a tenant (sharecropper) to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping is not to be conflated with tenant farming, providing the tenant a higher economic and social status.

Agricultural economics is an applied field of economics concerned with the application of economic theory in optimizing the production and distribution of food and fiber products. Agricultural economics began as a branch of economics that specifically dealt with land usage. It focused on maximizing the crop yield while maintaining a good soil ecosystem. Throughout the 20th century the discipline expanded and the current scope of the discipline is much broader. Agricultural economics today includes a variety of applied areas, having considerable overlap with conventional economics. Agricultural economists have made substantial contributions to research in economics, econometrics, development economics, and environmental economics. Agricultural economics influences food policy, agricultural policy, and environmental policy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agriculture in the Russian Empire</span> Overview of agriculture in the Russian Empire

Agriculture in the Russian Empire throughout the 19th-20th centuries Russia represented a major world force, yet it lagged technologically behind other developed countries. Imperial Russia was amongst the largest exporters of agricultural produce, especially wheat. The Free Economic Society of 1765 to 1919 made continuing efforts to improve farming techniques.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agrarian society</span> Community whose economy is based on producing and maintaining crops and farmland

An agrarian society, or agricultural society, is any community whose economy is based on producing and maintaining crops and farmland. Another way to define an agrarian society is by seeing how much of a nation's total production is in agriculture. In agrarian society, cultivating the land is the primary source of wealth. Such a society may acknowledge other means of livelihood and work habits but stresses the importance of agriculture and farming. Agrarian societies have existed in various parts of the world as far back as 10,000 years ago and continue to exist today. They have been the most common form of socio-economic organization for most of recorded human history.

Agrarian reform can refer either, narrowly, to government-initiated or government-backed redistribution of agricultural land or, broadly, to an overall redirection of the agrarian system of the country, which often includes land reform measures. Agrarian reform can include credit measures, training, extension, land consolidations, etc. The World Bank evaluates agrarian reform using five dimensions: (1) stocks and market liberalization, (2) land reform, (3) agro-processing and input supply channels, (4) urban finance, (5) market institutions.

In the Hungarian People's Republic, agricultural collectivization was attempted a number of times in the late 1940s, until it was finally successfully implemented in the early 1960s. By consolidating individual landowning farmers into agricultural co-operatives, the Communist government hoped to increase production and efficiency, and put agriculture under the control of the state.

A person's livelihood refers to their "means of securing the basic necessities of life". Livelihood is defined as a set of activities essential to everyday life that are conducted over one's life span. Such activities could include securing water, food, fodder, medicine, shelter, clothing. An individual's livelihood involves the capacity to acquire aforementioned necessities in order to satisfy the basic needs of themselves and their household. The activities are usually carried out repeatedly and in a manner that is sustainable and providing of dignity. For instance, a fisherman's livelihood depends on the availability and accessibility of fish.

Feminist political ecology is a feminist perspective on political ecology, drawing on theories from Marxism, post-structuralism, feminist geography, ecofeminism and cultural ecology. Feminist political ecology examines the place of intersectional social relations in the political ecological landscape, exploring them as a factor in ecological and political relations. Specific areas in which feminist political ecology is focused are development, landscape, resource use, agrarian reconstruction and rural-urban transformation. Feminist political ecologists suggest gender is a crucial variable – in relation to class, race and other relevant dimensions of political ecological life – in constituting access to, control over, and knowledge of natural resources.

Rural economics is the study of rural economies. Rural economies include both agricultural and non-agricultural industries, so rural economics has broader concerns than agricultural economics which focus more on food systems. Rural development and finance attempt to solve larger challenges within rural economics. These economic issues are often connected to the migration from rural areas due to lack of economic activities and rural poverty. Some interventions have been very successful in some parts of the world, with rural electrification and rural tourism providing anchors for transforming economies in some rural areas. These challenges often create rural-urban income disparities.

Irene Joan Thirsk, was a British economic and social historian, specialising in the history of agriculture. She was the leading British early modern agrarian historian of her era, as well as an important social and economic historian. Her work highlighted the regional differences in agricultural practices in England. She also had an interest in food history and local English history, in particular of Hadlow, Kent.

Henry Bernstein is a British sociologist and Emeritus Professor of Development Studies at the University of London: School of Oriental and African Studies. He has worked for several decades on the political economy of agrarian change, social theory, peasant studies, land reform, and the rural economy in South Africa.

Peasant economics is an area of economics in which a wide variety of economic approaches ranging from the neoclassical to the marxist are used to examine the political economy of the peasantry. The defining feature of the peasants are that they are typically seen to be only partly integrated into the market economy -— an economy which, in societies with a significant peasant population, is typically found to have many imperfect, incomplete or missing markets. Peasant economics treats peasants as something different from other farmers as they are not assumed to be simply small profit maximizing farmers; by contrast, peasant economics covers a wide range of different theories of peasant household behavior. These include various assumptions about the maximization of profits, risk aversion, drudgery aversion, and sharecropping. The assumptions, logic, and predictions of these theories are examined and the impact of subsistence is typically found to have important implications in terms of producers decisions about supply, consumption and price. Chayanov was an early proponent of the importance of understanding peasant behaviour arguing that peasants would work as hard as they needed in order to meet their subsistence needs, but had no incentive beyond those needs and therefore would slow and stop working once they were met. This principle, the consumption-labour-balance principle, implies that the peasant household will increase its work until it meets (balances) the needs (consumption) of the household. A possible implication of this view of peasant societies is that they will not develop without some external, added factor. Peasant economics has been seen as being an important area of study by some development economists, agricultural sociologists, and anthropologists.

Agrarian socialism is a political ideology that promotes social ownership of agrarian and agricultural production as opposed to private ownership. Agrarian socialism involves equally distributing agricultural land among collectivized peasant villages. Many agrarian socialist movements have tended to be rural, locally focused, and traditional. Governments and political parties seeking agrarian socialist policies have existed throughout the world, in regions including Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America, and Africa.

Agrarianism is social philosophy or political philosophy which values rural society as superior to urban society, the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker, and sees farming as a way of life that can shape the ideal social values. It stresses the superiority of a simpler rural life as opposed to the complexity of city life.

Carmen Diana Deere is an American feminist economist who is an expert on land policy and agrarian reform, rural social movements, and gender in Latin American development. Deere is Professor Emeritus of Latin American studies and Food Resources Economics at the University of Florida and Professor Emeritus of FLACSO-Ecuador. She was honored with the Silvert Award in 2018.

Lyn Squire is an American economist who was born in South Wales. He held several positions within the World Bank's hierarchy over a 25-year career. While there, he co-authored, with Herman G. Van Der Tak, the 1975 work Economic analysis of projects. He was one of the lead authors of the World Development Report 1990: Poverty where the international $1 a day poverty line was proposed.

References

  1. https://research-portal.uea.ac.uk/en/persons/frank-ellis
  2. Dewan, Ritu. (1990) Ellis, F. "Peasant Economics: Farm Households and Agrarian Development" (Book Review), Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics; Bombay Vol. 45, Iss. 4, (Oct 1): 528.
  3. Harrison, M. (1988). Book Review: Peasant Economics: Farm Households and Agrarian Development. Outlook on Agriculture, 17(3), 137-137.
  4. Ortiz, S. (1991) Peasant economics: Farm households and agrarian development (Book review). American Anthropologist, 93, 213–214