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| '''Ester Boserup''' is a ] ] who studied economical and agricultural development. She worked at the United Nations and other international organizations and wrote several books. | '''Ester Boserup''' is a ] ] who studied economical and agricultural development. She worked at the United Nations and other international organizations and wrote several books. | ||
| Boserup's most notable work is ''The Conditions of Agricultural Growth'' (1965). This book presented a "dynamic analysis embracing all types of primitive agriculture." In doing so, she upended the assumption dating back to Malthus’s time (and still held in many quarters) that agricultural methods determine population (via food supply). Instead, she shows that population determines agricultural methods. | Boserup's most notable work is ''The Conditions of Agricultural Growth'' (1965, ISBN 0415312981). This book presented a "dynamic analysis embracing all types of primitive agriculture." In doing so, she upended the assumption dating back to Malthus’s time (and still held in many quarters) that agricultural methods determine population (via food supply). Instead, she shows that population determines agricultural methods. | ||
| She argued that when population density is low enough to allow it, land tends to be used | She argued that when population density is low enough to allow it, land tends to be used | ||
Revision as of 22:27, 21 May 2005
Ester Boserup is a Danish economist who studied economical and agricultural development. She worked at the United Nations and other international organizations and wrote several books.
Boserup's most notable work is The Conditions of Agricultural Growth (1965, ISBN 0415312981). This book presented a "dynamic analysis embracing all types of primitive agriculture." In doing so, she upended the assumption dating back to Malthus’s time (and still held in many quarters) that agricultural methods determine population (via food supply). Instead, she shows that population determines agricultural methods.
She argued that when population density is low enough to allow it, land tends to be used intermittently, with heavy reliance on fire to clear fields and fallowing to restore fertility (often called slash and burn farming). Numerous studies have shown such methods to be favorable in total workload and also effiency (output:input). In Boserup’s theory, it is only when rising population density curtails the use of fallowing (and therefore the use of fire) that fields are moved towards annual cultivation. Contending with insufficiently fallowed, less fertile plots, covered with grass or bushes rather than forest, mandates expanded efforts at fertilizing, field preparation, weed control, and irrigation. These changes often induce agricultural innovation but increase marginal labor cost to the farmer as well: the higher the rural population density, the more hours the farmer must work for the same amount of produce. Therefore workloads tend to rise while efficiency drops. This process of raising production at the cost of more work at lower efficiency is what Boserup describes as agricultural intensification.
The theory has been instrumental in understanding agricultural patterns in developing countries, although it is highly simplified and generalized.
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