The organization of the agricultural sector and its role in the economic development of Latin America has always been a touchy matter because that sector seems to hold the key to the general organization of society and the distribution of resources and power within it. Edward Schuh, with the collaboration of Roberto Alves, can be commended for having made a useful contribution to the study of agro-economics in Brazil, but one which begs the issue of agricultural development and examines but a limited aspect of a complex matter.
Any discussion of “development” puts on the scholar the onus of immersing him or herself not only in some particulars of the problem being studied, but also, in the entire national context in which this problem is situated. On the first score, the author achieves a limited success. The work is a lucid, multifaceted discussion of agricultural productivity and of factors supporting it. However, the analysis falls short of being relevant to Brazil’s problems as a result of a narrowly deterministic approach. The study’s very orthodoxy causes the work to be ethnocentric in its disregard of alternative models of agricultural development and in its failure to consider solutions relying on factors other than market forces.
The inadequacy of this otherwise informative volume is especially great on a second count. In ignoring the context of historical traditions, social problems, conflicting ideologies, and political pressures, the Schuh work does not deal with aspects of the agricultural problem which are at least as determining as are productivity and efficiency. The impression one gains from the volume belies the profoundly ideological and extensively social character of the agrarian question. It is these aspects, and not the lack of resources as such, that have made the search for solutions so difficult.
In the light of the above, the solutions suggested by the authors are of questionable relevance. The difficulty of securing the enormous amount of capital to implement suggested changes is just one of the problems. The stress on mass mechanization for greater productivity belittles the profound social problems that such a process will not solve, but rather aggravate. It is for this reason as well that the argument for agrarian reform, so easily dismissed by Schuh, continues to be a serious consideration in the eyes of many Brazilians.
