Agricultural and rural development in the people’s Democratic Republic of the Yemon

Abstract

Rural development has become a vital issue to most less developed countries and international organisations during the recent past. The United Nations has declared the 1970's and 1980's to be "development” decades. Agricultural development constitutes the main backbone for rural development and together with other supportive social policies, rural development can pave the way to national development. In this thesis, the rural development problem is stated and its objectives are analysed, particularly with respect to a centrally-planned economy, in the introduction. The Study examines critically PDRY's experience in its agricultural and rural development, based on a 'balanced growth' strategy, during the past decade. It looks into the pros and cons of various agricultural policies on agricultural production and rural development. The Study examines all agricultural institutions in the country and envisages the role played by the planning machinery and its consistency with political and administration structures in the country. It also makes an assessment of the horizontal investment on the agricultural sector and assesses its impact on the agricultural production. In a separate section the Study evaluates all agricultural policies and their repercussion on agricultural and rural development. It examines all changes in current policies and their relevance to both the producer and the consumer. Rural integrated programmes are also considered by the Study no show a new consolidated approach to rural development. Three major projects are examined in this section to evaluate this approach and assess its relevance to the issue. In the conclusion the whole experience of PDRY's agriculture and rural development is evaluated in terms of successes and failures and a proposed strategy, vertically integrated, is set for future agricultural and rural development with specific ideas on each aspect.