ABSTRACT
Peasants, peasant agriculture and peasantries are notions that easily slip under the radar of agricultural and economic statistics and that contemporary mindsets, perceptions, interpretations, theorizing and representations find it hard to frame. Peasant agriculture is a multi-dimensional, multi-actor and multi-level constellation that is in constant flux. Because peasant agriculture is multi-dimensional it is often theoretically represented in different, if not conflicting, ways. Understanding the distinctiveness of peasant agriculture requires a series of concepts and a specification of the interrelations between the concepts. The multi-actor nature of peasant agriculture brings heterogeneity and contestation: this reflects the repeated need to negotiate how farming is to be developed, how the benefits and costs are to be distributed and how peasant farming is translated into contrasting images and folk-concepts. The extra earnings obtained from new technologies are part of the labour income of the farming family. Labour uses the means of production in order to produce and obtain a labour income.
