ABSTRACT
The development of external political liberalization and burgeoning civil protest movements facilitated the "sudden" outburst of street protests by the farmers. The Taiwan farmers' movement remains a "commodity reform movement" concerned with issues such as pricing and marketing of the farm products, the protection of farm land, and the reorganization of the agricultural bureaucracy. The farmers' movement was one of the second wave of social movements. It is an integral part of a dialectical relationship between political liberalization and social activism and mobilization. Land reform in Taiwan was a prerequisite for state-facilitated industrialization. It created a bulk of conservative, small, family-based farmers deprived of any opportunity to act in political opposition to the state's pro urban-industrial development strategies. The objectives of the farmers' movement have been changes in state agricultural policies and a relaxation of authoritarian state corporatist controls over the rural organizations, particularly the farmers' association and die irrigation association.
