ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the decline in arable land of the thirty years and the emergence of a surplus agricultural labour force equivalent in the early 1980s to approximately one third of the total rural workforce. Policies were designed to encourage the shift from subsistence agriculture in a number of ways. Most accounts now speak of 200–225 million members of the existing and potential agricultural labour force having to be deployed out of agriculture, forestry and sidelines by the year 2000. As an alternative to further development of the rural industries sector, some agronomists believe that efforts should be concentrated on opening up the country's untapped resources in agriculture, forestry and fisheries. A key reason for the introduction of the ongoing reforms in the rural sector was the failure over the long term to raise productivity levels in the countryside. Paradoxically for a country of 9.6 million square kilometres, the most dire of these constraints is the shortage of agricultural land.
