Modernization and Stagnation

This volume is a compilation of essays that reviews the current status of agricultural progress in Latin America and evaluates its prospects into the 1990s. Various experts on Latin American affairs offer analyses that examine how economic and political changes over the past two decades, both regional and worldwide, have resulted in an imbalance between stagnation of output growth and modernization. Convinced that stability is vital to agricultural prosperity within the region, this study defines the major obstacles to this goal and develops new strategies to successfully meet the challenge.

Although the work's identification of the issues that are common to the entire geographical area is of significant value, the author of each essay brings his unique experience within the particular country to the study, resulting in a review of the diverse agricultural conditions that exist in each country, thereby hoping to stimulate further debate over their specific management. Each chapter studies a different country with reference to prices, technology, government policies, land tenure, and labor markets. The effect of increased democratization and the continuing changes within the major nations of the world figure prominently, and together with numerous illustrative tables, the articles provide up-to-date data that help discern current trends in agricultural growth both within each state and the entire region.

MICHAEL J. TWOMEY is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan. His articles have appeared in the Quarterly Review of Economics and Business, Explorations in Economic History, and, most recently, the Journal of Developing Areas.

ANN HELWEGE is Assistant Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy at Tufts University. She has had articles published in Challenge and Latin American Perspectives.