The article discusses the changes that have taken place in the number and
structure of agricultural and rural populations in recent times and their connection
with socio-economic changes in agriculture as a whole.
Referring to the data supplied by various international organizations (UNO,
FAO, etc.) on trends in the numbers of the world’s agricultural, rural and urban
populations, the author points to basic differences which exist in this respect
between developed capitalist countries and socialist and undeveloped countries,
and which are due to the level of economic development and to the existing social
conditions of the reproduction of man-power and population, and emphasizes the
need for a critical study of international statistical figures on agricultural and
rural populations.
In the second part of his article the author analyses the rapid decrease of
the agrarian population and man-power in developed capitalist countries and
the connection of this development with changes in the agrarian structure and
with the reforms undertaken in this respect in West European countries, and deals
with the question of the growth of large cities, the migration of population, and
employment policies in rural regions. Viewing the programmes of structural
reform in agriculture and the programmes of regional development as an attemnt
to eliminate capitalist countradictions which hamper general economic develonment,
the author calls for further theoretical study of the comparative agrarian
unemployment.
The third section of the article deals with the latest information on the number
and structure of the agricultural, rural and urban populations of socialist
countries (except the People’s Republic of China and other Asian socialist countries).
The author analyses in greater detail the problems of agricultural man-power
and employment in the agro-industrial branch of the economy, and the migration
of the rural population to urban centres in the Soviet Union, and points to certain
socio-economic differences which can be observed in comparison with capitalist
countries. In conclusion he refers to the phenomenon of agrarian overpopulation
or man-power reserves in the agriculture of socialist countries.
In general, the accelerated decrease in the number of agricultural and rural
populations in developed countries over the last few decades can be explained
primarily by the tendency to discourage the population from farming, by the rapid
spread of modern production techniques, and the development of increasingly large
farms. However, the process of giving up farming has created many new problems such as the question how to organize productive agriculture on a modern basis
and how to provide employment for the inhabitants who move out of rural regions and give up farming activities
