importance within the national economy is declining. If we consider the actual economic growth rate in the agriculture, we find that in Indonesia it was 3.4% from 1980 to 1990, and 3.0% from 1990-94, 4.0% and 3.1% in Thailand, and 3.8% and 2.8% in Malaysia, during the same periods. These rates are not so low. However, the rate of 1.0% and 1.6% in the Philippines is again exceptional within the ASEAN countries, but is the same as the macro economic growthtrend.
The fact which needs to be considered is that agricultural development patterns within ASEAN countries are not the same. The individual agricultural development patterns relate to the history of each country. The difference in agricultural development patterns between Indonesia and Thailand will he looked at.
In Java, which is the core area of Indonesia, there is a long standing tradition of small scale family agriculture which makes intensive use of the land for paddy field sawah and homestead land pekalongan on fertile soil blessed with plenty of water resources created by the ecological conditions prevalent in volcanic islands situated in the tropics. A densely populated and closed agricultural society has been created throughout the long history.
Absorbing surplus population into non agricultural activities is considered the main development point in this kind of populous closed areas. However, the risk of the 'Ricardian trap' is high in the development of these areas. Thus, technical innovation and agricultural development are necessary to improve land productivity whose resources are decreasing.
Basically, productivity per agricultural worker must be increased if agricultural development is to be part of the economic development. The average labor productivity per worker is described as a product of the land productivity and the agricultural area per worker. It is quite obvious that labor productivity can only be increased by raising the land productivity, as it is impossible to expand the available land area in densely populated societies. A tidal wave of agricultural development, popularly known as the 'green revolution', was seen in many Asian countries from the seventies onwards. This was the movement
