or not. The land lease market in South Asia works quite different with that in East Asia. In South Asia it is weak in redistributing land from inefficient to efficient operational farm sizes, thus inefficient large-scale farms and/or tenancy farms still widely exist (Table 4.) (7) There is also a evidence in West Bengal that tenancy reforms stimulated the production incentives of tenants (8). It could be said that if the land reform succeeds, it will have the effect of not only improving income distribution but also increasing productivity. In China the dissolution of the People's Commune, which led to the revival of family farm, stimulated the production incentives of the farmers. This is another evidence which shows how important an incentive system is for farmers. It cannot be said that land reform is not necessary in areas where 'feudalistic' large-scale farms and/or tenancy farms still widely exist, such as in Bihar in India or Sind in Pakistan, etc.
3) Policies to Reduce Poverty
So far the importance of an agricultural development strategy was emphasized and now we must emphasize a necessity for a policy which is targeted on landless, making up 40〜50% of rural households in South Asia (Table 4.). This is because agricultural development gives more direct benefit to landowners than to landless workers. It relates to the policy emphasizing food entitlement, as defined by A.K. Sen (9)
Representatives of these policies are public food distribution system, labor intensive public works programme (wages are paid in wheat in 'Food for Works'), food distribution programme for students ('Food for Education') and low-interest finance for the promotion of self-employment. IRDP in India, and Grameen Bank in Bangladesh are well-known for such micro-credit system. The impacts of these credit schemes for the landless poor are well documented. Table 5 shows an example of the impacts of IRDP by SAM method, in which direct and indirect income generating effect can be evaluated (10). Clearly IRDP has a big impact on landless laborers.
Through my survey experiences of rural credit market in Bangladesh, I
