マラヤ北西部の稲作農村 : 農地所有の零細化について

Abstract

This paper is a partial result of the sociological and anthropological fieldwork held in a village of Malaya during the period from July to Decdmber in 1964. Although the rural poverty and indebtedness, especially of the Malay peasants, are considered a serious problem in Malaya today, their actual conditions are not well known. This paper is an attempt to clarify these respects by analyzing such problems as land tenure, the pattern of landlord and tenant relationship, income of Malay farming households, peasant credit system and the inheritance pattern in the village concerned. The village, located in the "rice bowl" in the state of Kedah, has 287 households : 208 Malay households, 75 Chinese households and 4 Indian households. The large number of Chinese households in the village is due to the fact that the local trading center of the mukim (sub-district) is in this village. 135 out of the total Malay households are engaged in padi farming, but the households owning padi farms are only 75 in number. The average size of farms cultivated by the farming households is 6.5 small relong (about 4.4 acres). And it is very interesting that most tenants cultivating small areas rent the padi farms from their parents. Compared to the intensive farming in Japan, the average area of padi farm cultivated by a household and the average yield of padi per acre are not so small as might be supposed. The users of chemical fertilizers are rapidly increasing in number and the employment of farm labour is unexpectedly high, because of the comparatively large area under cultivation. However the problem of the lower income of Malay peasants lies in the fact that the price of padi is, comparatively speaking, very low. Those farming households cultivating padi farms under 6 small relong in area are almost all indebted to the Chinese merchants in the village by padi timor (padi kuncha). In order to avoid becoming indebted, farming household has to cultivate a miniumum padi farm over 7 relong. For the poor peasants there is almost no possiblity to purchase and rent farms in the village. The governmen's policy to aid these peasants has not been effectively brought into operation. Besides, the inheritance patterns, adat or sharia', in the village are further accelerating the fragmentation of the landholding of the peasants.