Part III
Sustainability of the peasant socio-economic systems: A study of southern Sri Lanka The agricultural sector serving the rural population is central to the development process of the third world countries. The rural development strategies that have been implied since the political independence in 1948 have causedsuccessful socio-economic changes at village level. However, peasant society has rarely visible benefited in life quality. Even though the peasant agriculture has undergone several institutional changes associated with rural development, the basic questions of rural poverty and economic stagnation remain a major problem affecting the majority of the people. The peasantry comprises mainly of small-scale farmers and landless agricultural labourers and as such they have been central to many development issues. Although villages have to some extent been beneficiaries of modernization, studies have shown that the general trend in many areas is toward a decline of socio-economic life. Issues such as poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, landlessness and degradationof the natural environment are connected to the persistent underdevelopment. When the environmental conditions are unfavourable the sustainability of village ecosystems become unattainable. The focus of the research is therefore to study the sustainability of the peasant ecosystem in the southern Sri Lanka in the context of socio-economic and environmental changes. The broad objective of the study is to examine the sustainability of the village economics. The specific objectives are:
1. To identify spatial patterns of socio-economic conditions, their relationship to land use and changing trends in collected villages in southern Sri Lanka since 1948. 2. To conduct case studies of selected villages representing different agro-ecological and socio-economic characteristics in order to observe the process of change and identify the key variables in this process. 3. To develop a database for analysis of village level data, using the computer assisted devices such as GIS, where appropriate. 4. To make specific and relevant recommendations with a view to establish a sustainable rural socio-economic and environmental system.
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