Rural People and Rural Economic Development. IIEP Seminar Paper: 21

Assuming development is a process that involves the generation, diffusion, and realization of new opportunities, this paper discusses the following: (1) The Development Process: Facts and Issues (re: visible unemployment; rural to urban migration; the dualism of labor markets in the less developed countries; population growth; and the disequilibrium of economic life in the development stage); (2) The Attributes of Development Man (adaptive and innovative); (3) The Formation of Competencies and the Transmission of Information (an economic analysis of people-changing processes; skill mobility and the markets for "jobs" and "work"; how different types of competencies are acquired; information "fields" and "resistances" to information); (4) Toward Progressive Agriculture (target groups in education for agriculture; substitution and complementaries among schooling, extension, and research; maximizing the efficiency of information systems); (5) The Rural Nonfarm Economy (symbiotic relationships in the developing rural nonfarm economy; dualisms and continua in skills and in scale; education, communication, and innovation in the nonfarm enterprise); (6) Strategies for the Enlargement of Opportunities and Their Realization (the elusive meanings of integrated development; the interdependencies of education and development; economic incentives and agricultural progress; unleashing the energies and ingenuities of ordinary man). (JC)