Abstract

This article examines peasant agriculture in the municipality of Monte Plata, Dominican Republic, in the context of agrarian capitalism and sectorial policy in the territory. It presents partial results from a broader study that included 121 interviews in twelve rural communities. Of these, 50 agricultural producers surveyed using structured questionnaires and 21 in-depth interviews and life histories with producers, technicians, and community leaders are analyzed here. The research combines a historical-structural approach with elements of neopositivist empiricism and adopts a mixed methodological design, descriptive-correlational in type. Quantitative data collection techniques (structured questionnaires) and qualitative ones (semi-structured interviews and life histories) were employed, applied through purposive sampling in rural communities of the municipality, without the intention of statistical inference. Based on the analysis of secondary data, it is estimated that more than 90% of the agricultural area is concentrated in a few capitalist and precapitalist latifundia (livestock and African palm), along with large and medium-sized farms operated by absentee producers. Residents are left with marginal lands, where micro-farms predominate that do not guarantee family reproduction, driving processes of pauperization, migration, and proletarianization. Three quarters of the surveyed holdings are 80 tareas (5 ha) or smaller, and one quarter do not exceed 8 tareas (0.5 ha). A growing differentiation between small livestock and crop producers is also observed, a product of commercialization and wage labor. Finally, policy guidelines aimed at an integral agrarian reform are proposed within the context of inclusive and sustainable rural territorial development.

Keywords:
Peasant agriculture; agrarian structure; small farmer; agrarian capitalism; Dominican Republic