The Peasantry

Abstract

The inequality of land ownership is a basic feature of agrarian relations in Paraguay and has led to a long history of conflict over access to land. Peasant mobilisations date back to the beginning of the twentieth century and have tended to focus on the struggle for access to family holdings. The longest and most extensive struggles were carried out by bandits and messianic leaders who carried out the only forms of social struggle available in a society without channels of political participation (Fogel, 1988). In 1962, 70 per cent of the population of 1,800,000 lived in rural areas. The majority of these worked in subsistence agriculture, alongside agro-industrial enclaves producing yerba mate and timber. However, from the 1960s the backward agricultural sector became increasingly dominated by agribusiness corporations using modern technology as part of a conservative modernisation programme fostered by the Stroessner regime to promote agro-exports.