Regardless of the size of the rural poor population in a country, what
goes on in the rural political arena is important because it can affect
the lives and livelihoods of large numbers of people, including those
living in more urban areas. The ongoing failure of governments to enact
and/or fully implement redistributive social justice oriented agrarian
reforms for example, or the wanton imposition of ‘mega’ development
projects such as hydroelectric dams, or the unregulated promotion of
export-oriented corporate farming, have all contributed to
dispossession and impoverishment in the countryside, fuelling rapid and
unrestrained migration to the cities. Efforts to solve today’s most
pressing ‘urban’ problems, such as acute shortages of affordable
housing and rising unemployment, that do not recognize and address the
linkage between what happens in the cities and in the countryside, are
bound to fall short, as can be gleaned from Mike Davis’s recent book
Planet of Slums (2006). The prevailing problems in the production and
distribution of food, resulting in “more food – more hunger”, is very
much linked to these urban-rural dynamics as well.