Asia's trope is one of modernization. Economic growth and structural change are transforming the region, with implications for the balance of global production and trade. In light of this, it is easy to forget that the most numerous economic and social unit across Asia is the “smallholder” or small-scale agriculturalist. Globally there are estimated to be 570 million such rural producers, and of these some three-quarters or 420 million are to be found in Asia (Hazell et al. 2010; Lowder et al. 2014, 2016; Fan and Kang-Chan 2005:135; Samberg et al. 2016).

The expectation from the early twentieth century onward, not least on the part of agricultural economists, was that small-scale agriculture would rapidly give way to land consolidation and large-scale farming, with a shift of populations into the urban and industrial sectors (Banaji 1990; Birner and Resnick 2010; Kautsky 1988). Engel's Law (Bezemer and Hazell 2006: 2) and the “natural” process of the farm-size transition (Hazell and Rahman, 2014: 3) predicted as much. More than a century on, while this has largely happened in places like Europe and North America – the historical experience of which underpinned such assumptions – smallholder and small-scale agriculture have apparently persisted in other places, and not least in Asia (Drahmoune 2013; Rigg et al. 2016). Village-based and family farming continue to be the image of farming in Asia, often shored up by an enduring stereotype of the Asian countryside as a haven of peace and a redoubt of tradition. Realities on the ground, of course, are far more complex. On the one hand, preindustrial, subsistence-oriented “peasant” agriculture is by and large a thing of the past (Elson 1997), and in any case was likely never as peaceful, moral or egalitarian as accounts often present (see Rigg 2019). At the same time, there are many places where small-scale and smallholder agriculture continues to predominate, apparently viable even when crowded out or marginalized by consolidated plantation-type agricultural ventures.

This book takes stock of the situation of small-scale and smallholder agriculture across East and Southeast Asia. It takes as its geographical “field”, ten countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. These countries are, self-evidently, a varied group ranging from low to high-income, from putatively communist to democratizing, and from land-short to landabundant.

Despite rapid urbanization in recent years, Cambodia remains largely an agrarian country. An overwhelming majority of the population (78%) still lives in rural areas, and agriculture makes up 31% of the country’s GDP (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries [MAFF] 2015) and employs 80% of the national labour force (National Institute of Statistics [NIS] 2013). The country's major agricultural commodity is rice, or ang-kor in Khmer, which also largely constitutes the identity and way of life for Cambodians. Other major crops include cassava, maize, mung bean, and soybean. Rice is grown for both household consumption and trade, but other crops are grown mostly for commercial purposes and exports, mainly to Thailand, Vietnam, and, to a lesser extent, China. Given that 70% of agricultural landholding is used for rice farming, this chapter will focus mainly on rice smallholders more than on farmers of other agricultural crops and activities.

Small landholding is a defining feature of Cambodian farmers. While the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines those with 2 hectares or less of land ownership as smallholders, there is no existing figure on Cambodian farmers with 2 hectares or less of land. A newly released report on agricultural census conducted by the National Institute of Statistics (NIS) and other international development partners contains only figures of agricultural landholding of less than 1 hectare (47%), 1 to 3.99 hectares (45%), 4 to 9.99 hectares (7%), and 10 or more (1%) (NIS 2013).

Smallholders are a significant part of the Indonesian economy with about one third of the working population employed in the agricultural sector (BPS-Statistics Indonesia 2013). In 2014, Indonesia was ranked third in the world after China and India in terms of the number of agricultural holdings in the country. However, Indonesia is ranked nineteenth in the world in terms of agricultural land area, with a total area of 485,000 km2 (FAO, 2016). These statistics illustrate the discrepancy between the limited amount of farming land and the high number of agricultural holdings in the country. This suggests two things: first, that a significant number of landholdings in Indonesia are small in size and second, that the Indonesian agricultural landscape is largely characterized by smallholders.

There is an extensive record of research on smallholders in Indonesia. Some work on the agricultural economy of smallholders conducted between the late colonial era and the beginning of Indonesia's independence still provokes discussion and continues to contribute to the advancement of knowledge amongst contemporary scholars. Many papers from this period highlight the pessimistic conditions of agriculture in Indonesia (Booth 1989; Geertz 1963; Boeke 1953). Boeke discusses social dualism in the country through a comparison of the colonial capitalistic system and the indigenous pre-capitalistic agrarian community. Additionally, Geertz illustrates the process of agricultural involution, particularly in Java, through which an increase in agricultural productivity and output did not lead to an increase per capita output. Among the scholarly works are some critical voices such as those of Gordon (1992) and White (1983).

This book owes its origins to conversations at a small roti prata-cum-coffee shop in Singapore, where two of the editors (Rigg and Thompson) discussed ways in which we could extend our prior research endeavours in rural Southeast Asia. There we conceived a project in which we would leverage the resources afforded us by the National University of Singapore and Singapore’s Ministry of Education to draw on the expertise of colleagues across East and Southeast Asia. We were fortunate to have Jamie Gillen join early in the conceptualization period of the project as well.

Our goal has been to inspire comparative analysis of the conditions that have led smallholder agriculture to change and transform, but also to persist, over the past century. This has been an era in which Asian societies have shifted from overwhelmingly rural and agrarian to urban and industrial. A key question for us has been: why is it that small-scale or smallholder agriculture appears to have persisted in Asia to a greater degree than is apparent in places such as the Americas or Europe, even while much of Asia has become as affluent and urbanized as those other regions of the world?

All three of us are grounded in traditions of primarily qualitative, ethnographic research in anthropology and human geography. Such research allows, at its best, for nuanced insights into the lives and experience of peoples and places. But it is also constrained in its comparative capacity, particularly when carried out by single researchers or small teams examining singular sites. In this project, we have sought to draw on a larger team of experienced researchers, whose expertise crosses ten countries in Southeast and East Asia. Indeed, we feel this is a particularly novel component of the project: our collaborations involve academics and researchers from across the countries in our study. The current volume is the first, comparative product of this project.

Smallholders in Asia examines the national-level histories and policies that have shaped the fate of small-scale agriculturalists. The contributors to this book, along with a large team of research assistants, provide here a broad-brush background, explaining the situation of small-scale agriculturalists in each of the ten countries covered in these pages. Our findings have been developed over a number of workshops held in Singapore.

Singapore is not a country typically known for its agriculture. At present only 1% of Singapore's land area has been allocated by its government for agricultural purposes. Despite its seeming irrelevance however, Singapore is actually an intriguing case for the study of smallholders and their persistence, for a number of reasons. First, Singapore presents a case where a country has gone from a position of enjoying close to total self-sufficiency in a range of food products, to a position of depending on imports to satisfy around 90% of its domestic food needs – all in the space of approximately 35 years, from the 1980s to the present day. Furthermore, contrary to common assumptions, the early stages of Singapore's industrialization in the 1960s proved very beneficial to the local farming sector, which increased yields produced despite decreasing acreage. In fact, the innovation and quality of local farming methods had been evident as early as Singapore's colonial era, when family farms managed to thrive despite the catastrophic failure of colonial plantation agriculturalists from the East India Trading Company. Even with their privileged access to advanced technology and financial capital, colonial plantations could not survive and were even grossly outperformed by family farms which only had very limited access to labour, capital, and technologies of the day. While Singapore has undergone tremendous changes since colonial times, smallholder and small-scale agriculture has persisted.

This chapter will show, firstly, that smallholdings in the past several decades have expanded into pockets of spaces not specifically reserved for agriculture by the state, and secondly, that the state itself – having vested interests in local agriculture – has played no small role in providing smallholders with much-needed resources over the years.

The development of agricultural smallholdings in Malaysia remains important as an area of focus in Malaysian development policy. Common issues pertaining to smallholders in Malaysia have always related to the problems of underdevelopment and poverty. Most of the studies on small farmers or smallholders have focused on the issue of poverty among Malays (Thompson 2015; Buang 2007; Onn 1991; Omar 1986; Gibbons et al. 1980). Smallholders in Malaysia commonly include rice farmers, rubber tappers, coconut pickers, palm oil producers, fishermen, among others. Since Malaysia gained independence, problems of poverty have been a consistent issue for the government to address. Government intervention reached its peak during the period of the New Economic Policy (1971-1990), when large-scale programmes tasked with the promotion of smallholders were formally established. At present, while government policy continues to focus on smallholders, the contributions of this sector to rural livelihoods have been declining drastically.

The transformation of the agricultural smallholding sector since the early twentieth century has been due in large part to its integration into the global market – particularly since the introduction of rubber. Some other important factors have also included local socio-demographic, economic, and political processes. The introduction of the rubber economy in Malaysia began during the British colonization in the late nineteenth century, following the growth of industries utilizing rubber in Europe. Investment in large-scale rubber plantations was made largely by European merchant capitalists who had established trading in the Straits Settlements of Malaya (Penang, Malacca, Singapore). Many Chinese merchant capitalists were also involved in rubber plantations, albeit at a smaller scale.

This chapter explores the themes of procedural and substantive fairness in regulating consumer contracts in ASEAN member states. Most member states have regimes that address conduct by traders that impinges upon consumers’ ability to make free and informed decision about the contracts they enter, with prohibitions on misrepresentation and undue pressure. The treatment of unfair contract terms is less even across the region. Equally, in many circumstances the law that exists ‘on the books’ is not backed up by regulatory oversight. Consumers often lack the recourses to pursue claims of unfair conduct or terms and so an active and responsive regulator is essential to the vitality and effectiveness of the consumer protection regime. Nonetheless, it does not seem overly optimistic to suggest a growing awareness of the relevance of consumer protection in a thriving market economy, including prohibitions on substantive unfairness, or the possibility of a more unified approach consistent with the ASEAN way.

This chapter takes a regionalist perspective in exploring ways ASEAN can protect and advance consumer interests regarding consumer finance. Presently, ASEAN, as an organisation, is paying relatively little attention to the opportunities and challenges presented. The chapter explores some of the ‘traditional’ issues arising at the domestic level, including lenders: charging excessive interest rates; misleading and deceiving consumers; and harassing them or engaging in illegal activity when recovering loan repayments. Emerging issues include the rise of fintech. It offers new opportunities for financial inclusion, but also presents new challenges due to the rise of non-financial institution lenders, including those operating online platforms. Lack of proper regulation of these lenders risks regional financial instability and the exploitation of low-income consumers. Given the pace and complexity of change and the increasingly borderless nature of fintech, a regional approach could best assist with developing appropriate responses. The chapter proposes that enhanced shared knowledge and more effective networking amongst key players within ASEAN would advantage the region as a whole.

What is ‘ASEAN’ exactly? Is it a collective noun for describing ten states in Southeast Asia, or is ASEAN something more than that – and if so, what? These deceptively simple questions need answering to understand what has been achieved and what is achievable within and by ASEAN for consumers. This chapter therefore examines what is meant by the so-called ‘ASEAN way’ – a term frequently adopted by key players to explain and justify ASEAN’s role and existence. It also explores the influences of the European Union’s structures and instruments on ASEAN’s use of formal governance mechanisms and its use of concepts such as an ‘economic community’ to define itself. The chapter also considers ASEAN’s meaning and purpose from a range of theoretical perspectives, including: new regionalism; game theory and reciprocity; collective action; and social networks and the networked polity. The chapter further explores ways ASEAN can become more effective in advancing consumer interests through transgovernmentalism, ‘trading up’ and legal transplantation. Some of these perspectives are adopted when examining the topics covered in the following chapters in this volume.

This chapter introduces the backdrop to the achievements and challenges experienced as ASEAN has intensified its program of harmonising minimum standards of consumer protection across Southeast Asia, especially over the last decade. A key factor outlined is economic integration both among ASEAN member states and with their wider regional and global economies. Yet diversity among member states (demographics, economic development, legal and political systems, NGOs and press freedom) can influence the timing and extent of consumer law reform and implementation in each country. The chapter ends with summaries of the scope and key lessons of the remaining substantive chapters (examining product safety regulation, consumer contracts, financial and health services, and interaction of consumer law with competition law) as well as the concluding chapter (adding proposals for enhancing more public-private ‘shared regional value’).