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Chapter 12 Capital, Saving and Credit among Indigenous Rice Farmers and Immigrant Vegetable Farmers in Hong Kong’s New Territories ([1964] 2007)* Introduction Field of enquiry This essay discusses master farmers growing rice or vegetables as principal crops. Specialization in vegetable-growing is largely the concern of immigrants, while indigenous farmers, that is people whose ancestors settled in the area generations (sometimes centuries) ago, still specialize mainly in rice production. Rice was formerly the traditional crop of the New Territories, but has declined in importance in the last decade, giving way to market gardening. Increased vegetable production has been carried out mainly on former paddy land. The encouragement to change in farming patterns has been provided by the growth of the urban areas since the war, and has been almost entirely due to efforts of immigrants from the vegetable-specializing areas of Kwangtung [Guangdong] province. The first large influx of these farmers was about 1937 when the Japanese invaded South China. Since the establishment of the present regime in China, their numbers have increased so considerably that on census day in 1961, indigenous people were in the majority in only one district. A large proportion of all master farmers in the New Territories are either rice or vegetable specialists, and rear pigs as their main secondary agricultural activity. In 1961 some 24,000 master farmers were working in the area; about 8,000 grew principally rice, and a slightly larger number principally vegetables. Some 1,500 grew rice exclusively and 2,500 * First published in Capital, Saving and Credit in Peasant Societies: Studies from Asia, Oceania, the Caribbean and Middle America, ed. by Raymond Firth and B. S. Yamey, pp. 157–86. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company. Reprinted by permission of Aldine Transaction. 332 Chapter 12 vegetables exclusively (based on [Barnett], Hong Kong Report on the 1961 Census, Vol. III, Table 423). Both groups are essentially peasant producers operating on a small scale with simple technology, low level of capital and little hired labour. (There are also farmers principally concerned with other forms of production which are more highly capitalized, notably pigs, poultry and eggs, and fruit. They are relatively small in number, and, unlike rice farmers and most vegetable farmers, were originally city dwellers.) Most immigrant and indigenous farmers are distinguishable not only by the difference in crop-specialization, but also by differences in certain aspects of social organization, economic opportunity and political status. A comparison of the arrangements and attitudes of the two groups in relation to capital, savings and credit helps point up the relevance of social factors for economic problems. Discussion is confined to the New Territories because it is the main agricultural region of Hong Kong, and it also has certain economic and legal peculiarities. At present information on either social or economic organization in the area is extremely limited. Few studies have been carried out to date.1 My observations here are not based on field-work but on seven years’ residence in Hong Kong, two spent in the New Territories, together with some data obtained from documents and verbal communications largely from Government sources.2 My object is largely exploratory: to see what kind of outline of the situation can be built up on the existing information, and the kind of information which might be needed for a more detailed picture to emerge. 1 A trial survey into the economic conditions of some families in the New Territories was conducted in 1950 by Dr D. Y. Lin. The results are unpublished and available locally only in mimeographed form. A Hakka village was studied during 1957–58 by Miss Jean Pratt, an anthropologist of Cambridge University; a study of the “boat people”, a socially distinct group engaged in fishing, has been carried out by Miss Barbara Ward (Mrs. Stephen Morris), an anthropologist of London University; Mr. Potter, an anthropologist of Berkeley, California, is now making a general study of a Cantonese lineage village community; a geography graduate, Mr. Ronald Ng of Hong Kong University, is conducting a study on Lantao [Lantau] Island in the New Territories, of several village and immigrant groups with a view to discovering ways of improving their economic conditions; and a national income survey of the whole colony is being conducted by an economist, Mr. Roy Chang, of the University of the West Indies. The results of these various investigations are not yet available. 2 I am particularly grateful to a number of past and present District Officers for discussion and...

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