World Bank's assault on the small farmer

The real meaning of the new emphasis of the World Bank on lending to the ‘small farmer’ is an attack on the self-provisioning peasantry aimed at forcing them into closer participation in the market economy. This aim is sometimes achieved forcibly, as in settlement projects, and sometimes through manipulation of price relationships or through a change in tenure systems to create a private market in land. In all cases, credit is the chief instrument used -institutional credit as well as private usury can lead to debt peonage.