The emergence and development of the dwarf farm pattern in South Poland

This research concerns the nature of the process of land fragmentation in rural Poland which resulted in the appearance and persistence of a specific type of peasant land tenure which can be described as the dwarf farm pattern. The investigation is focused primarily on South Poland, a region which was the former Austrian partition section of Poland known as Galicia (Galicja). The general approach of this study is characterized by two main features. First, this is a macro-study. Second, its frame of reference is primarily historical. Traditional explanations of dwarf farm development have centered on the role of rising population growth in combination with a Polish peasant inheritance ideology calling for the division of the farm among all its heirs. This explanation is both overly simplistic as well as misleading, as it tends to overlook other critical historical and ecological factors. Rather, it is my assertion that the dwarf farm pattern emerged as an unexpected and unwanted adaptation to a previously existing socio-economic structure which was faced with a severe demographic and economic crisis. The fact is that the Galician peasant was fully aware of the impending disaster in dividing the farm. But the alternatives were even more bleak. The lack of non-agricultural employment in the face of an economy which failed to industrialize exerted pressure upon the peasants to divide the land. Labor intensification on a smaller piece of land was the best possible alternative to their economic dilemma. In sum, it was not the mindless application of inheritance rules which caused the dwarf farm pattern, but rather the economic imperatives of poverty. In addressing this last question, it is necessary to understand the peasant inheritance ideology much more thoroughly than has often been the case. For example, the very assertion of the existence of a partible land inheritance ideology is questionable at best. In fact, the Galician peasant showed a very strong aversion to dividing the land. In many areas of Galicia, the principle of non-division of the farm was dominant. The ideal inheritance ideology was rather to give the farm to one son, who then had the obligation of paying off his other siblings as their share in the farm. The decision to subdivide the land was taken only when this solution proved no longer feasible