The present study tries to analyse how far the agrarian structural factors like tenancy and scale are related to the level and composition of capital accumulation. Two tubewell irrigated villages of two different agro-ecological areas of Bangladesh have been picked up for the study. The paper implicitly employs the Schultzian model as its analytical framework. The study broadly confirm’s the Schultzian hypothesis that tenancy acts as an obstacle to ownership of capital items.

This paper analyses the long term (1949-84) growth of Bangladesh agriculture and factors contributing to it. It shows that the secular decline in per capita agricultural production is mainly due to stagnation during the late fifties and the early seventies, caused by natural factors and disruptions owing to the war of liberation. Production grew much faster than population during the sixties and the post-1975/76 period. In the sixties the growth originated mainly from an increase in multiple cropping and improvement in cultural practices. The seed-fertilizer-water technology which was introduced in the sixties contributed only one-fourth to the growth during the decade. The traditional source of growth seem to have dried up as the new technology accounts for about two thirds of the recent (post-1975) growth. The marginal increase in croppings intensity during the recent period was also associated with the expansion of irrigation. The paper argues that there is little scope for promoting future growth by providing price incentives; the future price scenario in fact may put a negative pressure on agricultural growth. It therefore recommends that the public policy should be directed to accelerating the diffusion of new agricultural technology.

The paper highlights the necessity of reform of the international monetary system and the consequent importance of financial cooperation amongst developing countries (FCDC). An assessment is made of the role that OPEC plays in transferring liquid assets to some developing countries following the massive build up of surplus capital due to the oil price hike in 1973/74. Fluctuations in oil prices have depleted this surplus to the extent of creating a deficit in OPEC’s external accounts, the major portion of the resources being in the hands of the advances industrial countries (AIC’s). The redeployment of this surplus to the DCs is thus likely to be constrained by OPEC’s vertcallinks with the AIC’s and their own obligations to their areas of local concern. PCDC will have to look for fresh initiatives within the third world to make any significant advances in the days ahead.