Rural-Urban Migration
In industrializing societies, the amount of migration from rural to urban areas is tremendous. Around 66% of the world’s population live in the cities of developing countries. Furthermore, the population of these cities is expected to keep growing. By 2015, the population of New York is expected to increase by about 1 million people, but the population of Bombay is expected to increase by about 12 million.In the United States it’s easy to see why people continue to move from the rural countryside into the urban city life. The U.S. is a very industrialized country that has many employment opportunities. The advancement of machinery has replaced the need for strenuous labor and people no longer have the desire from such a way of life. However for the people who continue to farm, some are forced to the city because farming can be very expensive and is often times a gamble. The weather plays a huge role in whether farmers have a prosperous year and make a profit. Many small farmers are being put out of business, because they no longer can compete with large farms and can’t generate enough earnings to stay in the industry.
However in other parts of the world rural-urban migration, is not considered to be better. For about 900 million poor people live in isolated, rural areas and rely on agriculture for their subsistence. As a result, a growing number of rural people in Africa, many parts of the Middle East, Latin America and Asia are migrating to cities in their quest of employment, even though there might only be few available jobs. In fact, rural-urban migration estimates for about 40 percent of today’s urban growth. Though this migration is not fueling economic growth in the developing world. Poverty is plainly migrating from rural areas to the cities. Rural development, therefore, must be the first step in fighting poverty, and an investment in agriculture is key. In most poor countries, agriculture is still the largest employer, job creator and export earner. Over and over agriculture has been the device that has driven economic growth.
Growing up on a dairy and beef farm that raises 2000 plus acres of crops, I know what’s like to have ups and downs in the agriculture business. We have found that insurance is very important. It provides a safety net for farmers if the crop or farm is somehow ruined by natural disasters, but unfortunately not all farmers are able to afford it. It can be pretty expensive. People in developing countries probably don’t have access to this, so whatever the atmospheric conditions are like, is what they have to live with. If they suffer from a drought, which produces a limited crop, they in turn progress into a continuing cycle of scarcity. It’s important for people to support farmers and the agriculture business, in order to prevent poverty, for they are the true food providers and they keep this world alive and healthy.
Rural-Urban Migration
posted by Anonymous @ 2/17/2006 09:34:00 PM
1 Comments:
Whenever I think of an urban area I think of a city the size of Minneapolis or St. Paul and occasionally St. Cloud may come to mind. From Mrs. Hartman’s lecture on Friday though, I found it interesting to learn that an urban city is defined as 2500+ people, which would make cities like Sauk Rapids, St. Joseph and even Sartell and urban city.
I come from an area that is about 60 miles south of here and even today this area would still be considered to be very rural. Many of the towns that surround the biggest city (Litchfield) are less than 1,000 people per town. As you get even further out of these towns everything becomes very spread out. The area is completely farmland past these towns. I would say the farms are somewhat spread out, but there are quite a few of them. Because of the lack of an urban town/city in that area many of the people live outside of these small towns and continue to rely on agriculture as a means of living. It’s shocking almost to visit because in our area we’re so used to houses, stores, and restaurants occupying every corner. No longer do we see many cornfields and farming areas directly in Sartell’s housing/business areas. This is why it is so interesting to visit towns near Litchfield because it still is complete corn and farm land with few houses and stores, which is something we are not used too.
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