34 SOCIAL SCIENTIST than 50 per cent of the recommended dosage, which is 865 kg per Ha and the average is 430 kg per Ha. Peopled Bank, Economic Review, Vol 6, Nos 6 and 7, Sept/Oct, 1980. 17 Labour charges were 53.4 per cent of the total cost of production in 1973. This increased to 55.3 in 1976 prior to the wage increases in 1977 and afterwards. (Statistical Abstracts, Department of Census and Statistics, 1977). At present labour charges are likely to be in the region of 60 per cent of the total cost. 18 MM Yoshino et al, "Climatic Fluctuation and its Effect on Paddy Production in Sri Lanka", Tsukuba University, 1982 (mimeo). 19 "Agricultural extension workers of all the large irrigation schemes have experienced that the convent! onaf system of water distribution results in the inadequacy of water to the^ail cnders of the distributary canals due to the luxury consumption of water by the top-enders. A recent socio-economic survey in two typical top-end turnout found that the former had higher yields and incomes (60 bu/ac and Rs 4387) compared to the bottom-enders (26 bu/ac and 2309) (Upasena 1980)", ^n SAB Ekanayake, "Agricultural Production in the Galnewa region, 198'!" (mimeo), p 11. 20 Historically the early planters could not secure labour on a regular basis for plantation work as plantation development did not proletarianizc the peasantry to any significant degree. Despite the negative effects created by the plantations, which reduced the availability of and access to highland, the peasantry of the areas concerned was strongly anchored in the village through paddy cultivation. The estates were considered sources of seasonal employmefnt by the villagers. While the plantation system stood still for over a hundred years with regard to labour relation and social organization considerable atfitudinal and value changes have taken place in the village communities, during the past 20 years. And the rural youth view the estate as a socially regressive set-up, with justification. They have seen the social stagnation of the plantation workers which they know is the result of the inner workings of the institution called estate. Some liberals, in the name of balanced view, have held that the economic level of the plantation workers was relatively better because of regular wage employment and higher family income. The higher family income is due to the availability of employment for children too. The statistical "proof" of higher family income in the estates notwithstanding, labour scarcities remain in' certain estates surrounded by villages. The village people know that the highet- family income presupposes a trade off of education of the children and hence a permanent state of immobility for generations. To enter the estate as resident workers would mean social regression to the Sinhala villages. Their reluctance is justifiable. 21 I have discussed the conceptualization of proletarianization and pauperization elsewhere. It may be summed, up as follows: Pauperization is a process of impoverishment of the peasant which is accompanied by a continuous decline in real income and often loss of land ownership but there is no qualitative change in the structural position of the agent as he returns to the land as tenant or settler. He may again go through the same vicious circle. Loss of ownership does not necessarily mean loss of access to land as cultivator. The availability of access to land via tenancy or through resettlement, coupled with an absence of wage employment pull powerful enough to absorb the "landless" peasant, perpetuates the circle. Proletarianization essentially involves a qualitative shift in the structural position of the agent. The separation of the producer from the means of production (and subsistence) is total and irreversible. He has nothing but his labour power for sale, through which alone he could obtain a wage for subsistence. Having made such a cjualitative distinction between the two processes we can speak of an intermediate situation in which peasants may become "semi-proletarians" when they enter independent wage relations outside their direct producer status.