RURAL CREDIT AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN COLOMBIA

Recently the World Bank, aid donors, and others have shown greater interest in improving the income prospects of small farmers in LDC's. This interest springs in part from the fact that small farmers are at the bottom of the income ladder in many poor countries (though landless rural workers may be even worse off). Proposals to raise small farmer incomes have run the gamut from “wide‐spread” land reform to urban migration. Credit reallocation towards small and away from large farms has also been consistently advocated and has received renewed impetus due to the perceived failure of other alternative measures. Effective land reform has been found difficult to achieve short of full scale political revolution while enthusiasm for nonagricultural solutions has been tempered, at least until recently, by disappointing growth of high income employment opportunities in urban sectors.