PIG FARMING AND THE STATE: RE-THINKING RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN POST-INDEPENDENCE SINGAPORE (1965-1990)

Abstract

This thesis is a history of how the state developed and then subsequently collapsed the pig farming sector in post-independence Singapore. As a history of rural sector development, this study is motivated by two historiographical shortcomings of existing narratives on Singapore's post-independence economic development. The first problem is one of scholarly focus. Scholars have generally directed their attention to explaining how state-led industrialisation engendered economic success in the post-independence period. Consequently, they have neglected to explain how the pre-industrial economy, which included a sizeable rural sector, figured in this transformation. The second historiographical problem is much more serious—in the absence of empirical research, scholars have readily assumed that the rural sector in post-independence Singapore did not exist, or that it was pathologically at odds with, and hence simply made way for, the industrial. This thesis attempts to clarify these historiographical inconsistencies by evaluating them against an empirical study of the pig farming sector in post-independence Singapore. In doing so, this thesis reveals that contrary to popular belief, the pig farming sector followed a general developmental trajectory of growth, rather than decline, between 1965 and 1990. Key to this was the activist role played by the state as a planner, agenda-setter, and driver in the development of the sector, which ensured that pig farming remained a viable and profitable enterprise amidst broader industrial-urban developments. This thesis therefore serves as a corrective to existing historiographical misconceptions regarding the place of the rural sector in an industrialising Singapore, and the role played by the state in this process.