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OECD agricultural policy reports: Agricultural policy in Austria (45 pp.), Agricultural policy in Iceland (26 pp.)
76
BOOK REVIEWS
completely consumed. He is mainly concerned with the current effects of government policies on water utilisation and the efficiency of its use, and with the policy changes he sees as necessary to halt the over-drawing of groundwater reserves and obtain an overall improvement in use-efficiency. He argues that these objectives can best be achieved by creating a market for water rights and second by removing the subsidies which discourage economies. (Under the latter he includes large public spending on capital works to provide surface water, cheap credit for private investment, tax concessions to those prepared to invest, and electricity prices for pumping which are below those charged to other consumers.) He suggests that it is only by these means that rather complex adjustment of the location and scale of investment and water management can be achieved. The efl%cts of the necessary changes, the author implies, would be to concentrate water control in the hands of more efficient (albeit probably fewer) farmers. It is at this point that the second big question of our time will occur to the reader; namely, how can organisation be introduced into a situation so as to restrain the natural tendency, where resources are scarce, for their control to pass into fewer hands with a consequent increasing asymmetry of incomes? Where incomes are high, income redistribution may be achievable by taxation; elsewhere it may only be possible by regulating resource control. The author, while obviously aware of the issue, does not deal with it in any detail. The book is well structured overall; its eight chapters include introductory and concluding ones which together tell the story in brief. There are even summaries at the end of each chapter for the ‘busy’ reader. The meat of each chapter is not, however, entirely without blemish. There are both repetitions and omissions. There are also occasionally sections where the reader is required to absorb rather more statistics in the text than seem strictly necessary, yet at other points he would like to know more-about farm and household structures and levels of living and the market environment, for instance. Nevertheless, the book is timely, stimulating and cogently argued, and could well be useful as a case study in policy studies. But that is not to say a closer look at social structure and at alternative social objectives might not have produced different conclusions about the kinds of policy required in the Cuyo region. D.S.THORNTON
OECD Agricultural Policy Reports: Agricultural Policy in Austria (45 pp.), Agricultural Policy in Iceland (26 pp.). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris, 1976. The members of the OECD are 24 developed countries without centrally planned economies. These pamphlets, together with a final summary report, complete a
BOOK
77
REVIEWS
series of country reports on agricultural policy, each of which contains some information of interest to the agricultural administrator. The Austrian report, for instance, has interesting sections outlining the organisation of the marketing of cereals, milk and dairy products, livestock and meat, eggs and poultry, and sugar beet. The markets for each of these commodities are controlled or supervised by a marketing board or a less formal organisation which, in each case, seems to be more concerned with price stabilisation, etc., than with improved efficiency. Of more general interest, perhaps, is the Austrian ‘Green Plan’, which is a two-pronged improvement programme aimed at (a) the individual producer and (b) the rural infrastructure. The first part, (a), concentrates on credit aid for farm buildings, mechanisation, forestry measures and other improvements in potential farm efficiency; the loan is to the farmer, who is usually also the landowner. The second part, (b), stimulates (or provides for) the consolidation of fragmented farms, land levelling, rural electrification, rural roads, farm credit, drainage and irrigation works, special aid for mountain farms, and extension of ‘welfare state’ benefits to those who work on the land. (The problems of poor rural infrastructure are, this list implies, not confined to developing countries but are found in parts of many developed countries.) The total cost of (a) and(b) to the Government is about 10 % of total agricultural output. About two-thirds of Iceland has no vegetation; the area under glaciers exceeds that in agriculture. There are only about 5000 farmers. Sheep (grazed on the limited made pastures and extensive ‘rough grazing’) are the traditional mainstay. But there are some cattle, and greenhouse vegetable production, based on Iceland’s great resources of geothermal energy, is increasing. The most interesting administrative features appear to be the key role of agricultural marketing co-operatives, the apparent incompatibility of some of the country’s policy objectives and the complexity of the price, income and subsidy policies. Prices at farm, wholesale and retail levels are determined by a committee representing various agricultural and consumer organisations, but not the Government. The latter, however, then announces the ‘level of subsidies [payable to food processors and] applicable to selected commodities, thus determining the final retail price’. The net effect is that the Government subsidies equal a third or more of the gross farm value of output. This is another example of the interesting administrative devices which have been used, with varying success, to reconcile producers’ and consumers’ demands and to subsidise food production and consumption. A. N.
DUCKHAM
BOOK REVIEWS
completely consumed. He is mainly concerned with the current effects of government policies on water utilisation and the efficiency of its use, and with the policy changes he sees as necessary to halt the over-drawing of groundwater reserves and obtain an overall improvement in use-efficiency. He argues that these objectives can best be achieved by creating a market for water rights and second by removing the subsidies which discourage economies. (Under the latter he includes large public spending on capital works to provide surface water, cheap credit for private investment, tax concessions to those prepared to invest, and electricity prices for pumping which are below those charged to other consumers.) He suggests that it is only by these means that rather complex adjustment of the location and scale of investment and water management can be achieved. The efl%cts of the necessary changes, the author implies, would be to concentrate water control in the hands of more efficient (albeit probably fewer) farmers. It is at this point that the second big question of our time will occur to the reader; namely, how can organisation be introduced into a situation so as to restrain the natural tendency, where resources are scarce, for their control to pass into fewer hands with a consequent increasing asymmetry of incomes? Where incomes are high, income redistribution may be achievable by taxation; elsewhere it may only be possible by regulating resource control. The author, while obviously aware of the issue, does not deal with it in any detail. The book is well structured overall; its eight chapters include introductory and concluding ones which together tell the story in brief. There are even summaries at the end of each chapter for the ‘busy’ reader. The meat of each chapter is not, however, entirely without blemish. There are both repetitions and omissions. There are also occasionally sections where the reader is required to absorb rather more statistics in the text than seem strictly necessary, yet at other points he would like to know more-about farm and household structures and levels of living and the market environment, for instance. Nevertheless, the book is timely, stimulating and cogently argued, and could well be useful as a case study in policy studies. But that is not to say a closer look at social structure and at alternative social objectives might not have produced different conclusions about the kinds of policy required in the Cuyo region. D.S.THORNTON
OECD Agricultural Policy Reports: Agricultural Policy in Austria (45 pp.), Agricultural Policy in Iceland (26 pp.). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris, 1976. The members of the OECD are 24 developed countries without centrally planned economies. These pamphlets, together with a final summary report, complete a
BOOK
77
REVIEWS
series of country reports on agricultural policy, each of which contains some information of interest to the agricultural administrator. The Austrian report, for instance, has interesting sections outlining the organisation of the marketing of cereals, milk and dairy products, livestock and meat, eggs and poultry, and sugar beet. The markets for each of these commodities are controlled or supervised by a marketing board or a less formal organisation which, in each case, seems to be more concerned with price stabilisation, etc., than with improved efficiency. Of more general interest, perhaps, is the Austrian ‘Green Plan’, which is a two-pronged improvement programme aimed at (a) the individual producer and (b) the rural infrastructure. The first part, (a), concentrates on credit aid for farm buildings, mechanisation, forestry measures and other improvements in potential farm efficiency; the loan is to the farmer, who is usually also the landowner. The second part, (b), stimulates (or provides for) the consolidation of fragmented farms, land levelling, rural electrification, rural roads, farm credit, drainage and irrigation works, special aid for mountain farms, and extension of ‘welfare state’ benefits to those who work on the land. (The problems of poor rural infrastructure are, this list implies, not confined to developing countries but are found in parts of many developed countries.) The total cost of (a) and(b) to the Government is about 10 % of total agricultural output. About two-thirds of Iceland has no vegetation; the area under glaciers exceeds that in agriculture. There are only about 5000 farmers. Sheep (grazed on the limited made pastures and extensive ‘rough grazing’) are the traditional mainstay. But there are some cattle, and greenhouse vegetable production, based on Iceland’s great resources of geothermal energy, is increasing. The most interesting administrative features appear to be the key role of agricultural marketing co-operatives, the apparent incompatibility of some of the country’s policy objectives and the complexity of the price, income and subsidy policies. Prices at farm, wholesale and retail levels are determined by a committee representing various agricultural and consumer organisations, but not the Government. The latter, however, then announces the ‘level of subsidies [payable to food processors and] applicable to selected commodities, thus determining the final retail price’. The net effect is that the Government subsidies equal a third or more of the gross farm value of output. This is another example of the interesting administrative devices which have been used, with varying success, to reconcile producers’ and consumers’ demands and to subsidise food production and consumption. A. N.
DUCKHAM