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Agriculture, the countryside and land use: an economic critique
lournal of Rural Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 193-204 Pergamon Press Ltd. 1985. Printed in Great Britain
Book Reviews Rural Britain - - a Social Geography, D. Phillips and A .
Nowhere is this shortcoming more apparent than in the chapter on Deprivation which does little more than drag the plough through fields which, for many readers, are already very well furrowed. It also emerges with the concluding chapter on Policy Issues and The Future in which tantalising questions are raised and just as quickly dropped. The authors, for example, very rightly criticise the planning system for its failure to co-ordinate physical and social policies. They also identify economic recession and fiscal constraints as major barriers to plan implementation. Yet little reference is made to the all-important socio-political context within which planning operates as a possible explanation for the failure of physical planning in rural areas. There is a school of thought which would identify just such processes as a more critical determinant of rural well-being whether that well-being is defined in environmental or social/welfare terms.
Williams, 1984, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, £7.50
The re-growth of interest in the rural environment as a popular subject of academic and public policy concern has spawned a wealth of published material, much of which is probably more easy (and advisable) to weigh than to read. Occasionally a book emerges which promises to provide new perspectives on the issues which will advance our knowledge and understanding of the very complex system we call rural Britain. This latest book by Phillips and Williams could be placed in this category although whether the promise is fulfilled is a matter of conjecture. As reflects the theme of many recent conferences on the theme of rural Britain, the book sets out to make the case for what they themselves describe as the 'political economy approach' to an understanding of rural problems. For the authors this is perceived as an integrated approach to the study of rural issues in which the interrelationships between social, economic and political processes are highlighted.
Such criticisms, however, must not be allowed to detract from the overall value of this book in the geographical literature on rural areas. The authors have produced a very readable text which, if used intelligently, should be a valuable addition to the bibliographies of many courses in rural geography and related studies. The text is clearly, if selectively, illustrated and the book contains a considerable bibliography which in itself is a fitting testament to the growth of interest in the general topic of rural studies.
As an alternative to the academic apartheid which has characterised rural studies in the past, such an approach is to be welcomed. Unfortunately, the book does not fully carry through this desirable approach in its succeeding chapters. Instead, an essentially thematic approach is adopted to the study of a now familiar range of rural issues - - Employment, Population, Housing, Accessibility, Services and Recreation. Additional chapters deal with the Role of Planning in the Countryside debate and the more recent academic chart-topper - - Rural Deprivation. Within each of these themes, the authors draw on the growing volume of current research to paint up-to-date pictures of rural Britain and to provide a range of alternative explanations for the processes of change. In this respect, the book makes a reasonable attempt to move away from the conventional comparative static/descriptive approach which has characterised much geographical work in the past. Unfortunately, the authors tend to fall into the trap which they are so keen to avoid in their introduction. Analysis, evaluation and prescription tends to be undertaken within the compartments of the chapter headings and the interrelationships and overlaps between some of the themes are either ignored or given scanty treatment. One such example which might have benefited from a closer evaluation and exposition is the relationship between changing socio-economic composition of rural populations and the nature of effective control in local decision making. In this context, some discussion of the resource allocation processes of central and local authorities in respect of rural areas would also have provided important linking themes, i.e. not just what is allocated or how much, but how are priorities decided, by whom and for whose benefit.
One final curiosity intrigues the reviewer. Was the decision to use the same cover illustration as that used in the recently published Arts Council catalogue for the exhibition 'Landscape in Britain 1850-1950' a total coincidence or are the authors trying to tell us something about the importance of images in the general rural debate? BRIAN McLAUGHLIN
School of Planning Chelmer Institute of Higher Education Chelmsford, U.K. Agriculture, the Countryside and Land Use: an Economic Critique, J.K. Bowers and P. Cheshire, 1983, Methuen,
London, xii + 170 pp, £4.95
Any lingering .impression that the British countryside is static and unchanging must surely have been destroyed over the last decade. Even since this book appeared in late 1983 events have moved apace with the imposition of milk quotas for dairy farmers, new reviews of problems and policy by august bodies such as the Nature Conservancy Council, Forestry Commission, and Countryside Commission, and talk of amendments to the Wildlife & Countryside Act - - legislation which only reached the statute book as recently as 1981. This does not mean that the Bowers and Cheshire book is already dated, for the 193
194
Book Reviews
most valuable aspect of this book is the stimulating analysis of post-war British agricultural policy and its effects on the countryside. The sub-title is all important for what they offer is a punchy critique of the economic case for supporting British agriculture, both in and out of Europe. The book is not a standard text on land use: it is thin on ecology and on land use planning. Although the concern of the authors as campaigners is very much with the appearance of the countryside in terms of landscape values and wildlife habitats, there is little mention of the role of planners nor of statutory land use designations, for the authors are convinced that the negative changes in our countryside are a direct result of misguided agricultural policies. Agricultural change 'does not result from some deus ex machina of disembodied technical progress but from direct human intervention by policy makers, by ideologically based and in the main, publicly directed research and, above all, by a hearty slice of public money.' And so it is scarcely surprising that their solution presupposes the wholesale dismantling of the agricultural support system. Grants of all kinds, for drainage, buildings or machinery, are to go, and prices are to return to world market levels. The authors appear to have few scruples about the possible social and economic consequences of such a transition. Farm amalgamations must proceed more rapidly to produce a leaner smaller population of farmers surviving not through intensive exploitation of relatively small areas of land but through extensive farming over larger acreages. Bowers and Cheshire are not ones to mince their words on this new look agriculture: 'decreased prosperity in agriculture would lead to decreased land prices and consequently to decreased intensity of exploitation of land and lower capital investment in agriculture.' It is all beguiling stuff and yet is it really the path which Britain can or even should go down? Bowers and Cheshire's analysis of the content and effects of post-war agricultural policies, and their understanding of the economic case for and against agricultural support is well documented and provides an excellent introduction to the subject. Their chapters on agricultural policy in Britain prior to entry into Europe, and under the CAP, can be highly recommended to fresh students to the subject. It is well-written and to the point. True there are points of interpretation with which many will take (and have taken) issue. I, for one, am not happy with their view that 'increases in farm sizes have contributed little to the postwar development of agriculture . . . the incentives for farm amalgamation have been weak'. Such caveats aside, their over-view is good: but when it comes to policy prescription I have graver doubts. First there is the question of the politics of agriculture. An economic critique is one thing, a political-economic critique quite another. It is purely platitudinous to claim that their economic arguments should have 'a strong appeal if they are subject to rational analysis rather than pressure group politics'. Agricultural policy decisions are political ones. Future decisions will be based on recent political history, relations between government and the groups involved, as well as the force of economic argument emanating from the Treasury or elsewhere. The fate of Welsh hill farmers or Devon dairy farmers, not to mention East Anglian barley barons with cousins in the Cabinet, is of political moment. Moreover, the existing government agencies, on the conservation side as well as
on the agricultural side, are committed to certain approaches. This is not to suggest that powerful economic arguments should not be marshalled but more attention really should be given to how policy changes actually are to be brought about. Such consideration would surely lead many to two conclusions, which do not seem to be considered by Bowers and Cheshire. First, that agricultural support - - if cut - - will be cut relatively slowly with farmers given no categorical five or ten year plans. There will be ebbs and flows in the political arguments and the changes will be ad hoc and at times clear trends will be difficult to discern. In this situation different farmers will react in quite different ways in a highly fragmented and heterogeneous industry. Certainly some family farmers with limited alternatives will be tempted to hang on and even intensify production. The imposition of milk quotas has already thrown up examples of 'the squeeze' producing adverse environmental effects rather than the contrary. Cutting support will undoubtedly reduce agricultural intensification in the long run but at what environmental cost in the short term? Secondly the social and economic consequences of any policies cannot be ignored. Small farmers, in particular, cannot be wished away. So at the risk of fudging the economic realities so sharply delineated in this book I for one find myself returning to ideas of improving land designation procedures and enforcement, the vexed question of planning controls, and above all ways of finding the right 'carrot and stick' combination in agricultural policy. I fear that the policies of Bowers and Cheshire offer far too little carrot for their ideas to reach the political agenda in the foreseeable future. MICHAEL WINTER School of Humanities and Social Sciences University of Bath, U.K. Local Plans in British Land Use Planning, P. Healey, Pergamon Press, Oxford, £16.50 hardback
Patsy Healey has undertaken a much greater task than is suggested by the title of her book. Though she may have started her research with local planning practice, she has widened its scope to encompass the whole of the British planning system and considered it within theoretical frameworks. The result is a very scholarly, well informed and dense text, not easy to read but which makes the reader pause and reflect on every page. The book is divided into three parts: the first looks at the justification for government intervention in land policy and the evolution of land use planning since 1947, with particular emphasis on policy and practice in the '70s. Part two analyses aspects of local planning practice and tries to answer a number of important questions such as the discretion available to district authorities when preparing plans. One chapter examines seven plans covering a variety of areas. From this, Patsy Healey draws conclusions on what kinds of documents they are and what they are prepared for. She also pinpoints the difference between stated intentions and implementation, and questions the validity of local plans in achieving a number of objectives: 'Thus as tools, local plans are of no great importance to local authorities except where they will have to resist a significant amount of development pressure.'
Book Reviews Rural Britain - - a Social Geography, D. Phillips and A .
Nowhere is this shortcoming more apparent than in the chapter on Deprivation which does little more than drag the plough through fields which, for many readers, are already very well furrowed. It also emerges with the concluding chapter on Policy Issues and The Future in which tantalising questions are raised and just as quickly dropped. The authors, for example, very rightly criticise the planning system for its failure to co-ordinate physical and social policies. They also identify economic recession and fiscal constraints as major barriers to plan implementation. Yet little reference is made to the all-important socio-political context within which planning operates as a possible explanation for the failure of physical planning in rural areas. There is a school of thought which would identify just such processes as a more critical determinant of rural well-being whether that well-being is defined in environmental or social/welfare terms.
Williams, 1984, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, £7.50
The re-growth of interest in the rural environment as a popular subject of academic and public policy concern has spawned a wealth of published material, much of which is probably more easy (and advisable) to weigh than to read. Occasionally a book emerges which promises to provide new perspectives on the issues which will advance our knowledge and understanding of the very complex system we call rural Britain. This latest book by Phillips and Williams could be placed in this category although whether the promise is fulfilled is a matter of conjecture. As reflects the theme of many recent conferences on the theme of rural Britain, the book sets out to make the case for what they themselves describe as the 'political economy approach' to an understanding of rural problems. For the authors this is perceived as an integrated approach to the study of rural issues in which the interrelationships between social, economic and political processes are highlighted.
Such criticisms, however, must not be allowed to detract from the overall value of this book in the geographical literature on rural areas. The authors have produced a very readable text which, if used intelligently, should be a valuable addition to the bibliographies of many courses in rural geography and related studies. The text is clearly, if selectively, illustrated and the book contains a considerable bibliography which in itself is a fitting testament to the growth of interest in the general topic of rural studies.
As an alternative to the academic apartheid which has characterised rural studies in the past, such an approach is to be welcomed. Unfortunately, the book does not fully carry through this desirable approach in its succeeding chapters. Instead, an essentially thematic approach is adopted to the study of a now familiar range of rural issues - - Employment, Population, Housing, Accessibility, Services and Recreation. Additional chapters deal with the Role of Planning in the Countryside debate and the more recent academic chart-topper - - Rural Deprivation. Within each of these themes, the authors draw on the growing volume of current research to paint up-to-date pictures of rural Britain and to provide a range of alternative explanations for the processes of change. In this respect, the book makes a reasonable attempt to move away from the conventional comparative static/descriptive approach which has characterised much geographical work in the past. Unfortunately, the authors tend to fall into the trap which they are so keen to avoid in their introduction. Analysis, evaluation and prescription tends to be undertaken within the compartments of the chapter headings and the interrelationships and overlaps between some of the themes are either ignored or given scanty treatment. One such example which might have benefited from a closer evaluation and exposition is the relationship between changing socio-economic composition of rural populations and the nature of effective control in local decision making. In this context, some discussion of the resource allocation processes of central and local authorities in respect of rural areas would also have provided important linking themes, i.e. not just what is allocated or how much, but how are priorities decided, by whom and for whose benefit.
One final curiosity intrigues the reviewer. Was the decision to use the same cover illustration as that used in the recently published Arts Council catalogue for the exhibition 'Landscape in Britain 1850-1950' a total coincidence or are the authors trying to tell us something about the importance of images in the general rural debate? BRIAN McLAUGHLIN
School of Planning Chelmer Institute of Higher Education Chelmsford, U.K. Agriculture, the Countryside and Land Use: an Economic Critique, J.K. Bowers and P. Cheshire, 1983, Methuen,
London, xii + 170 pp, £4.95
Any lingering .impression that the British countryside is static and unchanging must surely have been destroyed over the last decade. Even since this book appeared in late 1983 events have moved apace with the imposition of milk quotas for dairy farmers, new reviews of problems and policy by august bodies such as the Nature Conservancy Council, Forestry Commission, and Countryside Commission, and talk of amendments to the Wildlife & Countryside Act - - legislation which only reached the statute book as recently as 1981. This does not mean that the Bowers and Cheshire book is already dated, for the 193
194
Book Reviews
most valuable aspect of this book is the stimulating analysis of post-war British agricultural policy and its effects on the countryside. The sub-title is all important for what they offer is a punchy critique of the economic case for supporting British agriculture, both in and out of Europe. The book is not a standard text on land use: it is thin on ecology and on land use planning. Although the concern of the authors as campaigners is very much with the appearance of the countryside in terms of landscape values and wildlife habitats, there is little mention of the role of planners nor of statutory land use designations, for the authors are convinced that the negative changes in our countryside are a direct result of misguided agricultural policies. Agricultural change 'does not result from some deus ex machina of disembodied technical progress but from direct human intervention by policy makers, by ideologically based and in the main, publicly directed research and, above all, by a hearty slice of public money.' And so it is scarcely surprising that their solution presupposes the wholesale dismantling of the agricultural support system. Grants of all kinds, for drainage, buildings or machinery, are to go, and prices are to return to world market levels. The authors appear to have few scruples about the possible social and economic consequences of such a transition. Farm amalgamations must proceed more rapidly to produce a leaner smaller population of farmers surviving not through intensive exploitation of relatively small areas of land but through extensive farming over larger acreages. Bowers and Cheshire are not ones to mince their words on this new look agriculture: 'decreased prosperity in agriculture would lead to decreased land prices and consequently to decreased intensity of exploitation of land and lower capital investment in agriculture.' It is all beguiling stuff and yet is it really the path which Britain can or even should go down? Bowers and Cheshire's analysis of the content and effects of post-war agricultural policies, and their understanding of the economic case for and against agricultural support is well documented and provides an excellent introduction to the subject. Their chapters on agricultural policy in Britain prior to entry into Europe, and under the CAP, can be highly recommended to fresh students to the subject. It is well-written and to the point. True there are points of interpretation with which many will take (and have taken) issue. I, for one, am not happy with their view that 'increases in farm sizes have contributed little to the postwar development of agriculture . . . the incentives for farm amalgamation have been weak'. Such caveats aside, their over-view is good: but when it comes to policy prescription I have graver doubts. First there is the question of the politics of agriculture. An economic critique is one thing, a political-economic critique quite another. It is purely platitudinous to claim that their economic arguments should have 'a strong appeal if they are subject to rational analysis rather than pressure group politics'. Agricultural policy decisions are political ones. Future decisions will be based on recent political history, relations between government and the groups involved, as well as the force of economic argument emanating from the Treasury or elsewhere. The fate of Welsh hill farmers or Devon dairy farmers, not to mention East Anglian barley barons with cousins in the Cabinet, is of political moment. Moreover, the existing government agencies, on the conservation side as well as
on the agricultural side, are committed to certain approaches. This is not to suggest that powerful economic arguments should not be marshalled but more attention really should be given to how policy changes actually are to be brought about. Such consideration would surely lead many to two conclusions, which do not seem to be considered by Bowers and Cheshire. First, that agricultural support - - if cut - - will be cut relatively slowly with farmers given no categorical five or ten year plans. There will be ebbs and flows in the political arguments and the changes will be ad hoc and at times clear trends will be difficult to discern. In this situation different farmers will react in quite different ways in a highly fragmented and heterogeneous industry. Certainly some family farmers with limited alternatives will be tempted to hang on and even intensify production. The imposition of milk quotas has already thrown up examples of 'the squeeze' producing adverse environmental effects rather than the contrary. Cutting support will undoubtedly reduce agricultural intensification in the long run but at what environmental cost in the short term? Secondly the social and economic consequences of any policies cannot be ignored. Small farmers, in particular, cannot be wished away. So at the risk of fudging the economic realities so sharply delineated in this book I for one find myself returning to ideas of improving land designation procedures and enforcement, the vexed question of planning controls, and above all ways of finding the right 'carrot and stick' combination in agricultural policy. I fear that the policies of Bowers and Cheshire offer far too little carrot for their ideas to reach the political agenda in the foreseeable future. MICHAEL WINTER School of Humanities and Social Sciences University of Bath, U.K. Local Plans in British Land Use Planning, P. Healey, Pergamon Press, Oxford, £16.50 hardback
Patsy Healey has undertaken a much greater task than is suggested by the title of her book. Though she may have started her research with local planning practice, she has widened its scope to encompass the whole of the British planning system and considered it within theoretical frameworks. The result is a very scholarly, well informed and dense text, not easy to read but which makes the reader pause and reflect on every page. The book is divided into three parts: the first looks at the justification for government intervention in land policy and the evolution of land use planning since 1947, with particular emphasis on policy and practice in the '70s. Part two analyses aspects of local planning practice and tries to answer a number of important questions such as the discretion available to district authorities when preparing plans. One chapter examines seven plans covering a variety of areas. From this, Patsy Healey draws conclusions on what kinds of documents they are and what they are prepared for. She also pinpoints the difference between stated intentions and implementation, and questions the validity of local plans in achieving a number of objectives: 'Thus as tools, local plans are of no great importance to local authorities except where they will have to resist a significant amount of development pressure.'