Economics for agriculture: Food, farming and the rural economy

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Book Reviews

national and group level. ‘The book is based on the premise that theoretical and poverty debates on development and underdevelopment at the world scale bear a very strong resemblance to theories and policies on poverty and inequality within countries’ (p. 1). The dual task is thus to document the extent of poverty and inequality at the international and country levels, and to assess the usefulness of theoretical literature that purports to explain both these patterns. Chapter 1 reviews theories of development and underunder the headings of modernisation development, theory, dependency theory, Marxist theories and the nonMarxist structuralist approach. The modernisation and Marxist theories are found defective by virtue of their evolutionary perspective and emphasis on internal considerations, while the weakness of dependency theory is that, while stressing external factors, it marginalises internal political conditions. George’s preference is for the left but non-Marxist structuralist approach, ‘because it does not make class the crucial variable in the analysis. It acknowledges that in Third World countries today ethnicity, tribalism and religion can be as import~t dimensions of political power as class’ (p. 40). He recognises the inadequacies of the present state of development theory, suggesting that country case studies seem to be the best way forward for the refinement of theory. The next two chapters provide broad-ranging reviews of economic growth, wealth and income inequalities (Chapter 2) and poverty in advanced industrial societies (Chapter 3). Facts and figures from various countries are presented, including some useful tables (e.g. on income distribution within nations, Table 2.6). The theories from Chapter 1 are brought to bear, showing how they interpret particular facets of the general problem of inequality. The author’s preferred perspective leads to the conclusion that, ‘class, gender and ethnicity are the main determinants of a person’s life chances and whether he or she will be wealthy, comfortably well off or impoverished in societies where grossly unequal earnings from private property and from work are the norm’ (p. 116). An interesting and perceptive review of famine, starvation and poverty in the Third World (Chapter 4) is followed by a chapter seeking to explain this, covering the internai factors of geographical conditions (i.e. resources), social values, population and government policies, but placing most emphasis on the external economic factors of trade, aid and international debt. The complex network of financial transactions between advanced industrial nations works to the advantage of the former, so that even the best governments with the most appropriate policies to combat poverty will fail. Policies of self-reliance are advocated in the concluding Chapter 6, but progress at ‘an exasperating snail-like pace’ is all that can be expected. Returning to the jacket blurb, this book ‘will be widely read and adopted by students in a wide range of social science courses, especially in politics, economics, sociology and social policy’. While there is much interesting material and sensible interpretation presented in a highly readable way, it is hard to see students buying this brief text at f28.50 for the hard cover edition supplied for review. This reviewer would recommend a paperback at little more than a tenth of the price, especiahy for the discussion of starvation and poverty in the Third World, but for one major defect: the absence of any real sense of geographical space and its role in developmentlunderdevelopment throughout the book, along with a failure to

adopt the author’s own prescription of country case studies to provide firmer and more detailed evidence. Another defect, common to texts of this type, is insufficient attention to socialist countries, which is surprising for an author who has published on the Soviet Union. Depth is inevitably sacrificed for breadth in a text of this length, in the discussion of theory as well as of the empirical materials. What is really required is twice the book at half the price, which should not be beyond either the author’s impressive knowIedge or the economics of a publisher seriously seeking wide student adoption. Finally, the text is by no means error-free: that this reviewer’s initials are wrong in the bibliography is one of a number of slips spotted in sample checks. DAVID M. SMITH

Department of Geography Queen Mary College University of London, U.K.

Economics for Agriculture: Food, Farming and the Rural Economy, B. Hill and D. Ray, xxii + 439 pp., 1988, Macmillan, Basingstoke, f30.00 hb, f12.95 pb

Textbooks on agricultural economics tend to take a depressingly similar approach to the subject, one unlikely to inspire any but the most dedicated students. They begin with firm (usually unstated) neo-classical assumptions, leaving some of the most interesting and challenging questions buried underneath the ceterb paribus clause. We then proceed through the familiar models of supply-side economics, dwell briefly on the effects of price elasticities and technological change and venture into the baroque world of cobweb cycles and suchlike. With a pained sigh ‘structural’ questions are given an (inconsequential) airing and, grudgingly, government ‘interference’ is acknowledged as something which, regrettably, will always be with us. We end on a few ‘policy’ questions - usually confined to safe matters like producer cartels, deficiency payments and factor substitution - designed to give a largely false sense of controversy. In this way most of the really important issues about agriculture are either reduced to technical questions or omitted altogether. Hill and Ray have produced something different. Admittedly they, too, present neo-classical assumptions as fully attested fact, but here much of the similarity with the above parody ends. It is indicative of their approach that supply-side analysis does not begin until Chapter 10. Indeed, the book begins from an analysis not of farming at all, but of food consumption and proceeds back along the food chain until agricultural factors of production are encountered at Chapter 6. Their contention, quite rightly, is that agriculture produces a number of things, not only crops and animals but countryside, wildlife habitats, political power and numerous other entities not usually referred to between the covers of such textbooks. As a result this book is, by some distance, the best textbook on agricultural economics that I have read. Hill and Ray have attempted to open up the field of agricuitural economics rather than hedge it in with the artificial constructs beloved of their predecessors. In consequence, the book is factually informative as well as analytically broad-ranging. Students reared on this fair will not be so liable to mind closure. There is no intrinsic reason why the running on nutritional, environmental and welfare issue

Book Keviews should have been made elsewhere. Agricultural economics has a lot to offer, if only its students are allowed to consider them. If this is a sign that agricultural economics is moving out of its traditionally narrow approach - and it is by no means the only sign of this - then it is a development which other social scientists must welcome. It is, however, a transitional book. There remains a reluctance to introduce students to alternative approaches to economics, let alone alternative approaches to some of the policy questions. Sociologists, of course, usually adopt the opposite stance - every question must have at least five sides and ‘equal time for Judas Iscariot’ is elevated to an epistemological principle; but at this particular historical juncture, when the future of agriculture and land use is being hotly debated, it is surely permissible for textbooks on agricultural economics to give some indication to students about the strengths and limitations of any particular approach. Hill and Ray, therefore, are not so much innovative in their approach to economics as in their willingness to incorporate material from other disciplines (mainly political science, geography and sociology) and to extend their discussion to unconventional, topical, areas. It is refreshing. and by no means illegitimate, to discover sections on food processing and retailing, environmental conservation, alternative farm enterprises and the social stratification of the farming industry. They summarise existing bodies of literature clearly and succinctly and manage to knit together their diverse sources into a recognisably coherent narrative. Their students at Wye College have clearly been well served and now students elsewhere will benefit from their diligence. In conclusion, it is tempting to speculate on whether the full transition at a multi-disciplinary approach to ‘food, farming and the rural economy’ will be made in the textbooks of the future. Clearly, students of agricultural economics have a right to expect that they will be able to become conversant with the full range of techniques required of professional economists; and anyone who would suggest that these techniques are irrelevant to the analysis of agriculture is just plain silly. The trick will be to produce a generation of students who are properly trained but whose minds are opened up by this process rather than prematurely constricted. Many of the issues being debated today concerning the future of the countryside have stolen up on the agricultural economics profession from outside. The stultifying nature of many past textbooks has undoubtedly contributed to this. Hill and Ray demonstrate that there is more to agricultural economics than production functions. Now students may be encouraged to look at the ceteris paribus clauses, too. This is a book which may yet bring glasnost to agricultural economics. HOWARD NEWBY Chairman, ESRC Swindon, U.K.

Environmental Management in Agriculture: European Perspectives, Park, J.R. (ed.), 260 pp., 1988, Belhaven

Press, London and New York (for the Commission of the European Communities), f25 hb, ISBN l-85293-036-5 This is a book ahead of its time, but in a slightly sad way. It contains the proceedings of a workshop in July 1987,

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organised by the European Commission. There are contributions from most northern European community nations, and Portugal. At a time of set-aside, with opportunities for habitat recreation being canvassed one looks to it for guidance on target areas for agricultural change. That is the sadness - it was a little too early to address those questions directly. The structure is well organised and encouraging. Two assays by Britons set the scene. Tinker foresees a future driven by a mixture of technological and economic imperatives leading to a rough division of land use between intensively if not brutally farmed areas, and large acreages which may be barely farmed at all. Hooper gives a brief review of the various methodologies and projects underway in the U.K. for monitoring landscape and habitat. Subsequently the book divides into four. A series of national reports covering seven countries; then sections on management of field margins, grassland and wetland. The national reports contain a useful introduction to the agriculture/environment debate in other Community states. Inevitably such short reports omit a good deal of fact; but tell much about the different tone of the debate outside Britain. As statistics go the declaration by Portuguese officials that only 28% of the national area is suitable for agriculture, but 55% is farmed, provides a fairly striking contrast with the U.K. One then turns to the management sections with high hopes. How should we manage farm extensification and set-aside schemes which are now part of European Community Policy? There are interesting reviews of the history of boundaries but many readers might have looked for a more pointed conclusion than Baudry’s ‘hedgerows may be critical for many species as permanent or temporary habitats’. Doubtless, but are they, and for which? Similarly the Irish conclusion that farmers need advice on sympathetic hedgerow management techniques has a terribly dated feel about it. Perhaps it simply is that we really do not know enough. Marshall’s review of British data illustrates that few field margin ‘weeds’ normally penetrate into crops - but can offer little if now we want to know how to get such plants to spread. Perhaps the best hard data for management prescriptions comes in pages by Reyrink (bird protection in Dutch grasslands), Wratten (insects in boundaries) and Maelfait (arthropod fauna in Belgian meadows). Reyrink’s table comparing intensity of grazing with bird eggs surviving trampling by different livestock is especially helpful. Maelfait likewise argues strongly for low intensity farming as preferable to either high fertiliser regimes or abandonment - but arthropods are distinctly less cuddly and policy-relevant than birds. In fact where there are clear ‘lessons’ they seem to carry this strong theme; gentle farming is optimum. Thus, Kuijken ‘it is not clear if withdrawing land from agriculture will be accepted in Flanders . . . in the case of wet grasslands, for instance, an integration model seems feasible . . .‘. Hansen says Denmark is short of young cattle and sheep to graze off wet grasslands ‘in the normal farming system, therefore management of such land has to be subsidised by the state’. This would seem to be the key question. How to avoid the world envisaged by Tinker as the outcome of foreseeable trends whilst meeting crucial objectives such as reducing CAP costs? Equally, that is why papers like