Shorter notices

SHORTER

RUMINANT

LIVESTOCK

NOTICES

ON SMALL

HOLDINGS

Ruminant livestock on small holdings can, if the problems are faced realistically, raise incomes, make use of fibrous feeds (e.g. straw grazing) not suitable for human diets and improve human nutrition-even a few grammes of animal protein per head per day can substantially improve predominantly cereal and root crop diets. Seminar ,Report No. 11, 1976, of the Research and Training Network of the Agricultural Development Council, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019, USA approaches this subject in an orderly, ‘down to earth’ manner. Its well laid out Recommendations are full of practical commonsense. They stress the need for local involvement of small holders; market development; feed availability; simple technology; adaptation to local needs; access to capital and credit (the Kaira schemes pay farmers twice daily for milk); training; communications; time enough for establishment; pilot-scale projects and governmental approval or support. Many of these Recommendations are, of course, applicable to, for example, the introduction of new crops or improved grain storage schemes. So the Recommendations noted above provide a useful ‘check-list’ for many administrators faced with the establishment of innovating schemes.

MEAT

SCIENCE

Meat Science is a new journal from Applied Science Publishers, to be published quarterly. It aims to collect together for the first time papers on all aspects of meat science including production, distribution, processing and consumer utilisation. Professor Ralston Lawrie of the University of Nottingham is Editor and is supported by a distinguished Editorial Board drawn from all parts of the world. Professor Lawrie himself is author of the opening paper, a review of current developments in meat and its future. His conclusion that: ‘However costly, as much meat as can be afforded will continue to be bought-and enjoyed+ven if less frequently and more as a luxury item than as a staple foodstuff, and whether or not the major source of man’s protein becomes the plant kingdom’ should raise the spirits of those who gloomily await the disappearance of real meat from the menu. Other papers in the first issue range from a review of post-mortem breakdown of 317 Agricultural Administration Printed in Great Britain

(4) (1977)--GApplied

Science

Publishers

Ltd,

England,

1977

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318

NOTICES

ATP and glycogen in muscle to a study of meat production from Botswana goats and sheep. Future issues promise papers on a wide range of meat science topics with occasional book reviews and conference reports. If Meat Science succeeds in attracting papers from workers engaged in research over the whole meat sector then it will succeed in its objective of bringing together information now scattered through many journals and thereby furthering the scientific understanding of meat. It will find a place on the library shelves of most organisations in the agriculture and food industries. D. M. ALLEN

PREDICTED

TYPES

OF FARMING

IN POLAND;

THEIR

ADMINISTRATIVE

USE

Poland, like other countries in Eastern Europe, has a mixed agricultural economy ranging from large, modern ‘socialised’ farms to small more or less subsistence peasant farms. Based on a technique of farm classification developed by a Commission (of which he was Chairman) of the International Geographical Union (IGU), Professor Jerzy Kostrowicki has examined the historical trends in the number, mean size, degree of modernisation, etc. of the various identifiable types of farming in Poland. He has extrapolated these identifiable historical trends to 1980 and 1990 and made geographical maps of them. In, for instance, the 1990 map he forecasts, from these trends, the location and potentially the superficial area of twelve main types of farming in Poland. Although the farm type classifications evolved by the IGU Commission on Agricultural Typology are open to criticism, they seem to be the best available. Extrapolations based on them, or their local equivalents, may be useful to those agricultural administrators who are responsible for devising (a) agricultural strategy and (b) the necessary infra-structural support systems (roads, etc.) and supplies of such inputs as fertilisers, tractors, etc. KOSTROWICKI, J. (1975). An attempt at the determination of transformation trends in the spatial organisation of agriculture in Poland between 1960 and 1990, Geographica Polonica, 32 (In English).)

CHANGE

IN TANZANIA

Another country with a socialist philosophy is Tanzania. But, in contrast to Eastern European states, the Tanzanian accent is on transition to a participatory, decentralised socialism which meets basic human needs, increases egalitarianism and aims at the same time to ‘restructure’ and raise the economic independence and productive power of the national economy. A short report by R. H. Green for the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) outlines some of the means and problems of achieving the above objectives, e.g. the supply of agricultural inputs, the

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319

difficulties facing the ujamaavillages and farms, co-operatives, etc. Thus, it is not easy in practice to execute the philosophy of decentralisation and farmer, etc. participation when, at the local level, rural elites of larger farmers, rural civil servants, local merchants, etc. are unwilling to co-operate. The problem of the opposition of the rural elites is not, of course, confined to Tanzania, although Green does not mention this. The same resistance can be very real in capitalist societies, too, where securing the co-operation of such elites is sometimes one of the keys to successful agricultural administration. What Green says has, therefore, a wide administrative application. (GREEN R. H., (1977). Towards socialism and self reliance.. Tanzania’s striving for sustained transition projected, Research Report No. 38, Swedish Institute of African Studies, SIDA, Uppsala, Sweden).

THE

W. K. KELLOGG

FOUNDATION

This American Foundation is primarily concerned with funding research and management training in human health projects, including nutrition. Its annual report for 1976 covers a wide field of activities, mainly in developed countries and especially in the USA, but it also has substantial commitments in Latin America and the Caribbean. For the agricultural administrator, the main relevance of its work is the emphasis on the training of leaders and extension personnel in rural areas and on management training for minority groups, e.g. Indian tribes in the USA. On a wider front, its support, in several developed countries, of research into increasing world food supply and of the introduction of agriculture as a topic in ‘liberal arts’ courses at universities is of interest.

THE

PLUNKETT

FOUNDATION

FOR CO-OPERATIVE

STUDIES

This Foundation is named after Horace Plunkett, an Anglo-American Irishman who largely initiated agricultural co-operation in Ireland and achieved worldwide recognition as a leader in this field. The Foundation is international in outlook and its current list of publications (all ofwhich are moderately priced) covers farmers’ cooperation in many countries in Europe; India and China in Asia; Guyana in South America; and various countries in Africa. The list, which covers FAO, IL0 and other publishers as well as the Foundations’ own publications, is obtainable from the Publications Section: The Plunkett Foundation for Co-operative Studies, 31 St. Giles, Oxford OX1 3LF, England.