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Towards a newer world
Conferences/Book reviews
a high economic and sociopolitical status. In Turkey, mechanization has been developing for over 30 years. Again, the owner operator is the predominant influence. Demand calls mostly for land preparation and harvesting. Both Turkey and Pakistan entertain reservations about the suitability of cooperatives as a satisfactory means of spreading the multifarm use of agricultural machinery. Summing up, then, disenchantment with the cooperatives was universal to the extent that where there was no mechanized alternative (as was the case in Brazil) farmers preferred to stay with their animals rather rely on the cooperative. Where farmers have a choice between cooperatives and private hirers the latter are favoured but it was the owner operating in his own village who was most favoured.
The underlying message is quite clear. Even if they have to pay more, farmers prefer to rely on the use of local resources. This is not surprising really when one takes into account the ease of communications; the possibility of more timely operations and the need for the entrepreneur to maintain a local reputation for quality of service. Although some of the DLG symposium participants obviously dealt with the subject in greater depth than others, a clear pattern of preference emerged. And, considering it emanated, independently, from so many different sources the findings are that much more relevant.
LG. Aked Haywards Heath, UK
Book reviews Sen’s extraordinary
career
rule are an important part of this study. At a few points Dr Sen refers, critically, to Plato’s Republic and the superior by B.R. Sen role of the philosopher-king, but one Tycooly International, Dublin, 1982, must wonder if his Oxford years were not of major importance in the edu341 PP cation of a consummate philosopherBinay Renjan Sen claims that he did political administrator. not set out to write an autobiography, Nor was this moulding an intellectual inthatheis‘. . .an average person and exercise devoid of prejudice on the part the life of such a person is the life of any of some of those he encountered. In other person’. But this is carrying search of a room when he first went to humility just too far; the historical Oxford, he was ‘. . .tumed away by record shows that Dr Sen has had an several landladies. . .‘, but now Dr Sen extraordinary public career. He held kindly turns his cheek with a phrase important positions in the Indian ‘Oxford landladies were still not quite government, before and after its inde- used to Asians in those days’. And after pendence. Then from 1956 through his appointment as a junior ICS officer, 1967, Dr Sen served as Director- some (there were exceptions) of his General of the Food and Agricultural British superiors and peers treated him Organization (FAO) - (‘I think of this as a second-rate colleague. (‘The men period as the most rewarding in my life’). in the ICS were still unaccustomed to Not unexpectedly, Dr Sen’s roots are having an Indian by their side’). Moredeeply and solidly Indian - family, his- over, the 1930s and well into the 1940s tory and culture. Even so, his ambition were tumultuous years in British to become an official in the Indian Civil Indian relations. Sen viewed himself as wnstitutionalist’, by Service (ICS), his education at Oxford, a ‘confirmed the diverse and demanding assignments which he meant that Indian indemust come, but through in the Indian government during the pendence penultimate and final decades of British peaceful agitation and constitutional TOWARDS A NEWER WORLD
FooDPoucYM8yl983
means. This dedication to an evolutionary strategy brought him wnsiderable criticism, at times, from some of his more radical Indian compatriots. But he moved resolutely and effectively through this revolutionary period. Jawaharlal Nehru and other political leaders of the new India wisely rewgnixed that men of Sen’s superior quality were deeply loyal, highly qualified, and clearly essential in the construction of a parliamentary democracy under the most trying and harrowing conditions. Not only did Sen receive important internal assignments in Nehru’s government, he was soon moved into the field of Indian diplomacy, which meant ambassadorships to Italy and Yugoslavia, and Washington, DC and Mexico (both were dual assignments) and to Japan - another tribute both to Dr Sen and to his education and training as a professional civil servant. Something over half of this book is concerned with Dr Sen’s relations with the FAO, first as an Indian delegate and then as the Director-General. Although I sometimes wished for more, his recollections are often enlightening. His account of the transfer of FAO from Washington, DC to Rome breaks new ground, at least for me. I was fascinated even more by his discussion of his election in 1956 to Director-General (‘. . .the UK made an approach to Prime Minister Nehru to put up my name’). But US Ambassador (to Italy and FAO) Clare BoothLute and even John Foster Dulles were also part of this intriguing story.
Prime mover When the FAO Conference accorded the ‘vote of thanks to Dr B.R. Sen’ in 1967 (reprinted as Appendix Ix) the principal accomplishments of his administration as Director-General were considered to be the Freedom from Hunger Campaign (FFHC), the World Food Programme (WFP) and ‘work on’ the Indicative World Plan for Agricultural Development (IWP). That’s fair enough, perhaps. Certainly Dr Sen was the prime mover in the development of these programmes, and he seems to view the FFHC as the centrepiece of his reign as DirectorGeneral. 161
Book reviews
From my somewhat limited perspective, I would place more stress on his political leadership in transforming the FAO from a technical, data-gathering international agency to becoming ‘ . . .one of the world’s most important development agencies’. The establishment of the FAO/World Bank Cooperative Programme (Chap 21) is an institutional landmark in this transformation process, and his overview of some of FAO’s Field Programmes is a useful recording of several innovative programme developments. Inevitably, a reviewer has to scurry around and come up with a few criticisms. In my opinion there is too much emphasis on Dr Sen’s travels, extensive and impressive as they have been. However, I must note that he, and Mrs Sen, must be the philosopher-king and queen of world travel; they have a truly remarkable understanding of the history and culture, notably of the art and architecture, of the regions visited. Something like 99% (a Talbot statistic!) of US tourists should learn from their splendid example of ‘how to travel’, and probably ‘how to photograph’.
that he had used violent language against the administration while addressing a staff gathering. I issued orders dismissing him on
Big food science
the spot, even though I knew that such action would find a sympathetic hearing in the Geneva Tribunal. Next morning I called the staff to the Conference Hall and told them, addressing myself especially to the difficult members of the Staff Council who were sitting on the front bench, that anyone following the example of the man I had dismissed would suffer the same fate. There was no further agitation of this kind until after my retirement in 1967.
FOODS AND FOOD PRODUCTiON ENCYCLOPEDIA
Finally, his criticisms of the post-world Food Conference (Rome, November 1974) are telling and unusually pointed - the World Food Council (‘floating in mid-heaven’), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (unnecessary, although he doesn’t quite say so), the WFP’s new Committee on Food Aid (dilutes FAO operational control), the Consultative Group on Food Production and Investment (‘a misbegotten offspring’). Possibly so, but we need more analysis, more insight and direction for the difficult years ahead. Some of the inside stories also need far more elaboration, although this may be a later task for the historian or the first-rate journalist. For example, his (unsuccessful) nomination for reconsensus election to Director-General in 1%7 More substantively, Dr Sen knows so (‘. . .the only period of my life with much more than he tells us. I’m very FAO that I would like to forget’.) Then curious to know much more about his there was his leadership in the matter of strategy and techniques relative to re- relief to Hungary in 1956 after the establishing morale and efficiency in an Soviet invasion; we do learn a little international bureaucracy; he could tell about his tiff with Dag HammarskjGld, us much more about institutional but Dr Sen leaves us with an aside developments, both within FAO and in ‘there were some other incidents over FAO’s relationships with member this operation but I need not go into governments and other international them here’. agencies. Also, his discussion of the So I conclude with a tribute and a strategies of policy making through challenge. We have many reasons to be consensus and confrontation needs appreciative; Dr Sen’s personal history more development. To be sure, Dr Sen is of substantial value on many counts. comes down strongly on the side of Any student of international relations consensus, but presumably he means and public administration would be consensus in external, not internal, rewarded by its reading. On the other relations. A few years after Sen left the hand, Dr Sen’s pen should not be Director-General’s office, a strike was stilled; he still has much wisdom to called by FAO’s General Staff. In confer upon us. reference to this matter of strikes and discipline, he relates the following story: Ross 6. Tabof Iowa State Universityof Science and Technology On one occasion of unrest fomented by a professional agitator on the staff, I heard Ames, IA, USA
162
ediied by Douglas M. Considine and Glenn D. Considine Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1982,2305pp, f165.75 ‘To combine scope of topical coverage with reasonable depth of detail of a field that is as broad and complex as foods and their production, and to meet their objectives with one volume, requires a large book’. They’re not joking either, because this book is certainly large: 2322 printed pages; 1.9 million words; 1201 separate editorial entries; 2950 cross-reference headings; 1006 illustrations; 587 tables; and 7500 items in alphabetical index. The encyclopedia addresses three fundamental stages of food production: The start or initiation of the natural good-growth cycle -the seeds, rootstocks, seedling trees, the mating or artificial insemination of livestock, the stocking of fisheries, among others. The nurture of growing plants and animals through harvest, round-up and postharvest preparation from which point ‘raw’ food materials go either to the fresh market or processors. The processing of ‘raw’ food materials into more refined and complex products for the marketplace (ie food technology). While recognizing these three fundathe editors have mental stages, attempted to adopt an interdisciplinary approach to the entries. Thus, the fundamental stress is on botany, biogenetics, chemistry, processing sciences, agronomy, animal husbandry and nutrition but descriptions are not constrained to any single discipline. Will the book be of value to those working in the fields of agricultural economics, food policy, development, etc? I have already found it useful, and surprisingly interesting. For example, there is a sensible and reasonably comprehensive section on Fertilizers;
FoDDPoLtcY
May1983
a high economic and sociopolitical status. In Turkey, mechanization has been developing for over 30 years. Again, the owner operator is the predominant influence. Demand calls mostly for land preparation and harvesting. Both Turkey and Pakistan entertain reservations about the suitability of cooperatives as a satisfactory means of spreading the multifarm use of agricultural machinery. Summing up, then, disenchantment with the cooperatives was universal to the extent that where there was no mechanized alternative (as was the case in Brazil) farmers preferred to stay with their animals rather rely on the cooperative. Where farmers have a choice between cooperatives and private hirers the latter are favoured but it was the owner operating in his own village who was most favoured.
The underlying message is quite clear. Even if they have to pay more, farmers prefer to rely on the use of local resources. This is not surprising really when one takes into account the ease of communications; the possibility of more timely operations and the need for the entrepreneur to maintain a local reputation for quality of service. Although some of the DLG symposium participants obviously dealt with the subject in greater depth than others, a clear pattern of preference emerged. And, considering it emanated, independently, from so many different sources the findings are that much more relevant.
LG. Aked Haywards Heath, UK
Book reviews Sen’s extraordinary
career
rule are an important part of this study. At a few points Dr Sen refers, critically, to Plato’s Republic and the superior by B.R. Sen role of the philosopher-king, but one Tycooly International, Dublin, 1982, must wonder if his Oxford years were not of major importance in the edu341 PP cation of a consummate philosopherBinay Renjan Sen claims that he did political administrator. not set out to write an autobiography, Nor was this moulding an intellectual inthatheis‘. . .an average person and exercise devoid of prejudice on the part the life of such a person is the life of any of some of those he encountered. In other person’. But this is carrying search of a room when he first went to humility just too far; the historical Oxford, he was ‘. . .tumed away by record shows that Dr Sen has had an several landladies. . .‘, but now Dr Sen extraordinary public career. He held kindly turns his cheek with a phrase important positions in the Indian ‘Oxford landladies were still not quite government, before and after its inde- used to Asians in those days’. And after pendence. Then from 1956 through his appointment as a junior ICS officer, 1967, Dr Sen served as Director- some (there were exceptions) of his General of the Food and Agricultural British superiors and peers treated him Organization (FAO) - (‘I think of this as a second-rate colleague. (‘The men period as the most rewarding in my life’). in the ICS were still unaccustomed to Not unexpectedly, Dr Sen’s roots are having an Indian by their side’). Moredeeply and solidly Indian - family, his- over, the 1930s and well into the 1940s tory and culture. Even so, his ambition were tumultuous years in British to become an official in the Indian Civil Indian relations. Sen viewed himself as wnstitutionalist’, by Service (ICS), his education at Oxford, a ‘confirmed the diverse and demanding assignments which he meant that Indian indemust come, but through in the Indian government during the pendence penultimate and final decades of British peaceful agitation and constitutional TOWARDS A NEWER WORLD
FooDPoucYM8yl983
means. This dedication to an evolutionary strategy brought him wnsiderable criticism, at times, from some of his more radical Indian compatriots. But he moved resolutely and effectively through this revolutionary period. Jawaharlal Nehru and other political leaders of the new India wisely rewgnixed that men of Sen’s superior quality were deeply loyal, highly qualified, and clearly essential in the construction of a parliamentary democracy under the most trying and harrowing conditions. Not only did Sen receive important internal assignments in Nehru’s government, he was soon moved into the field of Indian diplomacy, which meant ambassadorships to Italy and Yugoslavia, and Washington, DC and Mexico (both were dual assignments) and to Japan - another tribute both to Dr Sen and to his education and training as a professional civil servant. Something over half of this book is concerned with Dr Sen’s relations with the FAO, first as an Indian delegate and then as the Director-General. Although I sometimes wished for more, his recollections are often enlightening. His account of the transfer of FAO from Washington, DC to Rome breaks new ground, at least for me. I was fascinated even more by his discussion of his election in 1956 to Director-General (‘. . .the UK made an approach to Prime Minister Nehru to put up my name’). But US Ambassador (to Italy and FAO) Clare BoothLute and even John Foster Dulles were also part of this intriguing story.
Prime mover When the FAO Conference accorded the ‘vote of thanks to Dr B.R. Sen’ in 1967 (reprinted as Appendix Ix) the principal accomplishments of his administration as Director-General were considered to be the Freedom from Hunger Campaign (FFHC), the World Food Programme (WFP) and ‘work on’ the Indicative World Plan for Agricultural Development (IWP). That’s fair enough, perhaps. Certainly Dr Sen was the prime mover in the development of these programmes, and he seems to view the FFHC as the centrepiece of his reign as DirectorGeneral. 161
Book reviews
From my somewhat limited perspective, I would place more stress on his political leadership in transforming the FAO from a technical, data-gathering international agency to becoming ‘ . . .one of the world’s most important development agencies’. The establishment of the FAO/World Bank Cooperative Programme (Chap 21) is an institutional landmark in this transformation process, and his overview of some of FAO’s Field Programmes is a useful recording of several innovative programme developments. Inevitably, a reviewer has to scurry around and come up with a few criticisms. In my opinion there is too much emphasis on Dr Sen’s travels, extensive and impressive as they have been. However, I must note that he, and Mrs Sen, must be the philosopher-king and queen of world travel; they have a truly remarkable understanding of the history and culture, notably of the art and architecture, of the regions visited. Something like 99% (a Talbot statistic!) of US tourists should learn from their splendid example of ‘how to travel’, and probably ‘how to photograph’.
that he had used violent language against the administration while addressing a staff gathering. I issued orders dismissing him on
Big food science
the spot, even though I knew that such action would find a sympathetic hearing in the Geneva Tribunal. Next morning I called the staff to the Conference Hall and told them, addressing myself especially to the difficult members of the Staff Council who were sitting on the front bench, that anyone following the example of the man I had dismissed would suffer the same fate. There was no further agitation of this kind until after my retirement in 1967.
FOODS AND FOOD PRODUCTiON ENCYCLOPEDIA
Finally, his criticisms of the post-world Food Conference (Rome, November 1974) are telling and unusually pointed - the World Food Council (‘floating in mid-heaven’), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (unnecessary, although he doesn’t quite say so), the WFP’s new Committee on Food Aid (dilutes FAO operational control), the Consultative Group on Food Production and Investment (‘a misbegotten offspring’). Possibly so, but we need more analysis, more insight and direction for the difficult years ahead. Some of the inside stories also need far more elaboration, although this may be a later task for the historian or the first-rate journalist. For example, his (unsuccessful) nomination for reconsensus election to Director-General in 1%7 More substantively, Dr Sen knows so (‘. . .the only period of my life with much more than he tells us. I’m very FAO that I would like to forget’.) Then curious to know much more about his there was his leadership in the matter of strategy and techniques relative to re- relief to Hungary in 1956 after the establishing morale and efficiency in an Soviet invasion; we do learn a little international bureaucracy; he could tell about his tiff with Dag HammarskjGld, us much more about institutional but Dr Sen leaves us with an aside developments, both within FAO and in ‘there were some other incidents over FAO’s relationships with member this operation but I need not go into governments and other international them here’. agencies. Also, his discussion of the So I conclude with a tribute and a strategies of policy making through challenge. We have many reasons to be consensus and confrontation needs appreciative; Dr Sen’s personal history more development. To be sure, Dr Sen is of substantial value on many counts. comes down strongly on the side of Any student of international relations consensus, but presumably he means and public administration would be consensus in external, not internal, rewarded by its reading. On the other relations. A few years after Sen left the hand, Dr Sen’s pen should not be Director-General’s office, a strike was stilled; he still has much wisdom to called by FAO’s General Staff. In confer upon us. reference to this matter of strikes and discipline, he relates the following story: Ross 6. Tabof Iowa State Universityof Science and Technology On one occasion of unrest fomented by a professional agitator on the staff, I heard Ames, IA, USA
162
ediied by Douglas M. Considine and Glenn D. Considine Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1982,2305pp, f165.75 ‘To combine scope of topical coverage with reasonable depth of detail of a field that is as broad and complex as foods and their production, and to meet their objectives with one volume, requires a large book’. They’re not joking either, because this book is certainly large: 2322 printed pages; 1.9 million words; 1201 separate editorial entries; 2950 cross-reference headings; 1006 illustrations; 587 tables; and 7500 items in alphabetical index. The encyclopedia addresses three fundamental stages of food production: The start or initiation of the natural good-growth cycle -the seeds, rootstocks, seedling trees, the mating or artificial insemination of livestock, the stocking of fisheries, among others. The nurture of growing plants and animals through harvest, round-up and postharvest preparation from which point ‘raw’ food materials go either to the fresh market or processors. The processing of ‘raw’ food materials into more refined and complex products for the marketplace (ie food technology). While recognizing these three fundathe editors have mental stages, attempted to adopt an interdisciplinary approach to the entries. Thus, the fundamental stress is on botany, biogenetics, chemistry, processing sciences, agronomy, animal husbandry and nutrition but descriptions are not constrained to any single discipline. Will the book be of value to those working in the fields of agricultural economics, food policy, development, etc? I have already found it useful, and surprisingly interesting. For example, there is a sensible and reasonably comprehensive section on Fertilizers;
FoDDPoLtcY
May1983