Agricultural Restructuring Research Articles

Agricultural restructuring and state assistance: competing or complementary rural policy paradigms?

The restructuring of European agriculture as a policy project has a long and complicated history. Since the late 1950s, policy makers have adopted a number of sometimes contradictory positions on this issue, a ‘developmental’ policy stance dedicated to assisting agricultural restructuring gradually giving way to, but never being entirely eclipsed by, a paradigmatic notion of state assistance designed actually to keep farmers on the land. This paper traces the nature of this policy evolution and explores the ways in which public policy has been empirically informed by a construction of farmers and farm households as both passive victims of an externally driven restructuring process and active seizers of opportunities for diversification and further restructuring. Commenting on the increasing ambiguity of the European policy stance and its differential presentation to international and domestic audiences, the paper focuses on the UK as a member state with one of the most robust, neo‐liberal postures on agricultural restructuring. It reviews recent empirical studies of the restructuring process and concludes that while there is little evidence to suggest that UK agriculture is yet on the brink of significant structural change, a steady diversification of the income base of many farm households is leading to the emergence of a community of land managers that is more diverse and decoupled from agricultural policy support than ever before. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications of these trends for policy design and the concept of state assistance in a period of agricultural change.

How big is the problem of Polish agriculture?

The enduring size and semi-subsistence character of Poland's agricultural sector continue to be a cause of concern even as the country prepares to enter the EU later this year. Although underpinned by a variety of historical and social forces, the survival of such activity from World War II into the twenty-first century has been largely the result of extensive transfer payments. Reducing this fiscal burden, stimulating agricultural restructuring and promoting rural development in order to spread the benefits of transformation more widely might be expected to be high on both the EU and Polish policy agendas. However, efforts to date in this area, whether financed from domestic or international sources, have certainly not been successful and the aptness of the stimulus provided by the final terms of membership agreed in Copenhagen in December 2002 might be questioned. This article seeks to identify the key components of Poland's agricultural restructuring and rural development problem and to address the issues raised by the country's forthcoming accession to the European Union.

Integrating China into the Global Economy. By Nicholas Lardy [Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution Press, 2002. x+244 pp. Hard cover $48.95, ISBN 0-8157-5136-2; paperback $19.95, ISBN 0-8157-51235-4.

This book assesses the extent of China's increasing integration into the global economy during the reform era and explores the likely global impact of China's membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO). The five chapters of the book cover China's pre-WTO trade reforms; the terms of China's final WTO accession package; and the implications of China's WTO membership for foreign companies, world trade, the international trading system, and US-China relations. It presents sober and reasoned analyses of these issues and represents a solid attempt to take stock of China's economic progress to date and its prospects over the coming decade.Witnessing the mounting publications on this subject, one may wonder what perspectives or insights from this book are still worth repeating and remembering. Within this short review, I would like to highlight the following three.First, Lardy contends that, contrary to popular wisdom in the media and research literature, China's economy had become far more open than Japan's and it was ready to join the WTO. Before WTO entry China had already achieved the lowest tariff protection of any developing country and had also shrunk non-tariff barriers impressively. Most price distortions were eliminated in the decade before WTO entry and much of the necessary industrial and agricultural restructuring was already underway before accession. Other substantial progress included expansion of trade rights, adoption of current account convertibility, vast expansion of the legal scope for foreign investment, legalized development of the private sector, and establishment of basic social security systems in urban areas. If this assessment is correct, why did it take 15 years for China to get into the WTO? Lardy argues that the long waiting “reflects as much the rising bar imposed by members of the Working Party . . . as China's slowness to embrace the principles of the multilateral trading system” (p. 9). This leads to the second insightful message.

Landscape change in the multi-functional countryside: a biographical analysis of farmer decision-making in the English high weald

There is growing recognition that the landscape implications of agricultural restructuring are complex, location specific and subject to various feedback effects. This paper explores how the economic decline of mainstream farming in the English High Weald is redefining the relationship between agriculture and the landscape, encouraging existing farmers to diversify their income base but also creating opportunities for new forms of land occupancy and management in a multi-functional countryside. Through a biographical analysis of a range of different types of land manager, it is illustrated how attitudes to land use and the occupancy of rural land are changing, distinguishing between holdings that are still seen primarily as sites of production by their farming family occupiers and those that are coming to be regarded chiefly as spaces for living by a new category of lifestyle occupier. The implications of this differentiation of the stakeholder community for future landscape management in the United Kingdom and the European Union are explored.

Families, Fields, And Fighting For Land: The Spatial Dynamics Of Contention In Rural Brazil

This article analyzes the formation of the largest grassroots social movement in Brazilian history: the Movement of Rural Landless Workers (MST). In movement literature and academic discourse, MST's formation has been consistently attributed to three factors— agricultural restructuring, political transition, and religious organization. These three factors form what I call an "Official Genesis Story." I argue that although the Official Genesis Story fits together well at the macro level, it cannot explain who decided to join MST or why, because the story does not locate acts of resistance in either people or place. A comparison of MST members in two different regions of Brazil shows how the spatial constitution of production and reproduction informed individual decisions to join MST. By geographically situating the official story, we uncover the contentious actors behind the contentious actions.

China's land resources and land-use change: insights from the 1996 land survey

Studies of land-use change in China have long been hampered by the lack of accurate and reliable data. This research analyzes systematic data on land use gathered in the 1996 survey, the first nation-wide land survey ever conducted in the history of the People's Republic. The actual size of the Chinese territory on the mainland in 1996 was 9.5 million square kilometers, not 9.6 million as generally believed. It took the world's third largest position next to Russia and Canada. Over two-thirds or 67 percent of China's land coverage were devoted to agricultural activities. The bulk of the construction land was widely scattered in the countryside as a result of rural industrialization and urbanization. The 1996 land survey revealed a total cultivated land of 130 million hectares, nearly 40 percent more than what was reported by local cadres to the State Statistical Bureau. Much of the “discovered” farmland was located in the hilly and mountainous regions where the quality of land is low. Cultivated land per capita continued to drop because of the growing population. Only 14 percent of China's land was cultivable and cultivated land per capita was a mere 0.106 ha which was significantly smaller than the world's average of 0.236 ha. A comparison of data for 1949 and 1996 revealed a pattern of land-use change characterized by the expansion of cultivated and construction land at the expense of pasture and unused land subsequent to the environmentally disastrous campaigns of land reclamation. The processes of agricultural restructuring, rural industrialization, and rapid urbanization since the 1990s have given rise to a new trend of massive farmland loss for the benefits of market farming and non-agricultural developments. Newly reclaimed low-graded farmland in environmentally fragile frontier regions has never been able to compensate for the loss of fertile land in the southeastern part of the country where multiple cropping index and population density are high. There is pressing need for China to use its limited land resources most efficiently and effectively for the sake of not only its own growing population but also the globalizing world.

Contingency Revealed: New Zealand Farmers' Experiences of Agricultural Restructuring

New Zealand farmers were affected in significant ways by agricultural restructuring during the mid 1980s. Government, farmers' union, academic and media discourses all describe the ensuing years as a period of financial hardship for farm families. Based on aggregate statistics, the majority of these discourses reflect and ‘naturalise’ the government's neo‐liberal stance, thus conveying an implicit assumption that farmers' experiences were determined by the economic efficiency of the farm enterprise. Drawing upon case study data and a holistic conceptual approach to the family farm, this paper contests such narratives, arguing that farm‐level experiences of agricultural restructuring during (and after) the rural downturn were contingent upon a much greater array of factors. These included: the characteristics of the farm enterprise, household and property; actors' individual attributes; and the local context's biophysical, economic and cultural fabrics. The paper concludes by arguing that a full appreciation of the contingency of farm‐level experiences requires an adequate recognition of the nexus of relations between the family farm, individual actor, and local context.

From Rural Dilution to Multifunctional Countryside: Some pointers to the future from South Australia

Rural dilution, a term originally used in the UK in the 1950s, refers to change in the social composition of rural populations: those elements engaged in primary production (and its necessary servicing) are thinned out by agricultural restructuring and labour shedding, while at the same time in-migration of new elements (retirement, long-distance commuting, lifestyle migration) is occurring. The extent to which such dilution occurs is influenced by a number of factors, including distance in travel time from the nearest metropolitan or other large city, location with respect to the coast/perceived environmental amenity, and rural population density. This paper explores changes in traditional rural communities in Southern Yorke Peninsula, South Australia, which lie 2½-3 hours' drive from Adelaide and have been subject to substantial rural dilution. Drawing on two detailed surveys of the strictly rural (dispersed) population of the region carried out in 1984 and replicated in 2000, some important social impacts of the recent migration flows are identified, including changes in perceived community identity and allegiance, shopping and business patterns, and the very recent impact of the uptake of electronic communication innovations. The paper concludes with an assessment of the extent to which the trends identified are likely to continue, and mould future communities in similar distance and amenity situations over the next 10-20 years, changing the nature of rurality in Australia.

Plant biotechnology and agricultural supply industry restructuring

The strategic horizon of the agricultural supply industry (pesticides and seeds) is darkened by grave uncertainties. These are the result of the growing multiform resistance of society to the present or potential risks of genetically modified organisms to health and the environment. They are also the consequences of counter-strategies implemented by economic players who are close to final consumer markets. This type of situation generates an increasing distrust among financial community towards this activity its profitability is no longer attractive compared with the pharmaceutical industry, thus encouraging the massive ongoing restructuring process [1].

Young farmers, masculinities and change in rural Ireland

Abstract This paper explores the changing nature of masculine identities among young fanners in contemporary Ireland. Contemporary agricultural restructuring processes involve increased competitiveness and the introduction of a business ethos to farming. The paper explores the ways in which rural masculine identities are responding to these changing social structures and values. It is based on a series of interviews with young farmers in one locality in the south‐west, which aimed at exploring their values, goals and identities. This small case‐study highlights the existence of a traditional‐modern dualism in rural masculine identities, underlain by the persistence of conventional masculinism. However, in response to the challenges of contemporary agricultural restructuring, there is evidence of the emergence (or resurrection) of a more open and flexible type of masculinity among young farmers, drawing on an interplay of alternative agricultural narratives and traditional agrarian ideology.

Local Sustainable Development, Globalization and Agricultural Restructuring an Underdeveloped Countries

Local Sustainable Development, Globalization and Agricultural Restructuring an Underdeveloped Countries

Agricultural multifunctionality in the WTO—legitimate non-trade concern or disguised protectionism?

The extent to which the multifunctionality of agriculture can justify continuing domestic subsidies to farmers that may be trade distorting in their effects, has emerged as a key bone of contention in the current World Trade Organization (WTO) agriculture trade talks. Supporters of multifunctionality point to the contribution of agriculture in terms of food security, rural development and environmental protection. In this paper, we focus on the environmental component in order to examine three interconnected questions. First, how robust is multifunctionality as a policy concept? Second, if multifunctionality is a reality, how valid is the claim made by European negotiators that the liberalization of agricultural policy and the abolition of blue box subsidies threaten the joint production of food and environmental goods in rural space? Third, what are the precise implications of this analysis for agri-environmental policy design, and the likely compatibility of the European Union's favoured model with current and future WTO disciplines? We conclude that, while multifunctionality is a genuine, and in some respects, unique, feature of European agriculture, it is in relation to the perceived threat of extensive agricultural restructuring to biodiversity and landscape values in the European Union that the concept has been most fully realized. This has profound implications for policy design, suggesting a need to retain some element of income support in the policy mix in order to defend environmental assets against the extreme consequences of farm structural change. We conclude by exploring what these deductions might mean for the future course of the WTO talks and for the long-term design of agri-environmental policy in industrialized countries.

Agriculture in transition economies: from common heritage to divergence

AbstractThe 23 former socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) started the transition in 1989–1990 from a common institutional and organizational heritage, represented by the Soviet agricultural model. Despite the common heritage in agriculture, the reform policies in CEE and CIS diverged from the start, as significant differences emerged between the two groups of countries in legal attitudes to private land ownership, transferability of land, the extent of agricultural privatization and individualization, and restructuring of farms. This divergence in the implementation of agricultural reform has led to divergence in standard development measures: the CEE countries are outperforming the CIS countries by growth in GDP and agricultural product since 1992; the productivity of agricultural labor in CEE is generally increasing, and in CIS it is decreasing. While the CIS countries at best can be characterized as reluctant reformers, the CEE countries have achieved significantly higher levels of economic and institutional reform. Better performance in CEE is associated with greater readiness of the governments in these countries to implement a comprehensive package of economic and social reform policies, including more radical land reform and deeper individualization and restructuring of agriculture.

Impacts of changes in the flue-cured tobacco sector on farmers in Ontario, Canada

Impacts of the forces and processes of agricultural restructuring are described in this paper through an analysis of farmers’ ‘lived experience’ in the tobacco sector of Ontario, Canada. The paper argues that the political and economic changes in the 1980s fundamentally altered tobacco farming and the broader rural community. The analysis is based upon a survey of farmers and former farmers, and includes examples of individual case histories. The results show the ways in which farmers’ well-being was affected and provides insights into coping mechanisms.

Living local, growing global: Renegotiating the export production regime in New Zealand’s pipfruit sector

The articulation between global food commodity complexes and the local production regimes of particular contexts is a major gap in the new political economy literature on food regimes, food complexes, agricultural restructuring and local adjustment. This paper explores how different regions of producers in the New Zealand apple industry in the mid-1990s have negotiated the local export regime of production fashioned by the New Zealand Apple and Pear Marketing Board. This paper’s focus on the Board’s introduction of an integrated fruit production programme in different growing regions is a contribution to understanding of local governance tensions arising in the export component of a national industry.

Class, Status and Land Conflict: The Democratisation of Grazing Lands in Queensland

One of the recurring themes of environmental sociology is the manner in which detrimental environmental effects are differentially distributed, disadvantaging those of lower class and lesser status. In the case of agricultural land in western societies, extensive restructuring and industrialisation of agriculture's biological processes has led to concentration of land in the hands of a few, a phenomenon associated with massive land degradation. The grazing industry in Australia is an extreme example of land concentration with millions of hectares held by the top 50 producers. This paper addresses the issues of land conflict arising from Australia's international commitment to ecologically sustainable development and recent court judgements supporting indigenous rights to land tenure and management on grazing lands in Queensland.The paper has three primary aims. The first is to examine how the historical pattern of land holding in Queensland led to the creation of a powerful grazing elite with concomitant perceptions of their rights of occupation of grazing lands. The second thrust is to discuss how ecologically sustainable development has caused land management decisions to shift from being a private business matter to a public process and debate. Thirdly, the consequences of the Land Title legislation, as reformed in 1998, are elucidated and their impact on historical forms of tenure, class and status is discussed. The democratisation of land management in Queensland has profound implications for the historical land uses of cattle and sheep grazing.

Trends of pollution in rain over East Germany caused by changing emissions

Large changes in emissions also cause a significant change in pollutant concentrations in rain water. The influence of these changes on pollutant concentrations in rain water and wet deposition were investigated in different regions and time periods from 1983 to 1999 in East Germany. Initially, this period is characterized by large emissions of SO2(about 5400 kt a−1), NOx(about 750 kt a−1), and dust (about 2000 kt a−1) at the end of the 1980s. After the reunification of Germany in 1990 and restructuring of industry and agriculture, emissions drastically decreased. For example, from 1990 to 1998 in Saxony emissions of SO2, NOx and dust decreased by 84, 44 and 97%, respectively. Alkaline components also strongly decreased through efficient dust removal, while no desulphurization was used in flue gases of power and heating plants. As a consequence, the mean acidity of precipitation strongly rose by a factor of three from before 1990 up to 1995 (the mean pH value in 1995 was about 3.9, with minimum values down to 3.6). In 1996 desulphurization techniques were established in power plants and resulted in an increase of pH values to the level in the period from 1983 to 1989/1990. The results for ionic composition (Cl−, NO3−, SO42−, Na+, NH4+, K+, Ca2+, and Mg2+, the pH value (acidity), and conductivity) are based on precipitation samples collected in periods > 4 h. The data were classified with backward trajectories and entry sectors which are characterized by similar emissions and/or geographical regions.

Quality Assurance, Deregulation and Participation in Policy Making: Farm Women’s Oerceptions from the Field

Resource management decision making at the local farm enterprise level is located within a global context. These layered structures of globalization and the uneven effects of agricultural restructuring and deregulation constrain and challenge both short and long term planning strategies. This paper analyses interviews with women in dairy and vegetable production in Tasmania and Queensland and delineates their perception of globalisation, its institutions and agents, and the effects their perceptions have on the realities of farm level decision making. Current issues of quality assurance and deregulation illustrate these perceptions in the period of uncertainty prior to the most recent market deregulation, introduction of the GST and changes in labelling statutes. At a time of national recognition of the need for these stakeholders to be involved in policy making through inputs of expertise, practical experience and vision, this paper concludes with their reflections on the value and importance of their policy participation and its ambiguous success.

Why Russian Peasants Remain in Collective Farms: A Household Perspective on Agricultural Restructuring

This paper seeks to understand what motivates collective farm employees-share-holders to remain in collective structures rather than exercise their legally sanctioned right to leave with land and property shares. On the basis of a 1999 survey of 181 collective farm households and analysis of regional agricultural policies in Leningrad and Saratov oblasts, the paper examines divergent overt and covert benefits that employees derive from association with market-oriented versus less reformed collective agricultural producers. The paper relates the structure of employee incentives to regional-level agricultural policies and to the divergent effects these policies have on the depth and pattern of structural transformations of agricultural production. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O18, Q10, Q15. 5 figures, 15 tables, 38 references.

Dismantling Statist East Asian Agricultures? Global Pressures and National Responses

Recent analyses of the extension of the GATT-WTO trade regime to agriculture and other sectors emphasize the secular decline of nation–state power. New forms of global regulation, it is argued, make it difficult for the state to intervene effectively to counter sectoral displacement threats. Recent agricultural adjustment problems in East Asia, where state intervention has been pronounced, cast doubt on this argument. While the type of state intervention has changed somewhat, both the Japanese and South Korean states remain heavily involved in agricultural restructuring, making neoliberal patterns of reorganization an unlikely result.