Agricultural Restructuring Research Articles

China's Cross-Regional FTA Initiatives: Towards Comprehensive National Power

Introduction Since the late 1980s and the advent of reforms led by Deng Xiaoping, China has pursued an increasingly export-oriented trade policy, accompanied by selective domestic agricultural and industrial restructuring, privatization and internationalization.1 But while China has long been a vigorous global trader and has entered into numerous trade and economic agreements with partners around the world, Beijing's leaders are relative newcomers to free trade agreements (FTAs) . This is particularly so compared with counterparts in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, and some of China's Asian neighbours such as South Korea, Thailand and Singapore. For example, when Pangestu and Gooptu in mid-2003 listed 36 Asian FTAs completed or contemplated, that list included twelve entries involving Singapore, ten involving South Korea, and five involving Japan, plus more than a half-dozen arrangements involving Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) group. However, China appeared only twice on the list, once regarding a possible China-ASEAN FTA and the other time regarding the even looser ASEAN Plus Three discussions.2 No bilateral FTA was on China's agenda at that time.3

한국농업의 구조조정과 전자기후도의 역할

한국농업의 구조조정과 전자기후도의 역할

Not in my port: The “death ship” of sheep and crimes of agri-food globalization

We examine crime that emerges from the global restructuring of agriculture and food systems by employing the case of the Australian “Ship of Death,” whereby nearly 58,000 sheep were stranded at sea for almost 3 months in 2003, violating the Western Australia Animal Welfare Act of 2002. This case demonstrates that the acceleration of transnational trade networks, in the context of agri-food globalization, victimizes animals and constitutes a crime. Herein, we examine this case in depth and show how economic restructuring, driven by a “logic of capital” orientation, can exert pressure on the state causing it to fail to enforce its own regulations and in this way engage in criminal actions.

The Country, the City and the State in the Australian Settlement

The Australian Settlement, as formulated by Paul Kelly, had a sixth pillar: a settlement between the city and the country in which the state compensated people living in the country for the costs of remoteness and sparse settlement. This was underpinned by the reliance of Australian export performance on agriculture, by nation-building commitments to peopling the continent, and by agrarian beliefs in the virtues of country life. Australia's egalitarianism had a spatial and regional as well as a class dimension. Changes in Australia's economy, demography, and political culture have eroded these foundations, leaving rural Australia vulnerable to the neoliberal agenda. The dismantling of tariffs, the restructuring of agriculture, microeconomic reforms driven by National Competition Policy, and regional policy which stresses self-reliance, all treat rural Australia as a minor part of the nation rather than its economic and cultural foundation, and reject claims to special treatment. To give country Australia its own pillar makes visible the magnitude of the historic shifts which have taken place in the state's relationship to rural Australia since 1983 and brings it into the main frame for understanding Australia's abandonment of protective statism.

Agritourism and its potential contribution to the agricultural economy.

Abstract Agritourism, a growing segment of the tourism industry, has been driven by agricultural restructuring, the movement towards multifunctional agriculture, increased discretionary incomes and demand for rural experiences. In this essay, the differential agritourism responses to agricultural restructuring are reviewed. In the European Union (EU), rural development policies and structural adjustment funding have enabled farmers, many in peripheral areas, to capitalize on historic structures that can be converted into tourist accommodations. In settler nations where agritourism has been supported to a lesser degree with marketing grants, hunting on ranches and day activities on peri-urban farms respectively capitalize on wildlife and accessibility to large urban populations. Producer motivations in agritourism are social as well as economic. Agritourism can provide the economic justification for keeping the land in agriculture, but lifestyle justifications including the desire to live in rural areas, spending time with family and independence are also important. Economic benefits from agritourism can vary widely depending on the level of investment and activities emphasized. Economic activities that extend the season for direct retailing of value-added secondary products produced on the farm and/or sold in on-farm retail shops are critical for success. The amount of infrastructural investment and wages paid may have lesser returns. Additionally, agritourism may differentially benefit farmers by favouring larger farms with extensive livestock/arable enterprises and subsidy payments. Rather than increased infrastructural investments, agritourism development may be better enhanced through government support of strategic alliances and cooperative marketing, quality initiatives and e-commerce.

Utilisation of subsidy in a program-directed support of agricultural loans

The paper is focused on the performance measurement of the Support and Guarantee Fund for Farmers and Forestry (SGFFF) as the main instrument of capital reinforcement of Czech agricultural enterprise development. Its principles as well as the function from the point of view of agricultural enterprises, restructuring and allocation of resources and the reason why the subsidies of the supported loans’ interest rates have been employed are cleared up there. The results are discussed upon an analysis of the Fund’s activity. According to them, it can be claimed that the Fund has became an important part of supports for the agricultural sector development in the last ten years. From the point of view of the criteria of supported loans allocation, it was ascertained that the level of support has not been derived from the different natural and soil qualities primarily. The economic results and a high level of the prosperity have been evaluated as the main criteria for the decision-making system regarding an effective restructuring of agriculture and improving its competitiveness.

Neoliberalism, environmentalism, and agricultural restructuring in Morocco

Neoliberal restructuring in Morocco has been taking place for over twenty years. Beginning with a decade of structural adjustment, from the early 1980s to the early 1990s, parts of the public sector have been privatized, state services such as health care and education reduced, tariffs lowered and exports heavily promoted. In the dryland agricultural areas, a declensionist colonial environmental narrative has been appropriated to help justify and implement the neoliberal goals of land privatization and the intensification of agricultural production in the name of environmental protection. This paper contributes to areas of growing interest for geographers through an analysis of the underexplored relationship between neoliberalism and environmentalism, in the form of questionable environmental narratives, in Morocco. Land degradation in the dryland agricultural areas of Morocco is commonly blamed on overgrazing by local pastoralists despite existing documentation that suggests instead that ploughing of marginal lands and over‐irrigation are the primary drivers of land degradation in the region. The deployment of this colonial environmental narrative of ‘native improvidence’ has facilitated an expansion of state power over collective rangelands under neoliberalism at the same time that government involvement has decreased in other sectors. The effects of neoliberalism in Morocco have been complex and thus the paper argues that current neoliberal reforms such as the Morocco–US free trade agreement need to be scrutinized carefully to prevent a further exacerbation of poverty as well as to prevent further land degradation in these areas.

Agricultural restructuring and gastrointestinal parasitism in domestic ruminants on the rangelands of Kazakhstan

In order to evaluate the epidemiology of parasitism in farmed ruminants in the changed agricultural context in Kazakhstan, 505 cattle, sheep and goats were surveyed for gastrointestinal parasitism using coprological examination, and a further thirty sheep and four goats using post mortem extraction of helminths. The dominant helminth genera were Marshallagia, Nematodirus and Trichostrongylus. Haemonchus was also present. Faecal egg counts were low (mean abundance 0–115 eggs per gram in different groups), and there was no relationship between faecal egg density and body condition score. Eggs of Nematodirus spp. were more common in sheep less than 1 yr of age, whereas those of the Trichostrongylidae were generally more common in adult sheep. Based on faecal egg counts, sheep grazing on common land close to permanent human settlements were generally no more heavily infected than those grazing the remote open plains. This could be due to a non-linear relationship between livestock numbers and stocking density. We suggest that cessation of strategic nematode control in the region following post-Soviet agricultural reform was offset by a general reduction in stocking density, such that parasite burdens remained low. However, recovery in livestock numbers is likely to lead to increased levels of infection and production loss unless sustainable control strategies are put in place.

Agricultural Restructuring during the Closing Decades of the Twentieth Century: Evidence of Farm Size in South East England

ABSTRACTWith the benefit of hindsight it is evident that the second half of the twentieth century was destined to be a period of considerable change in British agriculture in relation to its role within the national and rural economy, and within the countryside. After several decades of sustained growth and structural adjustment up to the mid 1980s, farmers have been encouraged through economic and political stimuli to diversify their enterprises, to protect the rural environment for its inherent landscape and ecological value and to respond to consumer demand for improved food quality and traceability. This article reports on an analysis of one consistent indicator of agricultural structure over this period (farm size) with reference to four case study counties in South East England using a combination of official agricultural statistics and information from a survey of farmers. It indicates that structural changes in this region have followed those occurring at the national scale and the size profile has become polarised to the extent that the expansionist tendencies of large-scale producers to acquire more land and the continued presence of a bedrock of small producers has continued to squeeze mediumsized agricultural holdings. However, the farmer survey shows that the size of individual holdings fluctuates with gains and losses, even if the overall trend is for enlargement.

Agricultural policy discourses in the European post-Fordist transition: neoliberalism, neomercantilism and multifunctionality

A renewal of academic interest in agricultural restructuring in western Europe raises questions about causality, processes and outcomes. In particular, the relationship between deep-set structural tendencies and policy trends and the way these are constituted in relation to, and mediated through, the agency of individual land managers and other actors is emerging as a central research concern of rural social scientists. In this paper we focus on the first part of this equation, arguing that international and European agricultural restructuring needs to be rediscovered as an essentially sociopolitical project, the outcome of a struggle for influence and power between different class fractions of capital during a long and contested transition to a post-Fordist regime of accumulation. Rather than witnessing the shift towards a postproductivist agriculture anticipated by some recent commentators, we argue that the dominant framing is in favour of a neoliberal regime of market productivism, leading to the further integration of large parts of European agriculture into agro-food circuits of capital. While the neoliberal discourse which provides the intellectual justification for this process is heavily contested by advocates of a long standing form of neomercantilism and by a more recently invented discourse of agricultural multifunctionality, the entrenched position of neoliberal ideas and framings within the World Trade Organization (WTO) means that the ideology of the free market is coming to define the terms of international, and thus European, agricultural policy reform. The recent history of reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and wider rural policy reform in the European Union (EU) nevertheless suggests that the European policy stance is one of partial resistance to unfettered liberalization, policy-makers apparently having embarked on an attempt to combine elements of the neoliberal programme with continued commitment to state assistance in various forms. This sets the frame for the regulation of an increasingly bimodal agricultural industry, in which spaces for postproductivism and rural development are being defined and defended in public interest and public good terms but where there are few opportunities to question the enforced segregation and commodification of rural space and environmental provision that this implies.

Intertemporal analysis of employment decisions on agricultural holdings in Slovenia

AbstractThe article attempts to quantify determinants influencing the dynamics of employment decisions on agricultural holdings in Slovenia and to test specific aspects of labor reallocation during the transition period by the application of an agricultural household model. Through the use of a 1991–2000 longitudinal data set for 22,055 farm households, quantitative analysis of intertemporal employment decisions by farm holders is carried out using probit techniques. The determinants tested relate to the personal characteristics of farm holders (gender, age, education level, and potential off‐farm income), household characteristics (size, structure), characteristics of the agricultural holding (economic size, labor intensity), and local labor market conditions. The model results generally confirm existing empirical evidence on asymmetrical and irreversible participation of holders on the labor market. Despite intensive restructuring of agriculture and profound changes in the nonfarm labor market in the analyzed period, labor supply of farm holders remains rigid. The mobility of labor supply is lower than expected, which can be attributed to the importance of structural problems constraining intersectoral mobility. Low labor mobility reduces the efficiency of labor allocation on agricultural holdings in Slovenia. Elements of this problem emerge on both supply (e.g., low level of educational and professional attainment of reference persons) and demand sides of the labor market (e.g., unfavorable local labor market conditions). A marked tendency toward maintaining the same employment status is more distinct in the case of holders employed on‐farm only.

Sustaining production and strengthening the agritourism product: Linkages among Michigan agritourism destinations

Agricultural restructuring has disproportionately impacted smaller US farms, such as those in Michigan where the average farm size is 215 acres. To keep agricultural land in production, entrepreneurial Michigan farm- ers are utilizing agritourism as a value-added way to capitalize on their comparative advantages, their diverse agri- cultural products, and their locations near large, urban, tourist-generating areas. Using focus groups, this paper illustrates how entrepreneurial farmers have strengthened Michigan agritourism by fostering producer networks through brochures and web linkages, information sharing in refining the agritourism product, referrals to other agri- tourism businesses that serve different markets or offer different products, purchase linkages, and a regional approach to establishing agritourism destinations and increase visitation. Successful entrepreneurial, agritourism developers thus work cooperatively, rather than individualistically and competitively. Agritourism destinations fac- ing stiff competition from alternative venues for leisure time and food purchases benefit from supportive linkages that help sustain a critical mass of producers who offer diverse goods, maintain land in agriculture, and thus, rein- force Michigan's image for agritourism.

Impacts of Farm Structural Change on Farmers' Social Ties

ABSTRACT Many studies have examined how changes in extractive and basic industries affect natural-resource-dependent rural communities. Most of these studies have used aggregate data to explore the impacts of natural resource dependency and change on indicators of economic well-being. However, there are many reasons to believe that changes in the size and structure of natural resource industries also affect the dynamics of social life in these communities. Persons who play diverse roles in local natural resource sectors are likely to experience different impacts from economic restructuring. In this article we analyze data from nine dairy-farm-dependent rural communities in seven states to explore the impacts of agricultural restructuring on levels of farm operator community involvement and social integration. Comparisons are made at the aggregate level across communities dominated by different types of dairy operations, and at the individual level across dairy farmers who run different-sized operations.

China's Restructuring of Agriculture in Line with Grobal Trends

China's Restructuring of Agriculture in Line with Grobal Trends

The causes and environmental effects of land use conversion during agricultural restructuring in Northeast China

During the last decade of the 20th century, extensive conversion in agricultural land use took place in Northeast China. The goal of this study is to ascertain its spatial distribution and regional differentiation, determine its causes, and analyze its environmental impact. Especially we attempt to elucidate how institutional constraints have facilitated the change at a time of agrarian restructuring when newly emerging free market was hybridized with the former planned economy. Information on six categories of land use was mapped from interpretation of Landsat TM images recorded in 1990, 1995 and 2000. Most of land use changes took place during the first half of the decade, coinciding with abrupt and chaotic changes in government directives. Farmland was changed mainly to woodland, water body and built-up areas while woodland and grassland were converted chiefly to farmland. Spatially, the change from farmland to woodland was restricted to the west of the study area. The change from grassland to farmland took place in the grazing and farming interlocked west. These chaotic and occasionally conflicting changes were largely caused by lack of stability and consistency in agricultural land use policies promulgated. They have exerted adverse impacts on the local environment, including land degradation, increased flooding, and modified climate regime.

Individual Farming in the New EU Member States: The Case of Hungary

This paper is motivated by the fact that (part-time) individual farming is commonly observed among rural households in a number of transition economies but it is not clear prima facie if such resource allocation is optimal. A conceptual model of household labor allocation between individual farming and off-farm wage employment is developed. The model explicitly accounts for the role of household endowments in labor allocation as the analysis is conditioned on the status of factor markets. The hypotheses are empirically tested using 1998 data from a country-representative survey of rural households in Hungary, an advanced transition country, which only recently became EU member state. Results provide evidence that capital market imperfections still remain. Implications for the policies related to agricultural sector restructuring, employment and rural development are discussed.

Restructuring and Redundancy: The Impacts and Illogic of Neoliberal Agricultural Reforms in Jamaica

Since the onset of IMF lending in the late 1970s, Washington‐based planners have progressively compelled the Jamaican state to abandon its role in agriculture. Jamaica's agricultural adjustment occurred in two stages: first, agricultural development programmes were rolled back in the 1980s; second, liberalizing pressures in the 1990s threatened both the uncompetitive plantation sector (imperilling preferential markets) and domestically oriented small farmers (initiating a flood of cheap food imports). Today, agriculture in Jamaica is on the brink of irrelevance, with serious social and economic consequences in the balance. In critically assessing the process, impacts and illogic of agricultural restructuring in Jamaica, this paper highlights the uneven outcomes of global market integration and points to the urgent need for a reassertion of local sovereignty.

The redefinition of family farming: agricultural restructuring and farm adjustment in Waihemo, New Zealand

The process of agricultural restructuring embarked upon by the New Zealand government in the mid-1980s precipitated a period of financial hardship for many of the nation's farmers. It was not uncommon for families to adapt major adjustment strategies in order to maintain the viability of their enterprise at this time. Drawing upon a detailed case study of farm-level responses in a small rural locality, this paper argues that farm adjustments employed during and since this period have altered the character of family farming in the area in fundamental ways. Such change has been evident in the increasing heterogeneity of farm structure, and the alteration of farming goals and household labour arrangements, together with the evolution of local cultural norms. These transformations not only raise important questions about the future structure and sustainability of family farming in the area, but also inspire a conceptual reconsideration of the family farm unit as traditional linkages between the farm enterprise, household and property are weakened.

Agricultural change and restructuring: recent evidence from a survey of agricultural households in England

Despite widespread speculation about the likely future extent of agricultural restructuring in the UK, researchers and policymakers are surprisingly ignorant of the nature and extent of farm household adjustment in the period since the mid 1990s. Meanwhile, claims that agriculture is in crisis and on the threshold of radical structural change continue to receive widespread media attention. Critics point out that because European policy debates are constructed in ways which emphasise the vulnerability of farmers and their businesses, there is a lack of attention to the true status and economic sustainability of agricultural households themselves. This paper reports results from a recent survey of agricultural business restructuring within six English study areas selected to span a range of agricultural settings and designed to identify the different trajectories of change to be found there. It concludes that while there is some evidence of disengagement from mainstream agriculture and an increasingly diverse set of relationships between the occupation and management of land, commitment to remaining in agriculture remains strong amongst farming families. A substantial proportion of agricultural and agri-environmental assets seem likely to remain in the same hands for the foreseeable future.

Shaanxi: Building a Future on State Support

Shaanxi province has obtained substantial benefits from the Open Up the West programme. It has developed communications, sped up exploitation of energy resources, and subsidized industrial and agricultural restructuring. Conversion of farmland to forest or grass has been subsidized on a massive scale, even if its lasting effects are quite uncertain. Moreover, local governments were able to receive increasing amounts of subsidies for government services such as education and welfare, which meant the burden of human and social cost of marketization of the local economy could be alleviated. Of the three different regions of Shaanxi, the north has benefited most from energy development and agricultural restructuring. Central Shaanxi with Xi'an as the capital has profited from its advantageous location, existing industrial basis, administrative functions, and strong education and research facilities to improve its industrial structure and upgrade its services. However, the substantial industrial expansion over the past few years was fuelled by heavy policy-driven investment from outside and growing urban income, and most enterprises still have to prove their ultimate competitiveness in the national market.