Agricultural Transition Research Articles

A decade of transition in central and eastern European agriculture

This paper briefly traces the main features of the transition process in the agricultural sectors of central and eastern European countries and the Russian Federation, and relates them to the challenges ahead. An overview of trends in agricultural production and consumption, trade and farm structures is followed by a discussion of producer support measures (producer subsidy equivalents, PSEs) for certain transition countries. Finally, future agricultural policy challenges are examined, in particular that of creating and maintaining competitive conditions for agriculture and in the economy as a whole. Many transition countries seek accession to the European Union, and are giving priority to policies in line with that goal. In general, the challenges ahead are converging with those of OECD countries. Copyright 1999 by Oxford University Press.

Land Reform and Farm Restructuring: What Has Been Accomplished to Date?

The countries of East Central Europe (ECE) and the former Soviet Union (FSU) entered the transition in 1989–1990 with a common heritage in agriculture: most land, regardless of its ownership, was cultivated collectively in large-scale farms with thousands of hectares and hundreds of member-workers; the commercial production from the collective sector was supplemented by subsistence-oriented individual agriculture based on rural household plots of less than one hectare; product markets and input supply channels were largely controlled by state organizations within an administrative command framework; budget constraints virtually did not exist. The persistent inefficiency of socialized agriculture was usually attributed to collective production, which is rare in countries with a marketoriented economy, and to farm sizes that were too large compared to the observed market ‘‘best practice.’’ The strategy of agricultural transition formulated in the early 1990’s accordingly envisaged a transformation from collective to individual agriculture as the ultimate goal. Individual farmers could form associations to ensure efficient farm services and engage in land transactions to achieve optimal farm sizes. Pragmatic considerations suggested an intermediate stage involving transition to downsized but still relatively large corporate or cooperative farms based on private ownership of land and assets and with radically modified, profit-motivated management.

Energy productivity of technological agriculture-lessons from the transition of Swedish agriculture

In accordance with the bulk of published studies it seems widely accepted that energy productivity in modern intensive agriculture is decreasing and that primary emphasis should be on decreasing the use of fossil energy. A comprehensive comparison of three development stages in the transition of conventional Swedish agriculture (from 1956 to 1993) indicates that such conclusions should be questioned. This study of Swedish agriculture suggests that the potential of conventional agriculture to bind solar energy creates a much larger effect on energy flows than savings on inputs. It is also suggested that earlier studies of energy in agriculture have not only taken an inappropriate account of technological development but also miscalculated the links between used technology and the possibilities of energy crops. The fact that high input agriculture requires much less land per unit of output is taken as a basis for using the opportunity cost principles of economics to re-evaluate the energy and environmental performance of high input agriculture. The present study illustrates how both energy productivity and potentials for a better consideration of important environmental factors of a technological agriculture may be underestimated. The biggest challenge seems to be to aim for a better understanding of further developments of a technological agriculture for food production considering the environment, the use of `surplus' land for energy crops and schemes for increased biodiversity. The results of this study should mainly be relevant for parts of agriculture in Europe and North America.

Regional Variation in the Pattern of Maize Adoption and Use in Florida and Georgia

Dietary reconstruction using carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes from archaeological human bone samples from coastal Georgia and northern and Gulf Coast Florida dating between 400 B.C. and A.D. 1700 serves to illustrate the complexity of the agricultural transition in that region. Isotope analysis of 185 collagen samples drawn from early prehistoric, late prehistoric, and contact-period mortuary sites encompasses two major adaptive shifts in the region, namely the adoption of maize agriculture in late prehistory and the increased emphasis on maize during the mission period. Prior to European contact—and especially before the establishment of Spanish missions among the Guale, Yamasee, Timucua, and Apalachee tribal groups—diet was strongly influenced by local environmental factors. Before contact, coastal and inland populations had different patterns of food consumption, as did populations living in Georgia and Florida. Coastal populations consumed more marine and less terrestrial foods than inland populations. In general, maize was adopted during the eleventh century A.D. by virtually all Georgia populations. However, with the exception of the Lake Jackson site, a major Mississippian center in northern Florida, Florida populations show little use of maize before contact. Following European contact, maize became wide-spread, regardless of location or habitat within the broad region of Spanish Florida. Missionization appears to have been an important factor in the convergence of native diets toward agriculture and away from foraging. This increased emphasis on maize contributed to a decline in quality of life for native populations.

Double transformation at the eastern border of the EU: the case of the Euroregion pro Europa Viadrina

One of the major means to foster European integration is the establishment of border spanning regions (‘Euroregions’). This is particularly important on the Eastern borders of the EU, e.g. in Eastern Germany. There, however, a double transformation to post-socialist society is taking place, both inside and outside the EU. Tensions arise between objectives on local and higher political levels, intensified by totally different economic structures and access to EU funds on both sides of the border. This is particularly true for the case of the emerging Euroregion Viadrina. Problems in preserving old industrialised localities in East Germany (e.g. steel) and attempts to resurrect the urban fair place Frankfurt/Oder, clash with transition in agriculture and consumer industries and with new concepts in tourism development and environmental protection in the Polish border zone. In region building, political, economic and ideological goals compete with each other. Local initiatives and higher political governance may both support and hamper each other. The same holds true for the interdependence of cultural integration and economic development. The paper concludes that regional economic development can only be expected if, via the building of the Euroregion, the interplay of these factors leads to compromise and harmonization between the different parties involved.

Up- and downstream restructuring, foreign direct investment, and hold-up problems in agricultural transition

Reform in the transitional economies has been marked by falls in agricultural output and by decapitalisation of the agricultural production system. A key factor is the disruption caused by the break-up of the pre-reform, vertically integrated, centrally planned, contracting system within the agri-food supply chain. This paper analyses how restructuring up- and downstream from production is affecting output levels, particularly the impacts of hold-up problems characterised by excessively long payment delays for delivered products. Standard institutional solutions to the hold-up problem, including supply contracting, cooperatives and vertical integration, have disadvantages in the short-to-medium term. FDI at the processing level is shown to be capable of solving hold-up problems, whilst producing important positive spillover effects within the sector and across adjacent sectors. Empirical evidence indicates strong output, yield, and investment responses when hold-up problems are solved. Copyright 1998 by Oxford University Press.

Frontier Settlement and Market Revolution: the Holland Land Purchase/The Agricultural Transition in New York State: Markets and Migration in Mid-Nineteenth Century America

Frontier Settlement and Market Revolution: the Holland Land Purchase/The Agricultural Transition in New York State: Markets and Migration in Mid-Nineteenth Century America

Conventional agricultural development models and the persistence of the pesticide treadmill in Latin America

SUMMARY After a brief history of pesticide use and impacts in Latin America, the paper analyzes how agricultural development programmes, from the Green Revolution to the promotion of non-traditional export crops, have perpetuated the pesticide treadmill in the region. A fundamental issue in the paper is to link the pesticide problem to the broader policy, institutional socio-economic and technical changes that must occur if agriculture is to be ecologically sound, economically viable and socially just. By using several examples of biological control and integrated pest management programmes as case studies, ways of promoting the transition of chemical intensive commercial agriculture to a more sustainable and low-external input agriculture are explored. In the policy realm, a series of requirements and incentives to initiate change towards ecological pest management are suggested, including: changing the political-economic structures, countering pressures from the agrochemical industry, disseminating IPM among farmers, broadening education and outreach in IPM.

WHO PEOPLED AFRICA The Peopling of Africa: A Geographical Interpretation. By JAMES L. NEWMAN. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995. Pp. xiv + 235. £17.95 (ISBN 0-300-06003-3).

James Newman has given us an ambitious book. He explores three interlocking themes: a dialectic between the demography of human communities and the productive character of their environments; the roles of trade and politics in generating growth in political scale; and the development of cultural identities. The first three chapters review the emergence of hominids, the Stone Ages, and the transition to agriculture. Here we meet his sources: physical geography, archaeology, historical linguistics, the occasional human genetic datum and some documentary historical material (including mention of dynastic oral traditions). Newman handles most, though not all, of the best of the secondary literature in these fields. The second part of the book amplifies his central themes for each of the continent's conventional regions. At a total of 201 pages, the brevity of the text alone will appeal to undergraduate teachers.

Let's Hear It for the Losers

In 1775, eastern North America abounded in multiethnic communities, both outside and within the frontier. In his introductory chapters, Colin Calloway emphasizes the similarities between the experiences of these communities on both sides of the porous line that separated them. In both, young men were questioning traditional authority, seeking autonomy, and withholding deference. One result of the weakening of deference to authority was that young men on both sides sometimes killed one another in defiance of their elders. With the help of hard-working revivalists and missionaries, both Indian and Anglo-European communities were undergoing considerable religious ferment. Varieties of demographic change challenged them. Men on both sides resented threats to their liberty, and wondered how their children would find living in the next new world. When the American Revolution came along, both Indian and Anglo-European communities divided over whether or not it deserved their support. Not only similarities, but certain kinds of social intimacy linked Indian communities and white. Captives and traders lived in tribal towns, were adopted into clans, exercised political leadership, and fathered children of mixed ethnicity. Indian people entered colonial towns as visitors, traders, and ambassadors, and lived in them as servants, slaves, soldiers, students, bricklayers, blacksmiths, interpreters, guides, sailors and whalers. While most Indian people still lived in communities under their own control, resorted to dreams for guidance, tattooed their bodies, wore their hair in distinctive styles, and, if male, eschewed trousers in favor of breechcloths, English-style shirts, skirts, jackets, and waistcoats were as popular as the needles required to repair them and the mirrors that permitted the narcissistic to admire themselves. Hewed-log houses, the occasional church, pigs, cows, horses, chickens, and the occasional plow or fence bespoke both cultural and agricultural transition in many eastern woodlands communities. French

The Agricultural Transition in New York State: Markets and Migration in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America.

This addition to the Henry A. Wallace series focuses on the transformation of the US agricultural economy in the mid-19th century and its impact on farming families. It examines class formation, migration and family structure in the context of the growing availability of cheap consumer goods.

The agricultural transition in New York State: markets and migration in mid-nineteenth-century America

The agricultural transition in New York State: markets and migration in mid-nineteenth-century America

„Transition to farming in the Baltic” (sprawozdanie z konferencji)

The conference organized by the Department of Archaeology of Łódź University and by the Institute of Archaeology and Prehistory of Sheffield University (Great Britain) was held on 14th-17th September, 1992. The conference dealt with the „Transition to fanning in the Baltic” and its main purpose was to exchange experience in the research on the beginnings of productive economy in the Baltic Sea region. The following subjects were discussed: Social and economic organization of the late Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Contacts between the late Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and early farming societies. Cultural changes and responses within the hunter-gatherers societies occurring through contact with early farming societies. Management of non-domesticated plant and animal resources by late Neolithic hunter-gatherers. Health and demographic changes at the agricultural transition. Explanations for the adoption of farming. Continuity and change at the agricultural transition: the case of acculturation of hunter-gatherers by early farming communities of the adoption of farming by the resident hunter-gatherers.

Czech Agriculture in Transition

The article deals with the transition and transformation of Czech agriculture. The character of post-1990 systemic changes is defined. Chief goals of the state agricultural policy are described as well as the impacts of radical economic reform on the agricultural production. The following processes are analysed: 1) Restitution - return of property to the original owners or to their heirs; 2) Transformation - property transfer from the cooperatives to private subjects (individuals and companies); 3) Privatization - denationalization and privatization of the former state farms. The last chapter focuses on the privatization of Žihle State Farm (West Bohemia) as a detailed case study.

At the Interface of Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics: Indoeuropean Dispersals and the Agricultural Transition in Europe

AbstractIndo-European languages are believed to have spread through population movements from the original epicentre. In recent years, this diffusion and divergence of languages from the *proto-Indo-European mother tongue has been identified with the dispersal of farming populations from the region of Anatolia/northern Iran, who are held (e.g. by Renfrew) to have gradually colonised Europe between c. 6000and 3000be. It is here argued that this was not necessarily the case, and an alternative explanation for the divergence of Indo-European languages is presented, based on contact, exchange, trade, and intermarriage. Linguistic models for contact-induced language change, the archaeological evidence for such contacts at the transition to fanning in Europe, and evidence for the adoption of fanning by the local, hunter-gatherer populations are discussed. This leads to the formulation of the 'Neolithic creolisation hypothesis'. The paper finally suggests a scheme for the divergence of the Indo-European language...

Lobbying Incentives and the Pattern of Protection in Rich and Poor Countries

In seeking to explain why poor countries tend to choose policies that tax agriculture relative to manufacturing while rich countries do the opposite, archetypical parameters for a poor agrarian economy and a rich industrial one are inserted in a computable general equilibrium model to simulate the medium-term effects on income distribution of policies that distort the relative prices of tradables. The model includes a non-tradables sector and intermediate inputs, realistic features that ensure even greater skewness in the distributional effects of protection than simpler models suggest. The magnitude of the results helps explain the tendency for countries to change gradually from taxing to subsidizing agriculture relative to manufacturing as their economies develop. The paper draws out the implications of the analysis for agricultural and trade policy reform in the 1990s.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Agricultural origins, beginnings and transitions: the quest continues

Agricultural origins, beginnings and transitions: the quest continues

Agricultural transition in central and Eastern Europe and the former U.S.S.R.

Agricultural transition in central and Eastern Europe and the former U.S.S.R.

The Agricultural Transition in the Northern Southwest: Patterns in the Current Chronometric Data

ABSTRACTNew evidence continues to fuel discussion on the chronology and process of culture change in the American Southwest. The purpose here is, first, to examine the currently available pan-Southwestern chronometric data on the early agricultural period. A second goal is to provide a general perspective on the structure and nature of the current radiocarbon data base. The perspective presented in this paper is illustrated by partitioning and graphing the distributions of dates by kinds of materials dated, by geographic regions, and by early agricultural site types.

Problems and prospects of redirecting Hungarian agriculture towards sustainable development

Two years after the start of changing the political system in Hungary, the discussions on the need for a transition in agriculture, and especially on the future prospects of agriculture, have still not ended. Experts, researchers and members of several interest groups related to agriculture still uphold extremely different opinions about the causes of the present crisis, and about the direction of future development. Questions concerning the present situation and the future of Hungarian agriculture can be answered only if we look at the problems from a broader perspective. First of all, the time-span of analysis should be expanded into both the past and the future. The present situation can be better understood if it is considered as a stage in a long-term development process. On the other hand, to speak about sustainability without looking into the future is meaningless. The application of a system theory can help to explain the need for the disintegration or decentralization of the structure of our agricultural system. If sustainable development is preferred, viable family farms have to play a dominant role in the new structure, even if at present there are no favourable conditions for them. Broadening the perspective of our analysis is also required to include the state and development of the national economy, the directions of expected changes of internal relations and external markets, including the time and effects of membership of the European Community, expected sociological and demographical trends in Hungarian society, the complex relationships of agriculture to regional development and to the environment as a whole, and the possible or required non-food and non-agricultural use of land and other natural resources.