World Farmers Research Articles

Food intake and work allocation of male and female farmers in an impoverished Indian village.

1. The energy balance and activity allocation of eight male and eight female Indian farmers were measured for 4 d during 10 months in both the dry and wet seasons of 1983. 2. All food prepared and eaten was weighed and nutrient values were calculated from food composition tables. 3. Average energy costs per unit mass for fifteen tasks were estimated from data obtained using a Kofranyi-Michaelis respirometer. Each subject was observed from 05.00 to 20.00 hours and activities were recorded for each minute. The remaining activity was determined by recall. 4. Activity allocation was categorized qualitatively into time spent on economically productive work, free time and body maintenance. 5. The mean weight for male subjects was 48.2 kg; the average female weight was only 36.9 kg. The mean height for male and female subjects was 1.61 m and 1.49 m respectively. 6. For male subjects, the daily mean energy intake of 9.81 MJ (2350 kcal) was close to the calculated energy output of 9.54 MJ (2285 kcal). 7. The women's calculated daily expenditure of 8.22 MJ (1968 kcal) was slightly higher than their mean energy intake of 7.73 MJ (1852 kcal). 8. Although intake and output varied in relation to sex, weight and wealth the mean intake per kg body mass was equal for both males and females at 210 kJ (50 kcal) per kg. This is close to the minimum requirement for active Third World farmers. 9. The women spent significantly more time on economically productive work activities than the men (11.1 v. 8.1 h/d). Although female energy intake was 27% less than males, their productive work time was 27% higher.

A world food system: actuality or promise?

A WORLD FOOD SYSTEM: ACTUALITY OR PROMISE? D. GALE JOHNSON* The creation of an effectively functioning world food system is now within our grasp. As recently as 4 decades ago it would not have been possible to make such a statement or even to hold out hope that such a statement might have some chance of being true any time during the twentieth century. Enormous strides have been made since World War II in making a world food system a reality. Much more could be done and more needs to be done to realize the full potential of what has been created by the world's farmers, marketing agencies, processors, input suppliers, and land and water transport systems. But even with all the adverse factors affecting farmers in the low-income or developing countries, world food production has grown rapidly since 1950. For 1950-1983 the annual growth rate of world agricultural production was 2.7 percent, while the growth of agricultural trade was almost double that rate at 5.3 percent. From 1950 to 1983 world food production increased by approximately 125 percent, while world food trade increased by approximately 310 percent. World trade in grain increased from 73,000,000 tons in 1960-1961 to almost exactly three times that quantity, 217,000,000 tons, in 19821983 .: How much is 217,000,000 tons? It is more than 50 kilograms for every person in the world. If equally distributed—which it neither is nor can be—it would provide more than 450 calories per day for every man, woman, and child in the world. True, a significant fraction of the grain that enters world trade is fed to livestock—approximately half of the world trade in grains is in coarse grains—but what we call coarse grain is food grain for some of the world's poorest people. It is time to indicate what I mean by a world food system. My concept of a world food system is a system in which food and other agricultural 1USDA data (excludes intra-EC trade). *Department of Economics, University of Chicago.© 1986 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 003 1-5982/86/2902-0482$0 1 .00 180 I D. Gale Johnson ¦ A World Food System products that can be transported at reasonable cost and produced anywhere in the world are actually or potentially available to any person in the world if that person has the means to purchase them. There now exists a world food system, though it can be and will be improved by the end of this century. The existence of a world food system is a recent event in the history of the world. Just 4 decades ago it was not possible to say that such a system existed in the sense that people throughout the world could draw on the available supplies of staple foods, regardless of where those foods were produced or located. With quite minor exceptions, grain produced in America, Australia, Argentina , or France is available to a very high percentage of the world population —or would be if governments did not intervene to prevent its availability. The emergence of a world food system, even in its present, somewhat limited form, has added immeasurably to food security for the poorest people of the world. The emergence of a world food system, even in its current incomplete form, is one of the great achievements of mankind. It is not possible to exaggerate how important it is to tens of millions of persons each year; the existence of the system has meant the difference between life and death for many. The number of people who are not able to participate in the world food system represent a rather small percentage of the world's population . Some are in isolated parts of the world, and a few such areas exist, primarily in Africa, where communication is limited and transportation is time consuming, difficult, and expensive. The Sahel and some parts of east Africa may represent such areas. However, as will be noted below, inappropriate policies, corruption, the absence of civil order, and genocide are probably more responsible for the human disasters that we witness...

Effects of Individual Differences on Productivity among Farmers in India

Summary Previous findings by authors such as Sandhu and Allen and Sutcliff have been held to suggest that individual differences do not play an important role in explaining why some third world farmers increase their productivity and some do not. The present study of 200 Punjab farmers obtained measures of four demographic variables and 21 psychological variables, 11 of which predicted degree of output improvement over a five-year period. The major ones were TAT achievement motivation, nonverbal intelligence, career interest, and self-sentiment. Of the four demographic variables, size of landholding was a weak predictor, but age, education, and social status did not predict at all.

Modernization and Development among Indian Farmers: A Modern Proof of Some Old Theories

There are probably few problems on earth today more critical than the battle to see that all the earth's people can feed themselves. It is now almost universally realized that foreign aid in the form of food is at best a temporary palliative to the problems of undernourishment and starvation that beset most of what is euphemistically called the developing world. The only long-term solution is to teach the hungry to feed themselves. This has proved no easy task. Modern agricultural techniques of Western origin offer vast prospects for the improvement of agricultural productivity, but that alone has seldom proved sufficient incentive for their adoption among traditional farmers in the Third World. Resistance to is the summary term that technological evangelists use to describe the reception given to their exhortations. Nonetheless some progress has been made. Some farmers do innovate and do improve their productivity. The question asked in this paper is what sort of people these are. Who are the innovators ? What is necessary for a Third World farmer to change ? If we understand what underlies the success stories, we might have more prospect of extending that success to increasingly larger numbers of farmers. The approach taken to the study of the question in this paper is, primarily, psychological. The communication techniques, the social setting, and a host of other relevant variables will not be considered. What will be focused on is what the psychological variables in the farmer himself are that make for success in modernization. This is a trait study that will, it is hoped, be complementary to other more dynamically oriented studies. Since Weber,' the importance of psychological factors in economic development has become more and more widely recognized. Among the more notable researchers is David C. McClelland. He summarizes an

Feeding a Hungry World

HISTORICALLY, EACH MAJOR INHABITED region of the earth has produced its own food supply, and generally, agricultural production has kept pace with population growth. As populations have grown, however, crop failure from drought, flood, or whatever cause, in a given region necessarily affects increasing numbers of people. Estimates are that somewhat less than 2 million humans starved to death in the 17th century, 10 million in the 18th century, 25 million in the 19th century, and perhaps 12 million thus far in the 20th century. Were it not for improved communications, early warnings, the remarkable productivity of North American agriculture, and a worldwide food distribution capability, agriculture in the 20th century might well fail to keep pace with the world population growth of 2 percent per year, and major regional crop failures could now claim more lives than at any time in the past. We have entered a period of great international anxiety about the world's ability to feed its growing population. In 1972, the world food situation was transformed from one of food surpluses and low prices to one of relative food scarcity and high prices. This rapid reversal has raised again a wave of widespread food, population pessimism similar to that which has swept over the world several times since Thomas Malthus wrote his influential essay in 1789. A wide spectrum of opinion exists about the causes of this rapid change in the world food situation and its likely development in the future. One view is that we have reached the limit of the world's ability to feed even our present numbers adequately. Another view is that the events of the early 1970s signal a fundamental shift in the structure of the world's food economy that has led to a period of more or less chronic scarcity and high food prices. The soaring demand for food, spurred on by both continuing population growth and rising affluence, has begun to outrun the productive capacity of the world's farmers and fishermen. If this is the case, the limits to expansion of our food supply will require efforts to reduce consumption by the world's rich to feed the world's poor. A third opinion is that although the situation will be precarious for the next year or two, the factors that combined to cause it can be overcome. In this view, to which I subscribe, food production during the next decade will keep a half a step ahead of population growth, but there will be times and places of critical shortage. This last view is corroborated by a recent United Nations study, a study by the economic research service of the United States Department of Agriculture and a committee of the National Academy of Sciences and National Science Foundation, which I chaired. This committee considered the primary issue in balancing the food-population equation is an early reduction in the population growth rate and the attainment of population equilibrium as soon as possible. The factors that influence the population-food balance may be grouped into those relating to population, to agricultural resources, and to the more general features of the world food system. The main purpose of this article is to describe briefly some of these factors and what I believe can be done about correcting a potentially explosive situation.

A Model of Crop Selection in Semi‐subsistence Agriculture and an Application to Mixed Agriculture in Fiji

AbstractThe vast majority of the world's farmers operate as semi‐subsistence producers. Models of fully subsistence agriculture are modified to allow a two‐goods analysis of cash crop and staple crop production. A further extension allows comparisons between two groups of farmers possessing different production functions for their respective staple crops. Production possibility curves are constructed for each group of farmers and an empirical test formulated. Empirical results confirmed the hypothesized behavioral relationships which would give rise to the observed differences in resource allocation and resource productivity between Indian and Fijian farmers operating within a similar agricultural environment.

Food and agriculture in the next quarter century

In 1972 the world food situation made an about‐face, turning from surpluses and low prices to relative scarcity and high prices. Those of a Malthusian persuasion judged that we had entered a period of chronic food scarcity in which demand, spurred by population growth and rising affluence, had begun to outrun the productive capacity of the world's farmers. Other, more sanguine, observers pointed out that man had thus far avoided the Malthusian specter and would somehow have the ingenuity, foresight, or luck to continue to “muddle through,” excepting, of course, the occasional national or regional famine.

The Subsistence Agriculture Game Simulation of Central American Farming in the College Classroom

Abstract Although subsistence agriculture may receive little attention in the classroom, it employs the majority of the world's farmers. One way to emphasize the importance of subsistence agriculture in class is to use a simulation game such as the Subsistence Agriculture Game, which allows students to play the role of actual farmers in Central America. The Game represents a new teaching technique available for use and further investigation by geographers.