A practical look at Asia\'s problems

Book reviews

Three major crops are produced in the area: wheat (a food grain), corn (a livestock feed) and soybeans (both feed and food).

Capability o f major concern is the long-run capability of this area to supply food for domestic and export markets. The book is divided into four parts: 'The politics and economics of North American grain production'; 'Climate change and Great Plains agriculture'; 'Resource constraints to grain production'; and 'The future: technical and institutional i n n o v a t i o n in North American agriculture'. The papers presented in the book are from a 1984 conference held at Minneapolis-St Paul, sponsored by the University of Minnesota Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics and the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. Participants in the conference, thus the authors of the papers, were competent agriculturalists, scientists and resource economists from Canada and the USA. The mood of these papers reflects the timing of the conference. There were then still lingering overtones of concern about the ability of agriculture to meet food needs. The full severity of the financial stress in agriculture had not yet struck and the Food Security Act of 1985 was still a year away from enactment. The article by G. Edward Schuh and Harlan Cleveland articulates clearly the international setting which now disciplines the food trade and food policy. Perhaps the least dated of the papers are those on climate, agricultural science and resources. Peter Ciborowski and Dean Abrahamson have a chapter on carbon dioxide and the greenhouse effect. If present trends continue, they say, average global temperatures will be at least four degrees centigrade warmer than the pre-industrial level by the year 2060, resulting in a northward movement of the grain belt. Norman Rosenberg has an informative chapter on irrigation and cultural practices that are useful in coping with a variable climate. Sandra

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Pioneer Hi-Bred International. Duvick traces yield gains that have resulted from plant breeding (about Agricultural policies are not formulated by 1% or 2% per year) and says there is asking the impact of resource quality, quantity and price on farmers" income and no sign that they are slowing down. production. Rather, policies are formu- H e does not look for early dramatic lated by asking the impact of farmers" gains from gene splicing. He discusses practices on resource quality and quantity. the research contributions of the pubThe difference is fundamental. lic and private sector with balance and Pierre Crosson judges that 'erosion insight. Ford Runge has assembled and effects on land quality do not now seem likely to seriously constrain the edited a highly readable volume. Afgranary's supply of cropland over the ter reading these chapters, one connext decades'. Allen Kneese writes cludes that farm policy people of that despite heavy withdrawal of water North America are likely, during the from the Ogallala Aquifer, ~there is no remainder of the century, to be dealing with abundant supplies. water crisis in the High Plains'. One of the most interesting chapters Don Paarlberg is on biotechnology research and the Purdue University private sector by Donald N. Duvick, West Lafayette, IN, USA V i c e - P r e s i d e n t for R e s e a r c h of

Batie, Leonard Shabman and Randall Kramer write that today:

A practical look at Asia's problems RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN ASIA: MEETINGS WITH PEASANTS by Gilbert Etienne

Sage, London, UK, 1986, 276pp, £16 hb, £8 pb There is a general belief that rural development in the Asian region has not been satisfactory. The result has been an increase in hunger and poverty. The major cause of this state of affairs is the defective socioeconomic framework and planning process. This book discusses the socioeconomic transformation of selected Asian economies, namely India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The study reveals that the problems of hunger, poverty, low income, low consumption and low standard of living are basic features of the developing economies of the Asian continent. The study asserts that rural development planning is now standard in these countries and there are indications that in years to come it will assume a greater role. This should go a long way in generating more benefits for the poorest of the poor. Professor Etienne has produced a

logical and scientific analysis of the problem of rural development by adopting a practical rather than theoretical approach. This is because the author travelled widely and had many face-to-face discussions with the peasant community. Primary statistics were collected through questionnaires and personal interviews.

Major deficiencies Although he does not propose a model to understand the problem, the book includes an excellent chapter entitled, 'Towards a theoretical outline', in which he points out major deficiencies in the existing policy framework. The author concentrates on the process of rural development in India and China, the two most populous countries in the world. Here he describes all facets of rural development in depth, with emphasis on socioeconomic, political and technoeconomic problems. The analysis of India's rural development alone takes 90 pages. The author shows that the indirect attack on hunger and poverty through modernization of agriculture, increasing purchasing power of the poor, remov-

FOOD POLICY November 1986

Book reviews

al of economic as well as political instability, increasing the role of the green revolution should be carried out on a war footing. However, the author does not recommend the Western model as a solution to the problem of rural development, but advocates an approach which must be a combination of new and old techniques. Professor Etienne further concludes that 'in such a vast and complex country, one cannot suddenly wipe out all corruption and remove all doubtful politicians from the scene, but there is hope that the new Prime Minister, Mr Rajiv Gandhi and his team can gradually reduce all these evils to bearable proportions' and will explore the new ways and means for solving the problem. We can only hope that this is the beginning of a new chapter in India's development. In regard to China, the author presents some revealing facts such as

vast disparities between communes, lack of adequate credit, low crop yields, and lack of financial and other inputs. According to Etienne these problems are a hangover of Mao's era. But in the post-Mao era, modernization, efficiency, increased production and better standards of living were apparent. Many steps were taken by the government in the fall of 1984 which has changed the framework of the Chinese economy. The author paints a depressing picture of Bangladesh. Owing to regular natural disasters, rural development has been hampered and hunger, poverty, low income, low consumption, low production, low productivity and low standards of living are creating a nation of serfs. Added to this, low levels of literacy, unchecked population and a limited pool of technical skills have inhibited the process of rural development.

In regard to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Professor Etienne gives a brief account of growth and development in rural areas. Here he suggests that the prescription of economic liberalization and modernization, without redistributive reforms, will give no better results and will only exacerbate the condition of the impoverished rural majority. There are indications that recent policies will intensify inequalities and create destructive tensions in the peasant community, making them unsustainable. In conclusion, the book is an excellent addition to the literature on rural development.Credit must go to Arati Sharma for translating it from French into English.

Badar A. Iqbal Department of Commerce Aligarh Muslim University Aligarh, India

What future for Africa? FAMINE: A MAN-MADE DISASTER? by The Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues

Pan, London, UK, 1985, £1.95 AFRICA IN CRISIS:THE CAUSES, THE CURES OF ENVIRONMENTAL BANKRUPTCY by Lloyd Timberlake

Earthscan, London, UK, 1985, 224 pp Few would disagree that there has been a long build-up toward the present crisis in Africa. However, at the recent Special Session on Africa of the United Nations General Assembly, there was some last minute negotiation to retain references in the final document to the way the colonial experience contributed to what Professor Dumont termed Africa's 'false start' and what historian Basil Davidson has called its 'cracked dish'.l Throughout the 20 years or more of independence of most of the subSaharan countries there have been debates about the balance of 'internal'

FOOD POLICY November 1986

versus 'external' forces that were blocking their development or, in Walter Rodney's more active phrase, 'underdeveloping' them. 2 Since the mid-1970s, the oil price shock, reflection on the Great Sahel famine (196873), evidence of rapidly increasing urbanization - partly due to collapse of rural livelihoods - chronic hunger and deterioration of services have produced a less polarized analysis, if not a consensus of sorts. Elements of this 'consensus' include the view that famine in Africa is not caused by drought alone, but is a manifestation of the non-sustainable ways in which a wide variety of economic, political and environmental processes have been operating and affecting each other for a long time. The tension between inside and outside forces remains - most graphically in the IMF view that 'policy reform' is the key to African recovery versus the continued African insistence that international trade patterns and externally-supported wars cannot be overlooked when thinking through Africa's future. Yet the strong interaction of political, economic and environmental factors seems well estab-

lished on the agendas of all major actors in Africa's recovery. Both books under review are useful and, in different ways, brilliant summaries of the emerging core of a possible consensus. Their sub-titles bespeak the interpenetration of the political, the economic and the environmental. 'Man-made disaster' and 'environmental bankruptcy' are concepts that bridge conventional fields of development studies.

Complementary books The books cover much of the same ground, but they are complementary. Crisis fills in detail of the way in which poor people are being driven to misuse the environment in core chapters on land, water, forests and energy, soil fertility and fisheries. Famine fills in detail on the contradictions and collapse of leadership in Africa and among the donor 'experts' referred to by the collective noun, the 'adhocracy'. Both books deal with the militarization of Africa that has increased debt, diverted human and financial resources from development, disrupted rural life, destroyed infras-

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