396 GeoJournal 6.4 396/1982

© Akademische Ver lagsgesel lschaf t . Wiesbaden

Book Reviews SCOTT, P.: Australian Agriculture. Resource Development and Spatial Organization. 136 pp., 24 photos. Budapest, Akademiai Kiado 1981 Agriculture in Australia is generally large in scale (including some of the biggest farms in the world) with a degree of specialism in extensive pasturalism and highly mechanized grain (principally wheat) farming. Exports (by value and volume) have steadily increased and Australia is the only continent to export more than it impo[ts, although the principal markets have steadily shifted from Great Britain and West Europe to North America and Asia (especially Japan). This book sets out to examine the spatial organization of Australian agriculture (by means of mapping the regional distribution of particular agricultural types) and resource development (which here means no more than labour and land productivity) and to hint at future changes. It focuses on the traditional export components of Australian agriculture rather than more capital inten- sive contemporary development.

The principal merit of the book is that it compresses a mass of reasonably con- temporary data (and maps) into a short space. However, to do this much of the social, economic and political context of agriculture, and any literary style, have been excluded. The absence of an index also makes the data less accessible. Biophysical cohstraints and government intervention are awarded two pages (and passing mention) each, despite their enormous importance in a continent of dry yet unpredictable climate where one political party, the National (Country) Party, has great influence on policy formation and where foreign invest- ment in agricultural land grew from AS9 million in 19"16 to AS69 million in 1980. There is then very little on the international economic context and its influence on trade; the EEC exists in the background but its past and present significance is not spelled out. Likewise, although Scott observes the growth of family farm partner- ships, the social context of agriculture is otherwise absent from the volume and ultimately there is nothing on affluence and poverty in the agricultural sector despite the fact that the New South Wales Minister of Agriculture has recently commented on 'the possible creation of a peasant class of Australian farm managers and workers'. Although some important sectors of the agricultural economy are dominated by relatively recent migrants from southern Europe the only recognition of this is one sentence on Italian workers. Without an understanding of the changing contribution of European farmers (and their influence

on crop combinations) and, often, their poverty, much is lost. Less surprisingly, but as significant, there is nothing on Aboriginal labour. Other changes have also escaped Scott's cartographic approach such as the expansion of hobby farming and domestic investment farming (especially of nuts) so that the seemingly admirable compression turns out to be an overwhel- ming disadvantage.

In the general absence of social, political and economic context the sig- nificance of spatial changes is inevitably lost; the pages of description, without this kind of analysis and without hypothesis or even conjecture, become simply inter- minable. Whilst the data undoubtedly, and generally comprehensively, fills a gap this is not a book which adequately explains either the uniqueness of Australian agriculture or its contemporary and changing role in the Australian or international economy. John CONNELL, South PacificCommission, Noumea

GLAESER, B. (ed.): Factors Affecting Land Use and Food Production. 238 pp. Saar- briJcken, Breitenbach 1980 The alarming realization about this book is that it is already out of date. It provides an excellent treatise on eco-development and its application in Tanzania in the early 1970% but with the fading popularist debate on eco- logy and the continuing rural crises in Tanza- nia, the impact of the work is greatly dimi- nished. For those who wish to better under- stand the problems of the socialist experi- ment in rural Tanzania and to witness the emergence of eco-development as an applied doctrine, the collection of papers has great merit. Perhaps of greater importance, is that the book represents an early and critical statement on the doubtful benefits of western aid in agricultural development.

The book consists of a series of studies presented at a seminar in 1975 organized by the Lushoto Integrated Rural Development Project (LIDEP) in a joint venture with the Community Development Trust Fund of Tanzania (CDTF). All the papers on socio- political, agronomic and ecological questions were prepared in response to a background study which had been prepared a year ear- lier. The report, ". . .consti tutes an empirical case study on the bioecological and the socio-economic preconditions of a rural development strategy favouring conservation of resources and the environment." It is curiousj therefore, that this paper, although included in the book (pp. 92 -- 112), was not placed at the beginning as the introduc- tory statement for the whole proceedings.

Despite this, the book of readings is well organ'ized. Summaries of all the papers,

with the main points of the group discus- sion, are provided at the beginning, leaving the reader in no doubt as to the pro-ecolo- gical position adopted by the joint research team of Tanzanian and (~erman scientists. This is followed by a concise Summary and Recommendations section and then by the full texts of the papers themselves. This is a useful Way to present the material from a conference/seminar proceedings, as it high- lights the main arguments and issues at the outset and leaves the reader to select detailed follow-up reading. It is frustrating that such simple innovations took so long to reach the light of day.

The material presented argues persua- sively for ecologically sound food production in the Ujamaa villages of the Lushoto District. This position is based on nutritional and community benefits at the local level and long-term economic benefits for the ex- chequer at the national level. The govern- ment focus on cash crops is critized with systematic evidence of land degradation and a resultant technological dependency on 'development policies which promote cash cropping at the expense of traditional food growing systems. The environmental problems are particularly well documented, such as water supply, usage and wastage with the corollory problems of soil erosion and salination with uncontrolled irrigation.

The pattern of analysis in the studies follows an eco-systematic structure. Close attention is given to 'modern' agronomic practices which are often shown to exacer- bate an already impoverished land base (Egger, pp. 132-167, Nykvist, pp. 208- 216). Land holding and the need for co-ope- rative structures for land and labour mana- gement are discussed in detail, with pragma- tic consideration for the cultural inflections of the native groups (Gleaser, pp. 168--204). The political dimension is discussed in terms of policy and program development, and the 'socialist' ideology of development, so often ignored by academics, is brought into criti- cal focus (Angwazi, pp. 92-11J). Finally, attention by Mmari (pp. 225-233) is given to the educational needs of 'eco-develop- ment'. This section, relegated to last (as always) in an agricultural development trea- tise, adequately illustrates the shortcomings of the extension service, but never quite achieves a convincing arguement for a sui- table substitute.

In total, the book is a landmark state- ment on the growing rejection of western models of agri-development in the so-called 'third world'. It contains the added benefit of ample documentation of the problems as well as some well tested preliminary sugges- tions for a more culturally acceptable and ecologically sustainable food production system. Tony FULLER, Guelph, Ont.