2s Agricultwral Econoncics Sociel?.

improving labour efficiency would be particularly timely and valuable, both to the individual farmer and to the nation. Studies on how to improve the effectiveness of machinery to increase output per man and promote farm operating efficiency also would seem to be extremely worthwhile. To this short statement of suggested studies having a bearing both on individual farm management problems and national agricultural policy, I am sure you have many ideas for additions and revisions.

In closing, I would like to re-emphasise that British agricultural economists have a challenge and an opportunity. With the great changes in your agri- culture and the increased interest in farm management, you can perform an invaluable service to the country in helping farmers make sound management decisions and in assisting in the development of national agricultural policy ; a policy which will make the best use of the resources of Great Britain for the improvement of the welfare of both farmers and the nation as a whole.

DISCUSSION ON PROFESSOR WRIGHT'S PAPER. I?. B. Jones:

I don't wish to comment on Professor Wright's paper directly, but as wc in Xottingham have seen rather more of him than the rest of you I would like to say one or two things. about him.

We feel that in many ways he has come to 11s as a missionary, a missionary not with an entirely new gospel but as one preaching an old gospel in a new and a very inspired manner. I think we can say that here the process of conversion is well under-way. We are entirely convinced now that the points that he has been making in his paper are extremely relevant to conditions here in the East Midlands. I think we are also coming to the conclusion that it is possible to do infinitely more even within the straight-jacket of the required work programme. He has shown us that wc can do our present jobs much more efficiently, much more effectively.

I feel that the character of a missionary is of very great importance and in that respect Professor Wright is outstanding. We have been impressed all along by his sincerity. We are also impressed with his capacity to inspire others and to draw from them the best that is in them. We also appreciate very much indeed his ability to approach the problem from our point of view. .4fter sitting for nearly six months at the Professor's feet we are, I think, fully convinced that the path that he is pointing is the only one that leads in the right direction, and, more important, he has given us confidence that w e can advance along it.

.4. W . Asliby: I would first of all like to thank Professor Wright very heartily for this paper. In

part it consists of a very useful formalising of processes which are well-known in this country, and which are practised within the necessary limits here. In part it also consists of extremely useful discussion and suggestions with regard to some of our practical problems. But I find that there are problems which are not even indicated in this paper. May I give you one of them ?

Looking at the national income and agricultural economy of the United Kingdom about the year 1870 the average level of agricultural income was about equal to the national average level of income per head of occupied persons. In the period between the two wars the round figure would be that the average level of income in agriculture was about 63 per cent. of the average level per head of occupied persons in the non- agricultural section of the community. In Sweden the average level of income in agri- culture for 30 years or so never was above 62 per cent. of the level in the rest of the community. In Switzerland, where they have had perhaps the most successful economic investigations of agriculture conducted in any country, the current position is that the average level of income per head in agriculture is approximately 50 per cent. of the level in the non-agricultural section of the community. If you turn to the United States with all its massive organisation for economic investigation, with all its policies in the last five years, the average level of income per head in agriculture has been varyin- in round figures between 50 and 60 per cent. of the average level in the non-agricultural seczon of the United States. In fact if one were quoting what appear to be the exact figures, the figure has risen to 62 per cent. and has been down to 52 per cent. I prefer, because of the uncertainties, to use the simple round figures of 50 to 60 per cent.

Proceedings of Conference. 29

You would not argile-I clon’t suppose there is anybody in this audience who \voultl be bold enough to argue-that the average efficiency in agriculture from the point of view of productivity was relatively really lower than i t is in the rest of the community, but if you do start on that argument then the questions are not these little questions of farm management economics but the economics of capital supply, and capital equipment and transferring and removing sections of the agricultural population. I know, of course, when I use this general figure for the United States that the productivity levels and the income levels in agriculture show very wide variations in different States of the Union. and probably in different parts of some of the States of the Union ; but if we are looking at this problem of productivity per man, and income per occupied person, then the methods of research which we have forged don’t begin to touch that problem. The problem is more social in some respects than i t is economic, What are the standards by which farmers judge their physical productivity or their economic productivity ? What are the standards by which they judge their incomes? Why do they stay where they are when possibly by transfer, possibly by migration, they conld materially improve their own individual positions. S o t only that, but they could affect the positions of the community in which they live and farm. The question is very largely sociological as well as economic-some- times more sociological than economic. But at any rate there is a challenge to us if we believe, as I would believe, that what is good for the non-agricultural community is in general also good for the members of the agricultural community.

Bu t if we turn to Professor Wright’s paper i t seems to me that there are questions which he has not raised. If you begin to plan a piece of economic research in relation to agriculture, whether i t is in farm organisation and management, or whether i t is in the general economics of the industry, the reasons for the investigation, the reasons why the general public should pay for the investigation. will I think be one of these. First that economic arrangements have broken down, they have failed to yield satisfaction either t o individuals or large numbers of individuals, to groups or t o the Community at large ; with a further proposition that a further supply of information is expected to lead to bettcr arrangements. Or, alternatively, that economic arrangements have more or less failed, have yielded a certain degree of satisfaction but that this satisfaction can be raiscd with the aid of further information and its applications.

If I clon’t bore you, may I say something about applications in a moment. h further proposition, and very important occasionally. is that some fundamental conditions or some fundamental needs are changing, and that further information is necessary for guidance towards making adaptations to these new positions. Y o u will notice that all these three propositions are propositions in the field of applied economics. The purpose of the investigations is the application of the results to existing conditions. If these and similar propositions are not implied in investigations then such investigations are of the character of pure economics, pure in the sense of shots in thc general air on the chance of bringing down either a bird of fine plumage or a bird of natiiral history value, but in that case any application will be incidental.

Mention of pure economics in this connection brings to my mind the problem which is acutely esercising the minds of a number of young agricultural economists-that is the question of the relation of economic theory to research and investigation in agricultural economics. Young men read the text books and find certain conclusions, certain statements of principle, and of general tendencies which are elevated to the position of principles, and they find that they have great difficulty in harmonising these statements with what they find in their own fields of investigation. This perhaps is not the time to go a long way into that discussion. There have, however, been very interesting recent developments on the par t of pure economists themselves. An Oxford economist who may be known to some of you-P. W. S. Andrews-has been investigating the economic operations of small firms. He has published results and the pure economics world of Oxford is at the moment trying to see how his results from the examination of firms tit general economic theory, and some of them seem prepared to cast off the results because they cannot fit them.

There still is a necessity for beginning to think how we can justify certain propositions in respect of the organisation of agriculture so that they might be absorbed into the general economic theory as i t is taught and promulgated in this country. In this connection I would like to say, particularly to the younger members of this audience, that i t is quite easy to over-rate the importance and value of the formal investigation. There are numerous occasions when if you sit down to examine what is known of a given position, and set down what is known of a given position in the form of brief statements, and you begin a logical process of analysis, a logical fitting together of your findings and propositions, you will come to certain conclusions and those conclusions will be the same as you will find at the end of a long investigation. What the investigation quite frequently adds are certain quantitative measures of positions that were not previously available. It does not add very much to the propositions which might have been formulated before the investigation began.

30 Agricultural E c onomics Society.

There is this further important statement that when you have made your investigation, when you have been through all the machinery, there is a great tendency to describe the processes and describe the quantitative results in figures and to publish those as a report. But when you get to the point of application you find that you cannot use very much of your report because if you are trying to put your findings over to a group of farmers you have then to turn them very largely into a series of verbal propositions. ‘‘ If you do so and so in such and such circumstances the result will be this or that.” It is useless, as some of you have found out. to display tables before an audience of farmers. If you have a first-class graph, in which the results are simple and plain, you can show that effectively. In many cases the graph will show you propositions which you could have reached without the investigations. Simple arithmetical statements and graphs can be demonstrated to groups of farmers, but when you get down to the individual in most cases you have got to put over your propositions in a verbal form, and that also will apply in the first instance to budgetary proposals. In the case of the budget you describe the previous conditions and then you describe what the position may be on certain assumptions. But when you have got your budget, except for a very small percentage of farmers in this country, you still have to turn your propositions into relatively simple forms.

I am sorry in a way to be saying some of these things, but if my experience is of any value then perhaps I ought to offer i t to you.

hofessor Wright did jus t mention the subject of agricultural policy in relation to economic research. He also mentioned the relationships between the Provincial Agri- cultural Economics Service and the National Agricultural Advisory Service. I think that one thing that needs to be brought out clearly into the general consideration is that to a very high degree the N.A.A.S. is bound to follow the line laid down in national agricultural policy. The farmers individually are not bound to follow those lines-that is in the absence of any system of direction, in the absence of any direct controls. which is the present position. Once the price figures have been set for this year, or for two or three years hence, every farmer is a t liberty-and most farmers know it-to go home and think about a policy for his farm in relation to the price promises which have been made, and he is free to adjust his farming operations either along the lines of national policy or with appreciable variations ; but he still is free. The economist who is honest, who begins to advise an individual farmer, will take the same position. The individual is free under the national economy to adjust his farming operations to what he judges will be to his best advantage. There is that difference between the position of the individual farmer and his economic advisor, whether that economic advisor is somebody he employs and pays for, or whether the economic adviser is a member of an academic staff. And I can see quite a considerable number of cases where variation of individual farm policy from national bolicy would be of value to the farmer himself and probably not very much detriment to the nation at large.

R. N . Dixey: Perhaps I might say that I regard this paper as a very useful and practical contribution

to our problems here. It is very well expressed and does not leave any doubt as to what Professor Wright thinks, and a great deal of what he says is obviously very true.

I may throw out one point, however, in the nature of a caveat, and that is that although our studies are applied studies, although most of us are engaged in studying a practical job, namely farming-feeding people-making a living, and although it is our business to see that the findings of research and so on are applied in a practical way, I think it is very important that all of us should reserve a portion of our efforts for something rather more fundamental. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is an easy thing to laugh at. I have often quoted what I believe is the toast of the Higher Mathematical Assotjation : ‘’ Here’s to higher mathematics and may they never be of any use to anybody. That is a point of view which is easily ridiculed but it does contain a t the back of it a truth. I do think that it is still a very good plan not always to say that what I am doing today is going to be of use tomorrow. We should not throw cold water on people who dig deep and who, as people say, “ get to know more and more about less and less.”

W. J . Thomas: This discussion has started on such a high plane that I rise with some reluctance

to join in it. We, at Leeds, recently had the privilege of hearing Professor Wright talking about research programmes which are being conducted at East Lansing. One of the things that struck us very forcibly in his account was the very large amount, and also the breadth, of work covered, all in the one place. And yet, in that very impressive record there was still very little that we have not attempted in this country, a t one time or another, in one place or another. What really impressed me was that so much research work should be undertaken a t one time in the same place. East Lansing has a much bigger

Proceedings of Coxjerencc. 31

team of rescarch work-rs than one will find in any department in this country. Here we may have ten or twclve trained aEricultura1 economists and they will spend some of their time on what we call ’ * required work,” some on provincial work, a few may do a little teaching as well as research, and some will even take part in advisory work. There must, therefore, be a good deal of chopping and changing by any one person between different jobs, and I wonder whether Professor Wright would say there are economies of scale and of specialisation in our own work and in the organisation of our Departments? Yon will find, too, that we are always in trouble with our samples ; they are often too small for the purpose for which they are intended, this, of course, being imposed upon us very largely by the geographical spread which is required. Might it not be better, for example, if some of our Departments were amalgamated ?

On the application of research, i t would appear that Americans have been much more svccessful than we have in disseminating the results of their research work. We in the l’rovincial Agricultural Economics Service are far too few in number to be able to partkipate in advisory work on any large scale. I think tha t if we are to extend this field of activity we shall have to do i t through the N.A.A.S. ; we shall have to do even the economic advisory work through that service. It is therefore very necessary that we should now consider ways and means of improving the capabilities and equipment of people in that service, especially at the District Officer level, by putting more emphasis upon their training on the economic side of farming. Many now go into the N.A.A.S. as District Officers with hardly any economic background.

We should, I think, train a nucleus of people with a good background of economics to enter the Advisory Service : this is a long term project. We need also to meet the staff already in the service more often. This is already being done at some centres, and certainly at Lecds. But more is needed, and I think we should now offer short courses, particularly in the economics of farm management, to tlic staff of the N.A.A.S.

I shoiilcl like to say a few words about what we >re doing in Leeds in the training of future N.h.A.S. staff with a strong economics bacligrountl. particularly in farm management. Firstly, however, I should like to make one or two general comments about the teaching of farm management. In this country some Universities put on a course in ” Farm Management ” taught by the staff of the agricultural department, others have the samc course in name taught by the agricultural economists, b u t thcse courses will be vcry different in contcnt. But clearly, I think, thc subject itself is so much on the border- line of thc economic and technical fields tha t i t should be taught by both the physical scientists and the agricultural economists. We have sct out t o do this at Leeds, where we now have post-graduate training in Farm Managcment for graduates in Agriculture.

One of the features of this course is that the main portion of the teaching is actually done on the farms. These are, in the main, farms which have been picked out by Mr. Long and for which we have a very good set of economic information. We present the students with the information before we go to the farm and this presentation requires a great deal of very detailed and meticulous preparation. The students will then visit the farm in the company of the lecturers in Crop and Animal Husbandry and the lecturer in ’igri- cultural Economics. We will walk the farm and students are given every opportunity of questioning the farmer and discussing his methods and practices. We will then return t o the farmhouse and thoroughly discuss, in front of the farmer, the economic side of the business. This I think has proved extremely successful.

At the end of the year we take the students to a problem farm, the accounts and records of which they have been given previously ; they will walk the farm in the company of the farmer so that they may get t o know him and ask him questions. On the following day they are asked to set down on paper the sort of advice they would give that farmer. No one who fails in this part of the examination will be given a diploma for the course. The enthusiasm which has been shown by students in this course, and by the farmers we have visited in conjunction with i t . prompts us to go on and develop this form of training. I think that our student from this course who enters the N.A.A.S. will be able, almost immediately, to offer sound economic advice to farmers.

I was glad to hear Mr. Ashby bring up the subject of the conflict which sometimes exists between national policy and individual profit. It is extremely important that in training people for advisory work onc should stress the importance of this difference. People who are in the Civil Service like the N.A.A.S. are perhaps in danger of putting more emphasis on the side of policy than on the side of the individual farmer. If they do they may be successful as civil servants bu t they will certainly be doing less than their duty as advisers in farm management.

E. Dawson : Familiar as some of the points are that constitute the paper, I think i t is extremely

useful t o have them set out in this systematic way, but I would have liked to see one sub- section greatly expanded. Possibly Professor Wright could expand it a little if he thinks

33 Agricultural Economics Society.

the point is sufficiently important. The sub-section I am referring to is VI.B, which deals with the analysis of data in the testing of hypotheses. I think this is the crux of the whole problem, and the point a t which we really begin to run into difficulties. Many of US arc reluctantly coming to the conclusion that a good many of the methods we have employed. the cross-tabulations and so on, though they havc their uses, do not seem to be appropriate to the problems we are up against. Consequently it is necessary to think out more satis- factory methods of testing the hypotheses that we arrive at in the early stages of our investigations. I have been wondering whether the use of case studies might at any rate partially serve the purpose.

Bulletin 52 published by the Social Science Research Council, and referred to in the paper, advocates the use of case studies in farm management research but gives us little guidance on how to use them. Leonard Salter in his recent book, ” Land Economics.” argues that case studies have strong testing force but does not enlarge on that. I would like to have Professor Wright’s opinion on the extent to which we can use case studies in testing our hypotheses. Speaking from my own personal experience, I often feel after going round a farm that I have tested out all sorts of things and perhaps proved them to my own satisfaction, but I am extremely doubtful as to whether other people would regard this kind of test as being valid. Possibly we ought not to expect very stringent tests. I t may be that we are looking for an impossibly high standard. I know that fifty years ago Galpin was using case studies of farms with very great effect in the United States and that gives me additional confidence in the method.

There is one further point which is merely an expression of opinion. Professor Wright has had a good deal to say about the need for research into methodology. I am all in favour of that but I am wondering whether it is the right thing to consider it as a separate problem. I have a feeling that to regard it as separate might lead to a sterile form of activity. I would rather see new techniques arising out of studies that have been carried out for their content and not for the methodology involved. In looking through our recent literature I am struck by two things : one is the meagre results that have sometimes come from the most elaborate methods, and the other is the very good results which sometimes have been arrived a t by the simplest of methods. These methods have been carried out in the context of proper planning and preparation but the methods themselves have been simple. I think this is a point we need to keep in mind.

H. C. H . Graves:

I do not know whether it was the breadth and sweep of Mr. Ashby’s approach to our subject today which left the meeting in an obviously stunned silence, or whether it was the shock of seeing the prophet of advanced thought openly donning the robes of dyed-in-the-wool conservatism. A better demonstration of the contrast between Oxford- the home of pure reason-and the New World-the home of the go-getters-will probably never come the way of this Society again. .4s a mathematical physicist it is not for me to deny or t o decry the value of *‘ pure thought.” 4 t the same time, pure thought must be based on certain hypotheses or observed phenomena, and if those hypotheses are falsc. or the phenomena inaccurately observed. the application of pure thought to them may have misleading results.

Professor Wright may not know it but we have two organisations in this country whose activities may not be entirely unconnected with the possibility of applying i n practice the line of action which he advocates. One of these organisations is called Political and Economic Planning, known for short as P.E.P. This conducts factual studies on social, political and economic problems and issues reports collating information some- times of vast extent, from which deductions can be made of use in commercial and professional life. A more nebulous body might be called P.1.P.-Political Interference and Propaganda-and this, unfortunately, tends to obstruct fact finding and the appli- cation of pure thought when the facts have been found. For instance, if I may give an example from another sphere. P.I.P. has made the public believe that the high cost of the National Health Service is largely due to extravagance on the part of doctors in using so many high priced proprietary medicines. This has been drummed into us by Ministers of the Crown, by Civil Servants, and even by some doctors. The faets are ascertainable by anybody with a very small command of elementary arithmetic, coupled with access to one or two official publications. These proprietary medicines actually account for a total of approximately 8d. out of every 151 spent on the National Health Service, the other 19s. 4d. being spent in other ways. Of this 8d. a very considerable proportion goes in such life-saving proprietary preparations as insulin, penicillin, the sulphonamides. e tc. If all the hue and cry over this 8d. could be applied to the 19s. 4d. we might see a significant reduction in costs of the National Health Service without reduction in efficiency. First, however, the true facts must be ascertained, and then pure reason applied to them. In how many other fields can similar examples be found ?

Proceedings of Conference. 33

I wonder if there exist any inhibitions of a rather parallel nature in connection with the utilisation of our resources in agricultural economists in this country ?

Mr. Ashby omitted-I am sure it was accidental-from his most illuminating comparison any reference to the present day comparison between the farming community and the rest of the country-in the British Isles of course. Are there any inhibitions on this score ?

Descending from these generalities-fascinating though they are-to particular points, I would like to say how much I am in sympathy with the suggestion for a pooling of resources in the attempt to get what one speaker has called the benefits of “ scaling up.” I t may or may not be known that there is a commercial research organisation (working, incidentally, in Oxford) which employs no fewer than 400 people, aided by every known mechanical and calculating device applicable to the task, doing nothing else but investigating and reporting on the consumer demand for a limited number of specialised goods sold through chemists and grocers shops. A report is published on every line kept under investigation every two months, and the planning of the detailed work is such that one complete report embodying something like 50-100 large pages of mixed factual matter and illustrated graphs comes off the production line every four hours. Of course, that service is costly, Who pays for it ? I t is paid for by people who use the information thus obtained to reduce their costs of distribution, reduce the unprofitable applications of their efforts and thus increase their profitable applications.

I have no intimate knowledge of the scale on which agricultural economists in this country conduct their statistical investigations, but I feel that if some such co-ordinated effort as this could be applied to the masses of data which must already exist some remarkable findings might result. Provided they did not clash with P.I.P. they might even be of value to agriculturists !

Professor Karl T. Wright : First of all. I will agree with Mr. Ashby that there are many problems not mentioned

in my paper, but I would like to point out that the title is “ Research in Farm Management ” and not Research in Agricultural Economics. No attempt has been made to span the entire field. The prime purpose of my paper is to stimulate thinking on Farm Mana, nement Research.

Mr. Ashby’s reference to the earnings of agricultural workers compared with non- agricultural workers is a bit surprising. I n the first place, the figures, for the United States at least, are not such that they can be compared as they were, and secondly, I fail to see how the comparison proves that our research has fallen wide of its mark.

A s to whether our enquiries should be in applied or pure economics, i t may have seemed to some that I over-emphasised the applied. In my opinion, it is our responsibility to thoroughly understand economic theory and to apply i t to the solution of agricultural problems and to develop principles of farm management.

In regard to the importance and value of the formal investigation and the need of quantitative data. I agree that . . . setting down all that is known on a proposition and thinking about it . . . is extremely important. I am not sure but what some of us would not do better research if we got up on the top of some hill in Wales or Scotland or the United States and thought about these things. but I think that that alone is only tlic beginning of the enquiry, leading to the development of hypotheses which have to be proved or disproved. If new principles or new applications of old are to be developed, then facts need to be assembled and thoroughly analyzed on a systematic plan. If in writing the report of the investigation, there is merely a description of the processes followed or the quantitative results, and no clear-cut statement of the principles in language farmers can understand and make use of, then the investigator has fallen far short of a true agricultural economist, both in his research and advisory functions.

The matter of the Department size has been brought up. I might say that in Michigan there are 35 people on the staff of the Agricultural Economics Department, which seems like a lot-and it is-and they ought to get a lot done-I won’t say they do ! We try to make it seem impressive when the inspector comes around. But you should remember that Michigan is about the same size as Great Britain and that we should have about the same number of economists as you have. You have twice as many farmers as we have and maybe you should have twice as many economists.

Seriously, I do think there is an advantage to having a group of such size that there can be a certain amount of specialisation and a certain amount of efficiency ; but whether or not in a country like yours, with the diversity you have, you would gain anything by specialisation. I rather doubt.

About dissemination of information. I t seems to me as though that is a very important point, the dissemination and use of the results which you develop from your

34 Agriczdtural Econ.omics Society.

research work. Maybe in the United States we are more practical-minded than you, but we enter into research work with considerably more zest if we know somebody is going to use it, and I think that the development of a Farm Management liaison staff in relationships with the N.A.A.S. should provide an open channel for the outlet and use of your results ; and the more that can be developed in the next five years the better.

The other point brought up about the analysis of data and the testing of hypotheses- I think that you in this country have a more difficult problem in that connection than we have because of the lack of homogenity in your f a r m groups and the obtaining of a large enough sample for analysis of relationships. I doubt if cross-tabulation is the most effective method of establishing and testing relationships with the numbers that you have. I would expect that correlation analysis might be better adapted to some at least of your studies for the development and testing of these relationships.

As to case studies, we have not, in the United States, been too prone to use them because we feel that there is quite a lot of danger in trying to apply the results of one farm to a large group. Whether it is better here, than there, I don’t know. I think you have used them more, and perhaps if I had used them more I would be more enthusiastic than I am.

In regard to studying research methodology as a separate problem, I can well sympathise with the point of view mentioned, that it is not a separate problem, but might well be better developed with particular projects. I think that is true. From a practical point of view, in our country it often has not been given the consideration that it should receive. Perhaps if we consciously direct attention to it, more will be done on research methodology.

Chairmait : We must all agree that Dr. Wright has given us a most useful and practical contri-

bution this morning. Thanks are all the more due to him because he took this task on unexpectedly on Mr. Heath’s death. We must thank him very much indeed.