decades. But if the enthusiasm of delegates to the World Food Conference for agricultural develop- ment translates itself into investment priorities at home, a number of coun- tries that can ill afford it could end up with high-cost food industries that will help neither the poor in towns nor the majority of people in rural areas. Both books shy away from advocating open, trade-oriented solutions to the food pro- blem. Both seem to equate reliance on imports with political subjugation. But

dependence is a two-way street: exporters rely on importers. A broader approach to food problems may have led to a more eclectic though less dramatic conclusion.

Such an approach could begin by acknowledging that each country is an individual political decision unit, characterised by a unique set of domestic resource contraints and by a set of external conditions - some of which by taking thought it can modify. The country faces problems which stem from the gap between its aspirations and reality. It assesses the perceived alter- natives. They will include, inter alia, a policy on food supply - including domestic supply, stocks, and commer- cial. concessional, or bilateral trade sources - and a policy on food distribu- tion, allied to social programmes and general nutritional requirements. Along the way, problems of urban poverty, non-agricultural production and ex- ports, regional trading blocs, balance of payments measures, and inter-sectoral allocation of investment funds will be met and put into perspective. Among the options for any individual country might be a radical or revolutionary change in agricultural organisation and tenure. But there seems little in the pre- sent food situation to impel countries along this road if they do not wish it.

Such an approach would not appeal to an internationalist seeking ‘a’ solution to ‘a’ world problem. But if the problem appears in different guises in different countries why should one not suggest different remedies? And if the authors do have particular countries in mind, why not anchor these remedies firmly in the political, social, institutional and economic framework of those coun- tries?

Lest it be thought that my comments on the style and the approach taken in

FOOD POLICY November 1976

these books implies that I think they serve no purpose, let me make amends. Sinha in particular provides a good syn- opsis of several aspects of the world food problem, including a section on the choice of agricultural production techniques, and a chapter on the trading problems of developing countries. His discussion of the world food situation is balanced and acute, and he has some in- teresting observations an international institutions and their recent activities. The book helps to fill a gap for both concerned layman and harried student. Power and Holenstien aim at those who like facts and opinions thrust at them and have no time for equivocation. Both help to keep a vita1 problem in the public eye.

Tim Josling

Department of Agricultural

Economics and Management, Un~~e~sit~ of Reading

UK.

AGRICULTURALTRADE POLICIES

by J.C. Nagel

767 pages, 1976, f6.25, Saxon

House, Lexington Books, D.C. Heath

Ltd, Farnborough, Hants, UK.

WORLD FOOD PROBLEMS AND

PROSPECTS

by D. Gale Johnson

83 pages, 1975, $3.00, American

Enterprises Institute for Pubfic Policy

Research, Washington DC, USA.

COMMODITY TRADE OF THE THIRD

WORLD

192 pages, 1975, fB.50, Macmillan,

London, UK.

Effective writing on agricultural policy must fall into one of two categories. The discipline can be restricted to the world of managerial economics, where ultimate policy objectives are clearly laid down and where the most that can come from economics is either a refine- ment in data analysis to ensure that operating decisions square with objec- tives or suggestions of workable com- promises between conflicting interests and objectives in those rare cases which politicians and civil servants have not sorted out for themselves already. Alter- natively economists can address

Books

themselves to the manifest economic in- justices between and within nations, to highlight causes and measure extent - in both cases to edge politicians towards solutions which they already know but which for one reason or another will not adopt. If one despairs of the pace of reform in pluralistic societies one pre- sumably grasps at the promises of the despotic solution, now generally Marxist or militaristic, and hopes for the best.

Mr J.C. Nagel, an eminent Irish civil servant and much involved in FAO and other international agencies, is mostly concerned with the managerial economics of international agricultural policies with a heavy emphasis on the interests and concerns of developed countries. His book is a concise sum- mary of the evolution of world agricultural production and trade and the principal policy issues through to the end of 1974, taking in the com- modity boom of 1972-74, the impact of Eastern Bloc purchases and an outline of several important issues on the current agenda. It brings together in a compact summary much of the statistical back-up from FAO, the World Bank and the like which baas formed the basis of discussion at the 1974 World Food Conference and sub- sequent intergovernment activities.

There are a few surprising omissions. International or national meat policies appear to be overlooked; the review of the reasons for the recent commodity boom is incomplete; and the more pessimistic interpretations of future world food prospects are insufficiently explored. Some readers will regret that the thoroughness of the analysis on the current international sugar situation (33 pages out of the total text) has not been extended to, say, cereals, meat and dairy products and that the general pro- blems associated with EEC surplus agricultural capacity has not received more attention. However, Mr Nagel’s book provides a stimulating and very readable review which cannot be found so easily elsewhere.

Professor Gale Johnson’s monograph concentrates entirely on the events of the last four or five years. He gives a much more detailed analysis of the re- cent commodity boom - although once again the world cattle cycle is ignored - and reviews in some detail several of the principal issues which have arisen from

425

Books

the (perhaps temporary) food crisis leading to the World Food Conference of 1974. He discusses allegations that grain fed to animals in the rich countries is at the expense of the poor in the Third World; prospects for changes in the real prices of farm products against manufactures in the long term; the role

of grain reserves; and the prospects for food supplies in the developing coun- tries. His analysis of this last theme

should be noted:

‘I am cautiously optimistic that the food

supply situation of the developing

countries will continue to improve over

the coming decades. If I had as much

confidence in the political process in both

the industrial and developing countries as I do in the farmers of the world, I would drop the qualification “cautiously”.’

Taken together Nagel and Johnson pro- vide perhaps the best introduction to world agricultural policies with emphasis on the interests of developed countries that is currently available.

Commodit,v Trade of the Third World is a set of essays by seven authors on seven commodities and a general review by the editor of theories relating to commodity prices and Third World poverty. Four of the studies - Copper by D.N. Waite of Rudolph Wolff & Co, London Metal Exchange; Zinc by I.M. Robinson, Noranda Sales

Corporation of Toronto; Cereals by S.A. Harris, economist and adviser on EEC matters to a City of London firm of international commodity traders,; and Sugar by G.B. Hagelberg, a visiting associate of the Institute for Sugar In- dustries, Berlin - are entirely or largely concerned with the more conventional analysis of short-term price variations and longer-term market trends which one associates with discussion of com- modity stabilisation schemes. It is un- fortunate, therefore, that the book con- tains no general summary statement of the fundamental analytics required in appraising feasability of buffer stock and similar arrangements.

The other three studies give a wider perspective to the book and, partly by the nature of the commodities under review, are much more concerned with the power politics of international long- term pricing and with the divisions of the grains from trade between rich and poor nations. Professor P.R. Odell of

426

Erazmus University, Rotterdam, deals with oil and provides the longest and most comprehensive study in the book. His analysis gives some general balance to the discussion by stressing, maybe over-stressing, the fact that the West does not always win in the international division of the gains from trade and goes on to discuss, perhaps too briefly, ‘the fundamental question . . . whether the western economic system can be ex- pected to survive’ in the context of OPEC control of the world market. (The increasing pressures on world demand/supply analysis as a result of the current boom may underline the urgency of his suggestion even though events of the last two years have pro- vided very little support.)

The analysis of bananas by a Cana- dian academic and member of the UNCTAD secretariat at the time of writing, F.C. Clairmonte, is, one must presume, an example of the neo-Marxist radical economics - which might be better described as writings by angry young economists - that has become of some importance in recent years. The analysis is seriously incomplete: for ex- ample, there is plenty of multinational bashing in the context of rather old fashioned neo-colonialist interpretations but no attempt to evaluate the perfor-

mance of the integrated banana producing-marketing organisations in terms of return on capital, technical pro- gressiveness and the like. No doubt, the author would say such considerations are beside the point, but if one wants to go further on this subject one perhaps needs one quarter of his essay and three quarters of the 1968 Harvard Business School publication, Tropical Agribusiness Structures and Ad- justments - Bananas, by H.B. Arthur, J.P. Houck and G.L. Beckford, the trick being to know which one quarter and which three quarters! MS Payer, now associated with the Pacific Studies Cen- tre in Palo Alto, California, reviews developments in coffee with special emphasis on the evolution and stresses of the international coffee agreements which have emerged since the early 1960s and on the drift to the present state of shortage.

In her final chapter MS Payer pro- vides a brief review of the more general themes which arise in relating com- modity prices to poverty in developing

nations. She starts by examinating the two predominating theories, on the one hand the influence of declining terms of trade and on the other the alleged colonial or ex-colonial type division of labour between the metropolitan centre and the periphery. (It is unfortunate that there appears to be no reference to the recent book of Paul Bairoch, The Economic Development Of The Third World Since 1900, where chapter 6 gives a review and interpretation of terms-of-trade statistics which provides a much needed dispassionate assess- ment of developments prior to the re- cent commodities boom if some of the stronger statements in Commodity Trade Of The Third World are to be put into perspective.) The final sentence of this analysis brings us back to where, I suspect, the bulk of economic opinion, whether young radicalism or more elderly neo-classical reformism, would agree:

‘The conclusion must be, therefore, that those who look to the commodities price

level as a deus ex machina for the solution of poverty are looking in the wrong place.

The social concern, wisdom and

determination of governments will probably weigh heavier in the long run

than the level ofthe price index.’

In brief, Commodity Trade Of The Third World is too short for its subject matter (and rather expensive). But it makes a first rate start to getting an un- derstanding of the issues of economics, politics and political economy surroun- ding the current debate on the New Economic Order and on the approaches and biases of the various participants in that debate - although it would be as well at the time of reading to have somewhere nearby a neo-classical economist of sound faith and in good standing.

The four basic texts mentioned in this review form a comprehensive and mutually stimulating set of reading for any introductory study of the national and international commodity policy issues which will impinge in the western nations in the years immediately ahead.

George Allen

Department ofAgricultural

Economics,

University ofAberdeen,

UK

FOOD POLICY November 1976