Book review In: Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture . Frankfurt: DLG. 37(Jul-Sep 1998)3. pp. 253-255.

Roger Rose, Carolyn Tanner and Margot Bellamy (eds.): Issues in agricultural competitiveness: markets and policies. IAAE Occasional Paper No. 7. International Association of Agricultural Economists. London: Dartmouth. 1997. XI, 486 pp. ISBN 1-88552-634-5. US$ 29.95.
 

The volume contains the 45 "contributed" papers presented at the 22nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists, held in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1994. Plenary and invited papers presented were published earlier: G. H. Peters and Douglas D. Hedley (eds.): Agricultural Competitiveness: Market Forces and Policy Choice. London: Dartmouth. 1995.

As the "proceedings editor" writes in his foreword, these 45 papers were selected from a total of 257, using a double blind referencing process. "Agricultural competitiveness" serves as a kind of omnibus title for contributions dealing with such varied topics as women's land rights, deforestation, food security, financial liberalization, informal credit markets, trade balance, human capital, technological change, migration, depletion of ground water sources, and nitrogen taxes. Geographically, they deal with all world regions; half of the papers focus on African economies. A few contributions only are purely theoretical; most of the others imply some quantitative analysis. With each paper being followed by a "discussion opening" and some of the papers - although not all of them - again addressed in various "summaries of general discussion", six pages per paper are left for the authors to line out their projects and present their findings. Given the variety of topics, the number of papers and the brevity of presentations, it is simply impossible to do justice to all of them in a short review. In the absence of an index there is, unfortunately, no shortcut to information for the selective reader either, who might look for her/his favourite article; most articles, thus, will only be found after having been referenced elsewhere.

The articles - been arranged in no obvious order - deal with (abridged titles, groupings mine):

- institutional aspects: women's land rights and sustainable development; womens`s income versus family income as a determinant of food security (Mali); demographic pressure and the sustainability of land use (Rwanda);

- policy: policy preference functions (EU); productivity gaps (EU, USA); dairy policy (EU, USA); land rental markets (Africa);

- efficiency: limited resource farms (Argentina); a profit function approach to the efficiency aspect of land reform (Zimbabwe);

- resource use: macro economic policy, export competitiveness and poverty (Kenya); aggregate estimate of environmental degradation (Zimbabwe); a CGE analysis of policies to combat deforestation (Cameroon);

- pricing (developing economies): export price variability, government interventions and producer welfare (Egypt); optimal price stabilization policies for staple grains (Africa); optimal pricing of primary commodities (Africa);

- pricing (industrial economies): agricultural producer price support (USA); CAP and food securiy (EU); unequal public suport (EU);

- farm economy: grain quality anb crop breeding when farmers consume their grain (Malawi); dynamic acreage response (Zimbabwe); farm-level conservation investment (Rwanda);

- measuring productivity: index numbers in measuring agricultural productivity (Canada); modelling and measuring technical efficiency (India); measuring farmer-specific and input-specific allocative efficiency (India);

- credit: non-bank intemediaries (Gambia); informal credit market (Philippines); financial intermediation (Gambia);

- trade and currency: trade balance and the J-curve (Malawi); devaluation and household welfare (Rwanda); agricultural policy and village economy (Mexico);

- product markets: demand for meat (Norway); a risk generated non-linear cob-web; consumer preference for pST-pork products (Australia);

- human capital: linkages between human capital and the environment; education and agricultural productivity (Africa); technological change (China);

- international economy: agricultural trade policy and exchange rate (EU, USA); migration, prices and wages (NAFTA); structural adjustment and agricultural export response (Latin America);

- evaluation: domestic resource cost and the social benefit ratio (Africa); sustainability and economic viability of crop-livestock systems (Africa); technology development for semi-arid Sub-Saharan Africa;

- environment: depletion of ground water sources (USA); nitrogen taxes (EU); best management practices in a pilot cost-sharing water quality program (USA).

As the foreword tells us, a further 119 papers were selected for the "poster abstracts", i.e. a paragraph each at the end of the volume; there, we find, however, only 93. They do not appear in the table of contents and are grouped under the following headings: trade, policy and competitiveness (18), farms, markets and efficiency (22), research, technology and innovation (11), policy and infrastructure for and performance of smallhold farms (21), agriculture and sustainable development (10), policy reform and transition in rural economics (11). Some of the projects seem to be in the initial stage ("An econometric model will be used in analysing the data."), others obvioulsy have been completed. Some of the authors of the poster abstracted papers are well known and some of the titles are extremely promising ("What is a green revolution?"). So it may be worth going through this section and contact the authors directly.

Few only will want to read the book from cover to cover, but as a paperback it definitively is, financially, in the reach of the agricultural economist and recommended as an addition for any private collection in the field of international agricultural economics; for the respective academic libraries it should be considered standard reference literature, recommended to acquire for the benefit of izs users..