Barbara Harriss

Regional growth linkages from agriculture

Pioneering research on downstream linkages from agriculture is said to demonstrate that consumption links rather than production links are the main source of indrect growth effects, that these consumption links take the form of labour‐intensive goods and services produced locally, and that the largest farm enterprises are most locally multiplicative of activities mopping up surplus rural labour. This article has two purposes. First, the methodologies, assumptions and data base for the quantification of the local and non‐local regional multiplier effects from agricultural development are examined. Second, the contradictory interpretations for agricultural policy which have arisen from these exercises of quantification are discussed and an attempt made to explain their bases.

‘Generative’ or ‘parasitic’ urbanism? Some observations from the recent history of a South Indian market town

Using data from sample surveys in a South Indian market town in 1973 and 1982–3, the paper examines the different views ofMellor andLipton on the relations of small towns and their hinterlands, in the context of a growing agricultural economy. It is shown that the pattern of demand which has been generated by the ‘green revolution’ has not encouraged decentralised production, as in Mellors model. It does appear, however, that a net transfer of resources from the countryside to the town, such as Lipton ‘s model postulates, has been taking place, though the authors remain sceptical about this model as an explanation.

Nutrition and international agricultural research

Abstract Agricultural scientists have paid more attention to the food crops of underdeveloped countries in the past 25 years than ever before. Twelve internationally funded agricultural research centres have been established to carry out basic research and to advise upon existing national agricultural research systems. However, the impact upon nutrition of the products of this research system is not known. Furthermore, many basic questions regarding food policy remain unanswered. This article reviews the relationships between agricultural research and nutritional status, including the present role of nutritional science in agricultural research. The author then goes on to explain and comment upon a strong body of recent advocacy to change in these relationships.

Magic bullets and the nutrition agenda

Abstract This article is a rejoinder to Berg and Austins paper. The authors have no quarrel with Berg and Austins conclusion that ‘progress’ has been unspectacular and patchy, or that there is much worthwhile work to be done. However, the authors argue that what Berg and Austin have described is not a ‘new paradigm’, but more of the same — more magic bullets.

Implementation of food distribution policies: A case study in South India

Abstract Public policy for foodgrains distribution and consumption in Coimbatore District of South India involves processing through state trading institutions, and distribution through fair price shops, Food for Work and Employment Guarantee Schemes. Policies are evaluated in terms of their objectives, and institutions for the implementation of policy are analysed in terms of the way in which they mobilize and distribute resources: foodgrains, capital and labour. Although this deficit district has captured shares of Tamil Nadu States publicly distributed grain which are disproportionate to its share of the states ‘vulnerable’ population, nevertheless, schemes to increase the latters foodgrain consumption have been patchily implemented over space and time, and they have had little measurable impact on intended beneficiaries.

The Crisis and the Future

Our fieldwork was overtaken in its later stages by the crisis in energy and fertiliser supply occasioned by OPEC’s sudden increase in oil prices: between March 1973 and August 1974 freight rates in North Arcot trebled, while fertiliser prices in both India and Sri Lanka rocketed and the problems of the supply of scarce chemical inputs, already introduced in chapter 17, became even more severe. In this chapter some of us set out our results and thinking (not necessarily in complete agreement) on the consequences of fertiliser and other newly acute shortages, and on the design of alternative technologies for the future — given both the likelihood of continuing scarcity and expensiveness of energy and chemical inputs and (so far as North Arcot at least is concerned) the projected growth of rural population and the constraint exercised by limited water resources.