Michael Roche

From agricultural science to “biological economies"?

HugH Campbell1 Rob buRToN2 maRk CoopeR1 maTTHew HeNRy3 eReNa le HeRoN4 RiCHaRd le HeRoN4 NiCk lewiS4 eRiC pawSoN5 HaRvey peRkiNS6 mike RoCHe3 CHRiS RoSiN1 ToNi wHiTe7 1university of otago Centre for the Study of agriculture, Food and the environment (CSaFe) po box 56 dunedin 9054, New Zealand 2agResearch ltd invermay agricultural Centre private bag 50034 mosgiel 9053, New Zealand 3massey university private bag 11222 palmerston North 4442, New Zealand 4The university of auckland private bag 92019 auckland 1142, New Zealand New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 2009, Vol. 52: XXX 0028–8233/09/5201–00

Expanding exotic forestry and the expansion of a competing use for rural land in New Zealand

Abstract Significant areas of rural land in New Zealand have been turned over to non-agricultural use in the last 25 years. This study examines an historically specific development, the expansion of exotic plantation forestry (primarily Pinus radiata ), through an interpretive framework which uses categories specific to world capitalist production and to the New Zealand experience. The approach followed considers organisations and their potentially contradictory relations in various spheres of society as the means by which the social uses of land, consistent with capitalist relations of production, may be reached. The paper examines ‘organisations’ in theoretical terms as diverse and constrained social agencies and uses this interpretation when analysing the historical development of rural land use goals in New Zealand. The focus then shifts to contemporary structural relationships, especially in agriculture and forestry.

Globalization, Sustainability, and Apple Orcharding, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand

AbstractThe political economy of agriculture literature increasingly focuses research on production-consumption relations of different agro-food systems. This paper examines contextual pressures fa...

Sustaining the fruits of labour: a comparative localities analysis of the integrated fruit production programme in New Zealand's apple industry

Abstract This paper explores interpretations of globalisation, sustainability and labour processes in the context of New Zealands apple industry. Theoretical critique centres on the notion of emergent food regimes and how it may inform the restructuring geographies of the world economys ‘fresh fruit and vegetable complex’. Empirical investigation is based on comparative localities research involving Hawkes Bay and Nelson — New Zealands two largest apple producing regions. Analysis of the Integrated Fruit Programme (IFP) provides a focus for evaluating key conceptual questions in food regimes research. Intensive interviews with growers help contextualise theoretical debates and provide important insights into the nature of the third food regime ‘from the orchard’.

Living local, growing global: Renegotiating the export production regime in New Zealand’s pipfruit sector

Abstract The articulation between global food commodity complexes and the local production regimes of particular contexts is a major gap in the new political economy literature on food regimes, food complexes, agricultural restructuring and local adjustment. This paper explores how different regions of producers in the New Zealand apple industry in the mid-1990s have negotiated the local export regime of production fashioned by the New Zealand Apple and Pear Marketing Board. This paper’s focus on the Board’s introduction of an integrated fruit production programme in different growing regions is a contribution to understanding of local governance tensions arising in the export component of a national industry.

Pluriactivity: An exploration of issues with reference to New Zealand's livestock and fruit agro-commodity systems

Abstract The paper explores issues relating to pluriactivity in the New Zealands agro-commodity systems in the ‘farm crisis’ conditions of the late 1980s and early 1990s. It draws on survey evidence from specialised farm businesses and their related farm households in those production systems: dairy, sheep/beef and apples. The survey findings suggest that the high incidence and patterns of pluriactivity are best understood in terms of forces beyond agriculture and that the New Zealands ‘farm crisis’ per se has not induced major changes in the social relations of farm production or farm households. The paper concludes that patterns of on- and off-farm links may potentially constrain the development of sustainable agriculture in New Zealand.

The fall and rise of agricultural productivism? An Antipodean viewpoint:

Much debated in the early 2000s, the productivist/post-productivist transition is revisited from an Antipodean perspective from where it was variously both strongly adopted and vigorously contested as a theorization of rural change. The context in which the terminology of productivism and post-productivism, particularly the various classes of the former, appeared is discussed. Although multifunctionalism is endorsed, the persistence of productivism, especially in nascent forms – protectionist productivism, competitive productivism and super-productivism – is noted. We argue that for an enduring research agenda on multifunctionality to emerge a truly multi-scalar conceptual schema, with accompanying revised terminology, needs to be developed.

Towards a Geography of Political Economy Perspective on Rural Change: The Example of New Zealand

In this paper it is argued that recent applications of the political economy perspective in wider social science have a strong relevance to the understanding of change in rural areas. In it is outlined what are seen as some of the main concepts needed to study economic, social, political and environmental change, and changes in the agricultural sector on which some contemporary rural areas, such as those in New Zealand continue to depend heavily. These concepts are then applied to the study of contemporary rural restructuring in New Zealand. It is concluded that first, the undue emphasis on the economic dimension of the politicaleconomic approach should be redressed with greater inclusion of the political dimension. This represents a potentially large field for political geographers. Second, the conception of the capitalist accumulation process still requires more theorisation. In particular, the internationalisation of capital has been insufficiently integrated into the approach in recent work. Third, studies of rural changes in different national contexts are urgently required in order to establish the adequacy of the approach in empirical analysis. The papers argument is outlined with reference to how the approach might be utilised in the study of contemporary rural restructuring in New Zealand.

Rural geography: searching rural geographies

Poststructuralist theories, the ’Wageningen School’ championing farmers as active and knowledgable actors, and the cultural turn in rural studies have all given momentum to the notion of the postproductivist countryside. A significant amount of British work has been organized around this idea and to some extent this is projected in the journals as a ’model’ for rural geographers in other countries to adopt. The last year has been notable then for two critiques of rural postproductivism. Hoggart and Paniagua (2001a: 41) suggest from a political-economy perspective that the postproductivist countryside implies ’profound rural change’ and fundamental socio-economic readjustment. In calling for a more theoretically focused discussion of ’rural restructuring’ they contend it is often used loosely to mean nothing more than rural change. As their argument develops, it gives substance to what Morris and Evans (1999: 353) could only recently refer to as an ’interesting debate about a &dquo;post-productivist myth&dquo; that has yet to establish itself in the literature’.

Reglobalisation of New Zealand's food and fibre system: Organisational dimensions

Abstract The paper provides theoretical and empirical evidence that the external links of New Zealand food and fibre production are rapidly and radically changing. A case is made that the restructuring of New Zealands agro-commodity chains is now being driven by consumption rather than production pressures and that production from the land is being reintegrated into principal markets by a handful of increasingly global private and public New Zealand-based organisations. A series of adjustments at the national and regional level to land use systems are likely to be associated with the new structural conditions.