Warren Moran

Rural space as intellectual property

Abstract The Uruguay round of GATT, free trade agreements, and trade disputes have exposed various non-tariff trade restrictions which are likely to become more important influences on commodity flows and the differentiation of rural space. Globalization of legislation affecting agricultural products and intellectual property is also occurring outside GATT. Two main processes are apparent. First, under free trade agreements nations are questioning the commercial legislation governing production of their partners. Secondly, for specific commodities, groups of producers and countries are bringing litigation against other trading partners over the use of place-names by successfully claiming that they are intellectual property. The paper uses the international impacts of the EC rules for the naming and labelling of wines to explore the wider processes. Aggressive litigation by French companies and groups of producers is gradually eliminating the use of French and EC names by other countries. Contemporaneously, other nations are adopting appellation systems that imitate the EC in order to be assured of access to the EC markets after 1992. Both processes are pan of the globalization of production under capitalism but their effects may be contradictory. Increased similarity in the commercial legislation of countries will enhance the advantage of the most competitive regions and nations leading to greater regional specialization in rural production. A globalization of principles for the naming of wine is occurring, but its trading effects are more subtle. Failure to adhere to the rules may be used as a non-tariff barrier to exclude products of other countries and enhance local trade.

Spatial patterns of attendance at general practitioner services

Geographical theory suggests that consumers will travel to the centre nearest to their residence which offers a particular service. This is a weak indicator of surgery attendance patterns in Gisborne, New Zealand. Nearby surgeries were attended, rather than the nearest available. Various attributes of the practices and the patients were examined to discover their influence on attendance patterns. The distribution of the practices themselves had a significant effect upon relative surgery attendance. Prior knowledge of services was particularly important in determining surgery selection and continued attendance. This accounted for the spatially unconstrained attendance of many Maori. Greater personal mobility enabled higher income households to travel further to attend. Conversely, the less mobile were spatially bounded.

Reregulation and the Development of the New Zealand Wine Industry

New Zealands wine industry has enjoyed a period of rapid growth since the mid-1980s. This period of growth coincides with the period of trade liberalisation and other neo-liberal reforms to the state that have dominated New Zealands social economy in the last two decades. Political commentators and economists have cited the growth of the wine industry as an example of the efficacy of the reform programme. One account, prepared in the series Studies in APEC Liberalisation (the APEC report; Mikic, 1998), has proven to be particularly influential. It attributes the wine industrys recent growth to the free trade policies that guide contemporary economic policy in New Zealand. In this paper, I use a critique of the APEC report as a heuristic device to develop a more refined history of the New Zealand wine industry and its recent success, and the part played in these by regulatory change. The paper draws on an evolutionary perspective on industry development (Storper, 1997) and a real regulation conceptualisation of policy formation (Clark, 1992; Moran et al., 1996). It portrays the industrys development as occurring through enterprise choices that are embedded within a range of interconnected social and spatial contexts, of which the state forms an important part. I highlight the effects of technological change, the influence of enterprise evolution, the geography of production, the wider suite of legislative changes affecting the industry and its internal formation. New Zealand wine enterprises have responded to changing production, market and regulatory conditions, as well as their own developmental trajectories.

Family farmers, real regulation, and the experience of food regimes

Abstract The literature on food regimes gives insufficient attention to the national and regional variability in the experience of food regimes. Two analytical frameworks are integrated for this purpose in this paper. Recent debates on the nature of family farming as a form of production and its relationships to the capitalist economy and further development of the concept of ‘real’ regulation enable us better to understand past food regimes and the processes of uneven development in western economies. Social and political movements in the countryside, often supported by legislation, are suggested as neglected elements in understanding the experience of individual nations within historical and emerging global food systems. By their association in communities, in cooperatives, and in more politically-oriented organizations, farmers are able to influence the form of agro-commodity chains and legislation governing the rural sector, key factors which influence the variability of the experience of food regimes. Our examples are France and the settler economy of New Zealand.

Empowering Family Farms Through Cooperatives and Producer Marketing Boards

AbstractThe connections between family farms and the organizations linking them to the agrocommodity chains have been neglected in debates about the reproduction of family farms. We use the example of cooperatives and producer marketing boards in the main agricultural export industries of New Zealand to inform this debate. Regulation by central government has been crucial to the establishment and continuance of producer marketing boards, especially in the face of substantial neoliberal criticism of their very existence. Critics of producer marketing boards—the New Zealand Department of Treasury, nonfarm capitals, and one corporate agriculturalist—argue on the basis of theoretical efficiency, but offer little empirical evidence. Using insights from the family farm and cooperation literatures, we argue that cooperatives and producer marketing boards help shield family farms from the full costs of market relations, assist shareholders in capturing downstream profits, enable farmers to develop and maintain ow...

Territoriality, enterprise and réglementation in industry governance

The term ‘governance’ is used differently in different literatures. This paper relates the uses of the term and the theoretical concepts to which it is attached in three bodies of literature – the new institutional economics, a geographic literature exploring spatial embeddedness, and the regulation approach. Each adopts a different theoretical point of entry and highlights a particular sphere of governance, centred on the enterprise, people in place and the state respectively. We argue that they can be related, along with the myriad mechanisms of governance that operate within them, to provide a meaningful understanding of the industry and its governance. Doing so generates an approach to sectoral analysis that highlights ‘the industry’ as an object of government and reveals industry governance and the constitution of the industry to be mutually constitutive processes. The work is inspired by our current research on the New Zealand and European wine filières.

'Archaic' relations of production in modern agricultural systems: the example of sharemilking in New Zealand

Sharecropping is neglected in the analysis of land use and rural change in modern western economies. Notwithstanding the Marxist classification of sharecropping as a form of wage labor, it is conceptualized in this paper as simple commodity production, based on the unity of household and enterprise. The organization of sharecropping is examined with the use of this conceptualization, although the review incorporates economic and other perspectives. Sharemilking in New Zealand is used to evaluate this framework at two scales, on representative dairy farms of average size and on large dairy farms owned by corporations. It is found to be a mutually beneficial relationship that promotes efficient production and high output. It also facilitates intergenerational transfer, provides a rung on the dairying ladder, and contributes to the reproduction of family-based dairying in New Zealand. Sharemilking is also the preferred means for recent corporate entrants to the industry to operate their large dairy farms. Currently, sharemilking is playing a role in the penetration of agriculture by capital.

The state and rural systems

Abstract Irrespective of political ideology and systems of governance, the state remains an important influence on rural systems throughout the world. Yet the role of the state is currently being widely questioned. In part this is associated with the efforts by some countries to liberalise the international commodity trade. Concurrently, the growing concern at an international level for declining environmental quality implies new imperatives for international cooperation. These trends are related to four specific themes; the changing nature of state intervention, state involvement under alternative systems of governance, recent political economy theory in respect to family farms and corporations, and new imperatives for state involvement prescribed according to the concept of sustainability. The eight other papers included in this volume are considered in the context of these four themes.

Predicting enterprise choice: Exit from dairying in New Zealand

Abstract Change in enterprise from dairying to beef farming has been common in Northland, New Zealand during the 1970s and early 1980s. Data from intensive farm interviews on two random samples of farms (one group which ceased to practice dairying between 1975 and 1983 and a second which continued during this period) are used to distinguish the two groups of properties. Significant differences in size, land cover, production, capital value and age of farmers are identified. A stepwise logistical regression model with age of farmer and milkfat production in 1975 as the independent variables predicts the enterprise choice of 75% of the farm families for 1983. These two independent variables are summarising broader characteristics of the properties because age is shown to be colinear with equity, value of property and inputs and milkfat production with other measures of productivity. The necessity of including such structural variables in any behavioural analysis of enterprise choice is emphasised.

Classics in human geography revisited Chisholm, M. 1962: Rural settlement and land use. London: Hutchinson

The publication in 1962 of Rural settlement and land use provided a powerful rallying point for those seeking a new kind of rural geography that was at once more analytical but also retained an everyday relevance to our understanding of rural land-use patterns. Chisholm’s purpose in writing his book was more specific than its main title suggested, a purpose better revealed by its little-used subtitle, An essay in location. His essay consisted of