The dynamics of family farming in North Huron County, Ontario. Part II. Farm–community interactions

In Canada and elsewhere, there is a growing belief that farming and rural communities have become effectively disconnected from one another. While attention to recent media reporting suggests that incidences of conflict are now as common as examples of support and collaboration, it is suggested that many examples of complementarity remain. These evolving relationships may, however, be linked to the nature of specific farm development trajectories. Such possibilities warrant empirical examination, with attention to known diversity in the family farm sector. This paper reports on an empirical investigation of farm and community linkages in North Huron County, Ontario. The paper builds upon a recent investigation of change in family farming in this region and seeks to document the ways in which local farmers continue to look to their rural communities for support of various kinds. Data are drawn from a survey of farmers in Ashfield and Colborne Townships in 1999. The research explores community linkages around three dominant themes: participation in organisations, purchasing and perceptions and experiences of community support for farming. The findings indicate the persistence of strong linkages between farms and local communities in the study region but point to a potential tendency for disconnection between farms pursuing aggressive expansion and local community organisations and businesses. There is some evidence that jobs and a variety of farm household considerations may form key linkage points between the two sectors, with the importance of these mediated by farm business trajectories and the family life course.     

Self-Sustainability of Subsidiary Household Plots: Lessons for Privatization of Agriculture in Former Socialist Countries

A paper devoted to subsidiary household (private) plots in the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union explores issues surrounding their economic viability during the current period of economic transition and agrarian reform, using Russian farms as the main example. Considerable emphasis is placed on the continuing strong linkages between subsidiary household plots and the system of collectivized agriculture, one of several factors that serves to differentiate this type of agriculture from the private (peasant) farms receiving so much attention recently as an indicator of agrarian reform. A key argument of the paper is that the performance of subsidiary household farms is not a good indicator of prospects for success of private farming in Russia, because subsidiary farms are closely linked to collectivized agriculture in terms of sources of inputs and channels for outputs, and therefore are not inherently “private.” 8 tables, 24 references.     

唐代農村家庭生計探略

唐代的農村家庭是一個典型的生産單位和經濟單位。本文通過對於農家的土地占有和糧食産量等資料的考證,討論當時農民家庭的基本收入、消費和生産成本,試圖給出唐代農家經濟生活的大致輪廓。作爲比較的參照系,還對於一般城市平民和低級官僚家庭生活作了簡單勾勒。     

Counting them in,not out: Surveying Farm Women about Agricultural Leadership

This paper examines the efficacy of the survey method to investigate questions relating to women and agricultural leadership. I begin by reviewing the feminist critique of the survey using examples from the literature on farming women. I then describe two particular difficulties I encountered in surveying farm women about agricultural leadership in the Australian sugar industry. The first difficulty is the problem of constructing a sample of farm women using official data sources that is representative of the diversity of women in agriculture. The second difficulty is the impact that gendered agricultural identities may have on survey completion rates. The paper argues that, if we are to count farming women ‘in’, rather than ‘out’ when studying agricultural politics, we need to engage with methods which will be inclusive of the diversity of women in farming and which will also give consideration to the construction of gendered identities in agriculture.     

Diversity in Peasant Economic Behavior: Transmigrant Households in South Sumatra,Indonesia

An important facet of peasant economics is the diversification of household labor among farm and off-farm activities. Using a sample of South Sumatran transmigrant households the diversification of household labor among various remunerative activities was analyzed. Employment diversity was related to three sets of theoretically based factors: demographic, human capital, and agricultural. Results from a discriminant analysis model reveal that the demographic set of variables is most powerful in distinguishing households with different levels of employment diversity. The ratio of consumers to workers in a household is particularly important. However, measures of entrepreneurship and on-farm agricultural intensity are also useful in explaining diversity behavior. Throughout our analysis we find evidence that the role of the spouse as an income producer is especially critical in the household employment diversification process.     

The International Air Linkages of Australian Cities, 1985–1996

International air linkages are one of the important features differentiating the development of metropolitan areas, as the location of many activities now requires frequent and diverse international contacts. This paper explores the consequences of this for Australia by tracing the changes in international airline linkages over the past decade. In that time, the geography of the nation's air linkages have shifted in favour of the Asian nations to our north, reflecting the shifts in trade and immigration. Some cities have felt more of that change, with Cairns and Brisbane especially prominent due to their roles as gateways for the tourist industry. However, these shifts have yet to weaken the diversity of contacts in Melbourne and Sydney, indicating that the underlying geography of business still has a strong influence on the international contacts made from each city.     

国家精准扶贫政策对贫困农户脱贫增收的效果评价——基于双重差分模型的检验

基于重庆市武陵山区和秦巴山区贫困农户与非贫困农户的调研数据，运用双重差分模型检验精准扶贫政策对贫困农户收入增长的影响。结果表明，贫困农户在精准扶贫政策的支持下，家庭人均纯收入增长显著，与非贫困农户相比差距进一步缩小；家庭主要收入来源，由单一渠道向多渠道转变，人均种植业收入和人均养殖业收入增长最明显，二者贡献率合计达到61.87%；农户的年龄、家庭人口数量、老人小孩数量、耕地面积、耕作半径、是否发展特色产业等因素对贫困农户家庭人均纯收入影响显著。因此，发展特色产业，解决贫困农户的教育、医疗、住房和土地撂荒问题是保障贫困农户脱贫后稳定增收的关键。     

中部农区农户打工距离研究——以河南三个样本村为例

对农户打工距离和区位的研究是认识农民工流动空间规律的基础。通过对河南省三个不同类型样本村的实证研究,发现打工距离整体分散、局部集中,打工人数随距离的变化呈"U"型分布,打工者在打工目的地的分布上具有群聚特征。影响农户打工距离选择的主要因素是年龄、家庭类型、家庭代数、上学人数和关系网络因子。年龄较大者、家庭类型较简单者、家庭代数较多者、上学人数较多者和关系网络较少者,选择在本地打工的概率较大,反之亦然。     

Competing use of marine space in a modernizing fishery: salmon farming meets lobster fishing on the Bay of Fundy

Coastal fishing communities are frequently portrayed as bastions of tradition at odds with the modernizing forces of technological change and industrial capitalism. This article examines this debate in the context of intensive aquaculture introduced into regions formerly dependent on the wild fishery, specifically with respect to the explosive growth of salmon farming in New Brunswick. New farm sites are large, often located within or close to traditional lobster fishing areas, which has motivated considerable opposition from local fishermen. This article presents findings from research on interactions between salmon farming and lobster fishing around Deer Island and Grand Manan, New Brunswick. Fishermen and salmon farmers are concerned about possible long-term effects of farm operations on marine environmental quality and lobster health, and many are concerned about the concentration of ownership and lack of local control over the aquaculture industry. The potential for physical displacement from traditional fishing grounds is real, but the actual impacts have been tempered by a combination of factors, including unusually large lobster catches in recent years; technological advances that have encouraged a shift in lobster fishing effort further offshore, away from salmon farm sites; and social accommodations between salmon site managers and those who fish     

Translocal Householding: Care and Migrant Livelihoods in a Waste‐trading Community of Vietnam's Red River Delta

This article examines the shifting household organization of care and livelihoods in a community of Vietnam's Red River Delta that has a history of migrating to work in the urban waste trade, and has been doing so increasingly since the socialist country embraced a market economy in the mid‐1980s. In Spring District, household care and livelihood activities have been taking place across the city and the countryside for decades, indicating the degree to which the rural household reflexively opens up its spatial and social boundaries in response to broader processes of change. Their trajectories reveal fluidity in terms not only of spatial mobility but also of the gendered configuration of paid work and care, and complex dynamics between household care practices and the development of waste trading as a particular migrant livelihood activity. The analysis draws on and advances the concept of ‘householding’ emerging from recent discussion of the globalization of social reproduction.     

FROM ‘ONE OF THE COUNTRY’S GREATEST ASSETS’ TO ALIENATION AND ANGER: VOICES OF THE LOWER WHARFEDALE FARMING COMMUNITY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Abstract

The British farming community is rapidly diminishing due to its ageing workforce, the rise of second-home ownership, and the costs involved in running a farming business in the twenty-first century. The private nature of this community, often coupled with a deeply held mistrust of non-farmers has made it difficult to ascertain farmers’ own feelings on their current situation, and how things have reached such a position. This article explores how some of the major twentieth-century events for agriculture have affected a single Yorkshire farming community by tracing the deteriorating relationship between farmers and the government, through changing legislation and reactions to crises, from a point where farmers were held to be vital to Britain’s survival through to one where the agricultural community finds it plausible that their own government would actively try to destroy their livelihoods.     

Consider the daughters,they are important to family farms and rural communities too: family-farm succession

Over the last 25 years, researchers have engaged extensively with members of farming families on issues of farm succession. Farmers, their spouses, sons of farmers and daughters-in-law who move into the farming family have been the focus of much of this research. Daughters of farmers (hereafter daughters), except in the unusual cases of being inheritors or successors to the farm enterprise, are for the most part ignored as subjects who may have something to contribute to sociological understanding and theory of farm succession and practice, and also of rural population decline. This article presents the results of a qualitative pilot research project undertaken in 2012 in the Western District of Victoria, Australia, to explore daughters’ perceptions of their families’ decisions about and management of intergenerational family-farm transfer. The results show that many daughters have a keen interest in farming, have developed farm skills and would consider the occupation of farming if given the opportunity. However, daughters are commonly overlooked when it comes to decisions about family-farm succession and/or inheritance; hence, indicating patriarchy remains strongly influential in determining family-farm succession. This article provides a different perspective from previous discussions of the dynamics within farming families and farming communities, and it contributes to wider discussion of changes in and sustainability of rural society. It recommends further research on rural social issues attributable to patrilineal intergenerational farm transfer.     

Farm,family, and myself: farm women dealing with family break-up

Despite the rising divorce rate among farm families in Norway, surprisingly little research has examined these break-ups. Drawing on interviews with farm women whose marital or cohabiting relationships broke down, we explore the contradictions between individualization and the moral responsibility embedded in the patriarchal discourse of the family farm. We ask whether farm family dissolution represents a break with patriarchal ideology and practice, and thus threatens the survival of the family farm. A key finding is the struggle to balance establishing new lives for themselves with meeting their felt obligations to the farm. None of the women exercised their full legal rights if they worried that it might destroy the farm business. By ensuring the survival of the farm and the well-being of their children, the women's handling of divorce conforms to cultural conventions and protects the family farm.     

北京市低收入社区社会融合的多维度测度与影响因素分析

在快速城市化的背景下,城市低收入社区群体的社会融入问题逐渐成为城市包容性发展的桎梏。基于北京市典型低收入社区的实地调查数据,本文运用探索性因子分析对城市低收入社区群体社会融合结构和现状进行探讨,并对影响城市低收入社区群体的社会融合状况进行实证分析。研究发现调查城市低收入社区群体的社会融合主要受到心理融合、经济融合、环境融合、社区关系融合4个维度影响,社区关系融合、环境融合、经济融合和心理融合程度表现出依次降低的倾向,且居民的社会融合总体水平偏低。从影响因素来看,低收入社区群体的社会融合主要受个体因素、家庭因素、就业因素和住房因素的影响,不同维度社会融合程度的影响因素也有所差异。     

Ancient Maya Agricultural Installations and the Development of Intensive Agriculture in NW Belize

Abstract

Archaeological study of the spatial arrangement of agricultural features such as terraces and berms yields insight into the scale, mode, and tempo of farm production and the social organization of farming communities. Data from five regions of the Maya lowlands where such features have been extensively documented demonstrate the range of strategies employed by the ancient Maya to organize agricultural production. In some previously studied regions of the lowlands, spatial patterns suggest centralized management of farmland by state institutions, while in others a smallholder strategy seems evident. In the Río Bravo region of NW Belize, the organization of agricultural labor centered neither on the state nor on the individual farm family, but on the farm community. Moreover, the incremental conversion of open lands to terraced agricultural fields was part of a long-term interactive sequence of environmental change and human response over centuries of occupation. This sequence demonstrates that the ancient Maya not only adapted to a degraded environment but used it to their advantage, developing new technologies that were successful for several centuries prior to their ultimate failure. The agricultural history of the lowland Maya demonstrates that indigenous systems of resource management in fragile environments such as the tropics were not always deleterious. The innovations and successful adaptations of ancient farmers should also be recognized.     

Rubber smallholders in Peninsular Malaysia: problems and prospects

After a discussion of farm size and average returns of rubber smallholders in Peninsular Malaysia interest is centred on the factors affecting production—land development, rubber replanting, alternative sources of household income and the role of the government in the local and international rubber market. Government attention to these factors should enhance returns to small rubber farmers.     

20世纪五六十年代包产到户合法地位缺失的多维分析

在当代中国,执政党的指导思想、政治路线及相应的重大决策对社会的发展变迁具有决定性的意义。20世纪五六十年代,包产到户曾经一而再、再而三地兴起,但最终都沉寂下去。究其原因,从理论角度分析,包产到户在传统的社会主义理论中找不到相应的支撑;从经济角度分析,包产到户“有悖”于国家工业化的战略部署;从领导决策因素分析,包产到户没能取得全党特别是最高决策者的认同。     

The gross domestic person? (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

On the cusp of what is widely perceived to be seismic economic change, Fioramonti's analysis of the history and power of the GDP is a provocation to anthropologists to unpack its underlying assumptions about the human dimensions of economic life, and to imagine a different set of assumptions for the future. He depicts the presumed most basic unit for GDP analyses, the household, as a “cage”, where all the relevant economic processes go through monetization and formulaic relationships and aspirations. This paper examines the history of the “person” who is necessarily in a “household”: from the household being tax unit, to a domestic unit, to its currently expanding position as a node for the temporary meeting of varied trajectories of life and flows of varied kinds of value. The paper concludes with the challenge to create new metrics as being a challenge to comparison and analytical acuity, drawing on the anthropological archive.     

Agricultural policy in Australia: deregulation,bipartisanship and agrarian sentiment

This paper provides an overview of the development of agricultural policy in Australia from a complex web of government intervention in the sector in the first half of the 20th century to the deregulation of the past 40 years. It highlights the close interrelationship between agricultural policy and manufacturing policy as well as the areas in which agricultural policy has been distinctive, namely the largely bipartisan nature of agricultural policy development and the strong cultural attachment across the community to farmers in general and family farming in particular. Recent policy debates suggest that agricultural policy will remain a sector apart in terms of the broadly bipartisan nature of policy and the ongoing influence of non-economic considerations. Australia will retain its comparative advantage in agricultural exports into the future and policymakers will need to continue to balance policies that support the economic performance of the sector with those that reflect community expectations of support for the farming community more broadly.     

Population,Households and Fisheries in the Parish of Hvalsnes,Southwestern Iceland, 1750–1850

Abstract

This is an in-depth study of the parish of Hvalsnes, a small fishing community situated on the Reykjanes peninsula in southwestern Iceland, during the period 1750–1850. The study is inspired by the nordic Coastal Region Project carried out in the 1990s, focussing on the relationship between economic factors and household size and structure. With reference to the concept of ecotype, Hvalsnes is compared to a few farming communities in southern and western Iceland as regards a number of economic and demographic factors. Among the features characterizing the Hvalsnes community was the large proportion of crofter and cottar households in relation to those of independent farmer-fishermen; the former constituted a valuable workforce for the commercial cod fisheries on the abundant Reykjanes banks. At the same time, the study reveals that during the winter season the operation of the fishing fleet was highly dependent on seasonal migration from farming areas. In this perspective Hvalsnes appears to be an Icelandic parallel to Lofoten in Norway. A closer view of the techniques and social organization of fishing in the parish discloses significant differences between its three individual sections. It is argued that these differences help to explain why some sections suffered more, in economic and demographic terms, than others from the natural catastrophes and political changes which took place towards the end of the eighteenth century. However, these changes did not alter the general condition of the landless population: cottars by the seaside and living-in servants in the countryside. Among these groups many individuals continued now as before their seasonal migration between the two ecotypes. Tentatively, it is argued that the seasonal exchange of workforce between fishing and farming communities contributed to an efficient use of the labour capacity of their members.