Socioeconomics of Agriculture

113 Pages·2018·1.676 MB·English

by  Stefan Mann (auth.)

SPRINGER BRIEFS IN ECONOMICS
Stefan Mann
Socioeconomics
of Agriculture
SpringerBriefs in Economics
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8876
Stefan Mann
Socioeconomics
of Agriculture
StefanMann
Socioeconomics
Agroscope
Ettenhausen
Switzerland
ISSN 2191-5504 ISSN 2191-5512 (electronic)
SpringerBriefs inEconomics
ISBN978-3-319-74140-6 ISBN978-3-319-74141-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74141-3
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Contents
1 What Is This Book Good for? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Approaches Towards Socioeconomics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 The Interaction Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 The Diversity Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.4 Why Agriculture? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.5 And Why Socioeconomics? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2 Agricultural Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.1 Public: The Agricultural Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.1.1 Weber’s Iron Cage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.1.2 Niskanen’s Bureaucrat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1.3 Principal-Agent Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.1.4 New Public Management (NPM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.1.5 Production Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.2 Commercial: Power in the Chain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.2.1 Getting Started: Price Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.2.2 The Special Case of Land Grabbing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.2.3 Vertical Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3 Private: Powerful Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.3.1 Inter-gender Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3.2 Inter-generation Relationships. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.4 Concluding Thoughts on Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3 Agricultural Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.1 Occupational Choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.1.1 Identity and Environment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.1.2 Part-Time Farming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
v
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3.1.3 Employed on a Farm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.1.4 Alpine Summers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.1.5 The Activity Choice Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.2 Residential Choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.2.1 The Tiebout Model and Its Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.2.2 Policy and Politics of Rural Development. . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.2.3 Turning Points in Village Developments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.2.4 Core Factors for Rural Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.3 Production and Consumption Choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.3.1 Organic Production and Consumption. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.3.2 Genetically Modified Organisms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.3.3 More on Non-consumption. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4 Agricultural Cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.1 Producing Jointly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.1.1 Alpine Grassland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.1.2 African Pastoralism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.1.3 The Kibbutzim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.1.4 Water Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.2 Linking with Consumers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.2.1 Cooperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.2.2 Fair Trade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4.2.3 Community-Supported Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.3 Governing Sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.3.1 The History of the Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
4.3.2 Roundtables and the like . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.3.3 Socioeconomic Sustainability Revisited. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.4 Concluding Thoughts on Cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5 Agricultural System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.1 Producer Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.1.1 The Changing Environments of Farmers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
5.1.2 Empirical Results About Self-perception. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5.2 Population Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
5.2.1 The Role as Residents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
5.2.2 The Role as Consumers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.2.3 The Role as Citizens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.3 Varieties of Capitalist Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
5.3.1 Selection of Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.3.2 Processing of Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Contents vii
5.3.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.3.4 Discussion and Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.4 Concluding Thoughts on Agricultural Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Chapter 1
What Is This Book Good for?
Socioeconomicsmaybeundergreaterpressuretodefineitselfthanthe“classical”
sciences.Thelatterhavelargelybeendefinedbytheconceptualizationofreal-world
phenomena:biology,forexample,arosebecauseofthewillingnesstobetterunder-
standthephenomenonoflifeinitsdifferentspecificities.Economicsarosetostudy
andresolvetheissueofscarcity.Andsociologywascreatedtoanalyzethedynamics
ofsocietalgroups.
But socioeconomics? Its name pays tribute to the existence of sociology and
economics,soonemighteithersuspectthatsocioeconomicsismerelyisacombina-
tionofbothsciences(S+E=SE),orthatthereisanintersectionofsociologyand
economicswhichisbesttermedassocioeconomics(S∩E=SE).Mostpastattempts
todefinesocioeconomicsasascienceinitsownrightmayhavebeenmotivatedto
countersuchasimplisticunderstandingofsocioeconomics.
In this chapter, we review past attempts to define socioeconomics before the
approachischosenthatweappliedinthisbook.
1.1 ApproachesTowardsSocioeconomics
Thereisastronglingualproximitybetweensocioeconomicsandsocialeconomics.
Social economics, however, is a discipline with a considerable tradition. Since its
earlybeginnings(Ward1893),proponentsofsocialeconomicsarguethateconomics
isnotjustthereplicationofabiologicalsysteminsociety,butthatmoralandsocial
considerationsalwayshavetobeconsidered.Socialeconomicwascalledeverything
thatattemptedtoimprovethelivingstandardoftheworkingclass(Say1891;Gide
1905).Thishashardlychangedtodate.TheAssociationofSocialEconomicsclaims
on its website that “social economics is the study of the ethical and social causes
and consequences of economic behavior, institutions, organizations, theory, and
policy”. It probably would not be necessary to mention that this association had
beenfoundedin1941asthe“CatholicEconomicAssociation”toconvincereaders
©TheAuthor(s)2018 1
S.Mann,SocioeconomicsofAgriculture,SpringerBriefsinEconomics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74141-3_1
2 1 WhatIsThisBookGoodfor?
thatsocialeconomicsfollowsarathernormativerationale.Itgoesbeyondtheutil-
itarianfundamentalsofeconomicscienceandemphasizesmoralvaluesinsocietal
andbusinessdecision-making.
Whatevercanbesaidaboutsocioeconomics,itisclearthatittakesamuchmore
descriptive approach than social economics, even though it is also considered as
alternative to mainstream economics. Socioeconomics also is a lot younger than
social economics. Since the 1970s, the word was occasionally used in the non-
economic literature to describe developments touching both sociological and eco-
nomic aspects. However, the leading communitarian scholar Etzioni (1985, 1986)
wasthefirstprominentvoicetosuggestthat“anewdisciplinewouldbedeveloping
which would merge economics and other social sciences” (Etzioni 1986: 13). He
suggestedfourfieldsinwhichsuchanapproachwouldgenerateaddedvalue:
(1)openingupthepreferences;(2)modifyingtheassumptionofrationality(again!)(3)the
societalnestlingofthemarket(amatterofinstitutionsandpoliticalpower);and(4)increasing
theempirical,inductiveelementsofthestudyofeconomicbehavior.(Etzioni1986:13)
TheimpulsewhichEtzionigavewasstrongenoughthattheSocietyfortheAdvance-
ment of Socio-Economics (SASE) was founded in 1988 and that the Journal of
behavioraleconomics,in1990,wasre-namedintotheJournalofSocio-Economics
(23 years later, though, it was then re-renamed into the Journal of behavioral and
experimentaleconomics).
Since then, both the journals and the conference have flourished and attracted
increasing number of submitters. Particular empiric contributions are apparently
attractive to make, ranging from “Are High-Performance HR Practices Good for
Employee Well-being” to “How Race and Human Resources Influence Consumer
Expectations and Attitudes”. Theoretic contributions about the nature of socioe-
conomicsaresomewhatrarer.However,afewofthebravecolleagueshavingmade
attemptstoproceedonthetheoreticalsideofthesocioeconomicagendaarecertainly
worthmentioning:
– Abell(2003)distinguishestwodimensionsrelevantforsociology,economicsand
(inhisargument)socioeconomics.Oneareinteractionsonthemicrolevelversus
social(macro)conditions,theotherdimensioniswhethertofocusontheinterac-
tionsandconditionsthemselves,ortolookattheindividualactionsorthesocial
outcome. Abler wants to “unite” sociologists and economists by suggestion to
focusonthecausalitiesofindividualinteractionsandsocialconditionsandtoana-
lyzehowbothimpactonindividualactions.Heemphasizesthedifferentstarting
pointsthateconomicsandsociologyhaveregardingmodelsoftheindividual.In
theeconomicview,“individualsareconceivedastakingchoices”(Abell2003:8),
sotheyareconsideredassubjects,whereasformanysociologists“individualsare
[…]derivingtheiractions(ordecisiontoact)fromthosewithwhomtheyinteract”
(Abell2003:9),sotheyaremoreconsideredasobjects.
– Karl H. Müller (Hollingsworth and Müller 2008; Müller 2015, 2016) has a his-
toricapproach,summarizingtheclassic,reductionistwayofresearchasinclassic
physicsas“science1”andthemodern,complexapproachasfoundinlifesciences