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This section presents abstracts of studies on agricultural economics which were published in the February 1965 issue of the Journal of Farm Economics. The paper titled Reflections on Teaching and Learning in Colleges of Agriculture, by T. W. Schultz, challenges college and university faculties to take a hard and analytical look at their own job specifications in the light of the ultimate objective of university education. The paper titled The Managerial Factor and Research on Decision Making in Agricultural Marketing Firms, by Charles E. French, attempts to provoke thought about a broad eclectic approach to decision-making research. The paper titled On Benefits of Agricultural Marketing Research, by Harry C. Trelogan and Norman Townshend-Zellner, looks at evidences supporting the benefits of agricultural marketing.

For more than a generation a considerable amount of attention has been given to the development and utilization of an empirical measure of the theoretical concept of innovativeness. Research workers in agriculture have employed various types of adoption of farm practices scales as a measure of the relative rates of adoption of technological innovations by farmers. The major problem in using an adoption scale has rested with unidimensionality; the degree to which the developed scale measures the innovativeness dimension. Following the review of several research studies aimed at establishing unidimensionality, some sociologists claimed that the analyses provided no clear cut answer as to whether adoption scales measure only a single general dimension; innovativeness. The major aims of this paper are to demonstrate that such unidimensionality does clearly exist and to show the theoretical and practical implications. The data used in this paper were drawn from an interdisciplinary study of the factors determining the adoption of agricultural innovations by a sample of 116 woolgrowers in New South Wales.

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article reports on the papers presented at the "Conference on Agricultural Research Priorities for Economic Development in Africa," that was held in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire in April 1968. The impact of research on agricultural activities of the African peasant farmers has not made anything, and that it has created a possible revolution in agricultural practices. There were few cases wherein research into food crops, agricultural systems, and internal marketing problems received more than passing attention. The opportunity for a comprehensive overview of the research needs in agricultural development was provided by the conference.

The article discusses several issues related to agricultural development discussed in the seminar sessions of the third world congress for rural sociology. Serious questions were raised concerning the appropriateness of the usual variable characteristics included in many sociological studies if such studies are to have utility for policy-makers and planners dealing with problem of development in rural areas. The relatively low correlations found between such characteristics as age, sex, years of schooling and size of farm suggests that the focus should be on characteristics more closely associated with involvement such as beliefs and disbelief about the groups or activities. Given the technology available today, it should be possible to collect the data appropriate to decisions about a given project in a reasonably short time and to tailor the collection to the particular area concerned whether it be a small rural village or a district or a nation. One of the major conclusions of the session and of cooperative researches has been that cooperatives have failed to make the contributions to development that sociologists had anticipated. It was felt that cooperative structure is quite flexible and could and should be adapted to local customs in many cases.

THIS paper started out as a paper on the role of agriculture in the economic development of the Argentine. In effect, this is still what it is. But it is more, for to discuss the role of agriculture one needs to understand the nature of the development process of the economy as a whole. In seeking this broader understanding we have, to our minds, resolved the apparent paradox of inflation coupled with stagnation and heavy unemployment that has characterised the recent history of the Argentine economy. In doing so, we believe that we reveal previous diagnoses and policy prescriptions to have been grounded in fallacy. We have tried to build a model in which the strategic assumptions covering the choice of relevant variables and their magnitudes reflect the realities of the Argentinian situation. This we set out in Section II. In Sections III and IV we set the model to work introducing some additional assumptions, in particular as to government policies and money wage changes. Section V contains a commentary on the devaluations of 1958 and 1962 analysed in the light of the model. Our analysis has policy implications, which we discuss in Section VI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is worth noting that agricultural development may be desirable for a quite different, purely economic reason; namely, to provide a market for industrial output. The extent to which any given increase in agricultural income will increase the demand for industrial products can be estimated by a linear programming model. It is the social rather than the purely economic benefits of agricultural development with which a linear programming model cannot cope adequately. The virtues of the linear programming process, even with regard to the one criterion of maximizing aggregate income, do not necessarily inhere in any given linear programming model. The simpler and computationally more manageable a model, the greater is apt to be the margin of error in the estimates it yields. In Italy, managerial and technical talent and motivation may be available for almost all projects given only top-level impetus to the total development program. There is no demonstration that observed gains in per capita national income, if not shared by important sectors of the economy, are bound to prove transient and illusory. Nor is there any refutation of the proposition that real gains in per capita national income from a development program will somehow be shared by component sectors simply because of the structural interdependence of the economy.

Copyright of Rural Sociology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The purpose of this research paper is to enlarge the dimension of agrarian reform programs by considering them as a part of the community development role in agrarian improvement and economic development in general. The author's hypothesis shall be that community development programs are a necessary condition for economic development. Implicit in the author's discussion is the thought that community development programs can extend beyond traditional supporting services such as credit availability, technical advice and marketing co-operatives. In some countries, extensive agricultural support programs may, however, qualify for "full-blown" community development status. The contention is that for agrarian reform to make significant economic contributions, major support activities are required. After surveying rural agriculture in Japan, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines, the author concluded that one institution appeared to stand above all others as a requisite for the existence of a strong agricultural sector and that is viable farmer associations.

The article discusses the effect of innovations on patterns of rural development and in particular on output per acre and on labor input per acre. Data from a sample of 240 smallholdings in five different areas of Malawi are examined. The article indicates that the existence of differing patterns of rural development in these areas. It discusses the implications for rural development policy. The article shows a bias among the smallholders in favor of innovations and a skepticism about the viability of yield increasing innovations.

This paper describes an index number designed to measure the soundness of agricultural development in the Sub-region, a laboratory of North Carolina and Virginia, in terms of the land and its people. Soundness of agricultural development is in the realm of subjective judgment; it varies with time and place and purpose. For the purpose of this study, the goals pursued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been accepted and the indices included related to the Department's program which attempts to effect a transition from the present disorganization of commercial agriculture, inadequate farm income, and wasted, eroded land to a balanced agriculture which conserves and develops the land and its farmers.

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article reports that recent literature considers prevailing land tenure patterns a barrier to agricultural development in many developing countries and much discussion has focused on land reform as a means of removing this barrier. Most land reform programs emphasize the need to shift to an owner-operator based agriculture, following the hypothesis that prevailing tenure patterns do not lend themselves to providing the incentives necessary for increased production. Since most literature on the effect of tenure on production concentrates on the tenants and owner-operator groups, a study was undertaken at the College of Agriculture, University of the Philippines, to analyse the role of the Filipino landlord, to develop a typology of each type with its functions and factors involving operational decisions. The results indicate differences in whether annual crops or perennial crops are grown. Class levels tend to follow absentee vs. resident landlord groups, with more of the former in the upper class and the smallest number in the lower class. A pattern of landlord-tenant relationships emerged that was either paternal or non-paternal and traditional or modem in the landlord's attitude toward the development of the enterprise.

This paper attempts to analyse the influence exerted by production relations on the introduction of improved technology into agriculture. Since the argument is set in the specific context of some east Indian villages, it is hoped that such an analysis will help to provide at least part of the explanation for the prevailing backwardness of agriculture in this region. Nevertheless, as the argument is conducted in terms of a highly schematised and hence quite unrealistic model, it deserves to be emphasised that many of the central assumptions of the model are based on data and impressions collected by the present author from 26 villages in West Bengal during 1970. Consequently, the particular assumptions of this model may or may not hold for other regions of India or elsewhere. But the relationship between technology and production relations is of general relevance, notwithstanding the particular context of West Bengal villages. Indeed, this interaction between technology and production relations--in Marxian terminology the interaction between "the forces and the relations of production"--is central to the theory of historical materialism. And, from this point of view, the present study is an attempt to illustrate in a precise form and in a specific context this general idea of Marx. Needless to say, the precision is obtained only at the cost of considerable simplification of Marx's original idea as well as a stark schematisation of the prevailing production relations in agriculture in those east Indian villages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article illustrates the scientific problem of the conservation of the heaths in Dorset, England. It presents three main causes of the heaths extensive anthropogenic changes, including the increased agricultural development, need for grown home timber and the scarcity of suitable sites for new plantations, and southward trend of the British human population. It describes the changes in area of heathland habitat and its fragmentation. It also forecast the fate of the existing flora and fauna in the light of observations made on the adaptations to changes in land use. Conservation and ecological implications of the work were also discussed.

Placing an ecological approach in the general framework of American geographic thought indicates the usefulness of distinguishing two trends in the development of this thought-the one ecological, the other spatial. American geography tended to reject the ecological approach because it was identified at an early period with environmental determinism, A spatial, non-functional, approach became dominant. Although the two approaches are two ends of a continuum, and thus connected, they arise from and lead to different sets of questions which involve different approaches and different bodies of theory. The ecological approach may be divided into four imprecise types-biological, human, cultural, and urban-political. The cultural-ecological approach is particularly useful in analyzing obstacles to innovation acceptance in agricultural development because it emphasizes the analysis of existent systems from different viewpoints. Four sets of reality, or viewpoints, can be distinguished in this context-that of the scientist-observer, that of the change-agent, that of the cultivator, and that of the ideal-set of the cultivator. Only when the overlaps and conflicts of these sets are recognized can a realistic appraisal be made. This is only a single instance of the potential of an ecological approach. Spatial theory and ecological theory have not yet been joined. The evident usefulness of both indicates the importance of attempting such a joining, and the futility of arguing for the ascendance of one over the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, it is argued that the usual contents of the concepts modern and traditional are insufficient to account for the presence or absence of agricultural development. The use of the concepts may even have led to a certain neglect by rural sociologists of the structural factors affecting development. A more accurate way is suggested of classifying the variables influencing the farmers' innovativeness under the headings ignorance, inability, and unwillingness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the major economic realities in contemporary China that have affected its aim to achieve a sustained economic growth. It discusses the great effects of the country's large population and growth rate, its limited amount of agricultural land and low level out put per capita, the low rate of voluntary savings and capital accumulation, and the low level of technical ability and dependence on foreign assistance on the country's economy. Furthermore, it provides information on the various ways considered by Chinese Communists in resolving these economic problems.

The article discusses efforts to develop the Italian economy, with an emphasis on the food and agricultural sector, as these make up forty percent of the work force and account for half of the disposable income expenditures. The article notes that the internal industrial and nonagricultural industries within these economies can only grow if the incomes of food producers and handlers increase. This necessitates efficiency within the food production and marketing industries. The article outlines problems and proposes policy, including directing public investment to those areas of food production with the highest unemployment, thereby increasing production. Further, the author suggests the abolition of market restrictions and the passing of legislation outlawing discrimination and monopolies.

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article takes a brief look at Thai education within the national context to examine some of the problems in primary education and to observe what is being done and what can further be done to improve the situation. The rate of expansion in the Thai education system has been considerable, as data on primary school enrolments between 1950 and 1971 indicate. The education system has increasingly been seen as a means of bringing about social and economic development. The author describes the system as wasteful and irrelevant to most of those who live in the rural areas, using up vital resources and not leading to greater economic or agrarian development. Many of these problems are recognized, but reforms set in motion do not go far enough but merely help to perpetuate the existing system.

The article presents an anthropological research on agriculture which begin in the gross differentiation of types, the charting of their global distribution, and their association with evolutionary stages. Anthropology's past neglect of the study of agriculture is basically due to the belief that basic food production is a dull, routine, grubby, and very much a background activity. However, this attitude towards agricultural research has resulted to a poorly organized messages emanating from ecological and economic systems with the relatively more rigid and determinate messages of low information coming from ideological systems like religion, kinship, and politics in the field of agriculture.

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on the factors which impede agricultural development in inter-tropical Africa. These factors are the insulting behavior of some western technical advisers, the active dislike of being stationed in rural areas and the disesteem for agriculture and peasants shown by the higher civil servants, the isolation of many regions due to the lack of good roads and the eccentric location of capitals and finally, the trauma of the peasant, that is to say his stoicism, apathy, inertia and lack of enthusiasm for agriculture. The discussion about the applicability of western economic theory in underdeveloped societies or sub-societies has not yet ended. It may be true that, in a radically different social structure, economic behavior includes actions and objects which in the industrial countries are not ordinarily thought of as pertaining to the economic sphere. It may also be true that some of the actions of African peasants do not correspond to what the homo economicus is supposed to do. The African peasant may sometimes strive for a target income and regard additional income as not worth the extra effort in order to obtain it.

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on the issues concerning the public image of plant pathology in the U.S. It cites that industrial concerns engaged in research, development, and sales of agricultural pesticides and processors of food and feed are concerned about the public image of all agricultural disciplines. According to the article, the Department of Agriculture exercised leadership to sustain efforts in creating a better public image and understanding of agriculture. It further states that the public has little knowledge on the concept of what a plant pathologist is or the contribution he makes to the public.

The article focuses on the considerations made in the early plant domestication. Plant domestication or agriculture based on archaeological record has been seen first in mountainous regions of marked ecological diversity. Some considered that it started with women who became responsible for the evolution of civilization, as well as to the benefits it gave in the food production. The re-evaluation for the origin of plant domestication is due to archeological discoveries in some parts of the world.

The article presents a discussion on various edges of the problem of famine with reference to the book "Famine 1975! America's Decision: Who Will Survive, and the report "The World Food Problem," by the U.S. President's Science Advisory Committee" (PSAC). The book identifies four population dynamics, and many false hopes to control the population growth. Those dynamics are the death rate, younger generation, birth rate, and man's reproductive system. The PSAC report concerns the need to improve the economic development of developing countries so as to generate capital to be invested for the improvement of agricultural development.

Although many revisions have been made in undergraduate teaching in the agricultural sciences over the years, a number of significant new trends are underway today. However, important issues and problems confront educators and administrators in the colleges, schools, and departments of agriculture. The Commission on Education and Natural Resources in Agriculture offers assistance in solving them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses issues related to the national income and product of the Soviet Union in 1937. It attempts to accomplish two related tasks. The first is to set up for the Soviet Union a series of national economic accounts and second task involves a methodological question on which national income literature does not seem entirely clear but for which it may be permissible momentarily to assume a common understanding. These two tasks, needless to say, add up to a sizeable project, and it is restricted to one particular year of 1937. In general 1937 was a prosperous year by Soviet standards. The Second Five Year Plan, which ended in that year, had met with very real success in every sphere; not only in heavy industries, which of course had first priority, but also in agriculture and consumers goods industries. The expansion of heavy industries continued after 1937, but consumer prosperity was brought to a close when after Munich the Russians shifted their defense preparations into high-gear. As of 1937, the collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union had been practically completed.