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Publications > Cahiers (English)> N° 24-25, 3rd and 4th terms 1992

 

Biotechnologie et agriculture
[Biotechnology and Agriculture]

La mécanisation agricole en Italie et le développement du "contoterzisme" (1950-1990)
[Mechanization and agricultural contracting in Italy (1950-1990)]

R. Fanfani (Université de Bologne, Faculté des statistiques, chaire de politique économique, via delle Belle Arti, 41, 40126 Bologna) and L. Lanini (Université de Modène, Faculté d'économie politique, via Giardini, 456, 41100 Modena)

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 24-25, 3rd and 4th terms 1992, pp 5-39

Abstract : The article deals with the mechanization of agriculture in Italy from the end of the Second World War till the present day, with emphasis on the original characters of this development. In the matter of mechanization and the introduction of innovations in agriculture Italy was a latercomer as compared to other European countries. The rapid development that ensued made it possible to make up for the backwardness that largely characterized the Italian situation. The process has been supported by both the state and the "Federconsozi" underpinning the birth of a vigorous agricultural machinery industry. Alongside the stimulus coming from a national demand for machines, Italian industry (especially FIAT) has achieved an important position in the European and world markets for tractors. However, the rapid development of mechanization in the nineteen-sixties and seventies, together with the fall in manpower in agriculture did not make for rational employment of machines or similarly rational management of costs. Several cases show machines available in far greater amount than is warranted by the actual requirements of Italian agricultural firms - most notably the small and very small ones. Witness of the crisis in agricultural mechanization in the nineteen-eighties was the marked fall in registration of new tractors, as well as the notable reduction in small mechanization ; along with this machines specifically intended for harvesting of products became more and more sophisticated and expensive, and in order to use them agricultural firms applied mainly to firms offering machinery services. The ongoing restructuring has entailed considerable concentration in the small machine industries, including takeovers by the larger groups. The difficulties involved in the processes of innovation over the last decade are bound up with the structural problems in Italian agricultural firms, whose size has remained essentially the same during these last thirty years. At the same time, the restrictive policy in prices and production at Community level has led to much uncertainty as regards to prospects of growth and has contributed to hold down earnings from agriculture. With the expansion in firms offering mainly machinery services, agricultural contracting has taken on considerable importance, involving more than a million farms, more than one third of the total in Italy. Their activity now figures as a typical response by Italian agricultural into structural rigidities. Agricultural contracting enables firms to externalize certain costs and various stages of the production process. It also provides a wider range of choice for the farmer, by increasing the degree of flexibility and adapation. Agricultural contractors can thus be seen as vectors of innovation, of modernization and of restructuring of Italian agriculture.

Key-words : agricultural contracting, innovation, Italy, agricultural machinery industry, agricultural mechanization, machinery services.

Les difficultés financières des agriculteurs européens
[Financial difficulties faced by European farmers]

A. Blogowski (Direction des affaires financière et économiques du ministère de l'Agriculture, Bureau de l'évaluation et de la prospective, 78, rue de Varenne, 75700 Paris), F. Colson (Laboratoire de recherches et d'études économiques de l'INRA, rue de la Géraudière, BP 527, 44026 Nantes cedex 03) and Y. Léon (Station d'économie et sociologie rurales de l'INRA, 65, rue de Saint-Brieuc, 35042 Rennes cedex)

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 24-25, 3rd and 4th terms 1992, pp 41-70

Abstract : The policy of rapid modernization of a large fringe of European agriculture has led to an unprecedented development of farm production and labour productivity. Nonetheless, over the last decade a large number of farmers have found themselves in financial difficulties. This no longer only concerns farmers in precarious situations laboriously subsisting on small units of production. At the same time as such small units are disappearing, young farmers on medium-sized and large farms, who have often benefited from modernization subsidies, are also running into trouble. This phenomenon became, during the eighties, a problem of agricultural policy for several countries in Northern Europe. In order to evaluate, among the low-income farmers, how many have extreme financial difficulties, an examination of individual situations becomes necessary. Based on the simultaneous analysis of a ratio of financial autonomy and a mesasurement of income or self-financing, this examination shows that financial fragility is no longer a marginal phenomenon and that the farmers in question are often very well-equipped. The crisis has hit Denmark particularly badly since more than half the farms have had financial difficulties. In comparison with Denmark, the problems in other countries seem less acute. Thus, in Ireland, the proportion of farmers in difficulty was never more than 9 % even when the crisis bit deepest (1980). In more recent years (1986-1988), the proportion has varied between 14 % and 29 % in the countries under study : France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. In order to help their farmers in difficulty, most states have had to intervene on either a short or longer term basis. Assistance usually takes the form of the goverment covering part of the interest payments on the loans contracted by the farmers, or, more rarely, a guarantee by the public authorities on the banking loans. Assessment of the effectiveness of such assistance, carried out in some of the countries involved, shows that greater financial viability is always a result of improved performance of the farms. Public aid has a beneficial effect when it attenuates excessive financial charges but is inappropriate when it holds up the restructuring of unproductive farms. In light of these findings, the policies of systematic economic assistance to debt-ridden farms have everywhere been called into question. Only selective aid for farms faced with adaptation difficulties seem to be worth maintaining.

Key-words : farm production, financial difficulties, farmers, agricultural policy, income, banking loans, indebtedness.

Biotechnologie et agriculture
[Biotechnology and Agriculture]

Le caractère idéologique du développement des biotechnologies aux États-Unis
[The ideological character of biotechnology development in the US]

Frederick H. Buttel (University of Wisconsin, Department of rural sociology, Madison, Wisconsin)

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 24-25, 3rd and 4th terms 1992, pp 79-92

Abstract : The support given in the United States to agronomic research in general, and to biotechnologies in particular, stems from the existence of two major pressure groups : those in charge of and active in research on the one hand, and what were initially industrial, and later financial and stock market lobbies on the other. A convergence of interests at a given moment in history - in the late eighties - explains the enthusiasm for biotechnologies and the emergence of what purports to be a truly scientific idelogy. Present scepticism may however be explained by the divergences that have appeared between the different actors and the rise of an environmentalist ideology.

Key-words : biotechnologies, pressure groups, research, industrial lobbies, financial lobbies, stock market lobbies, scientific ideology, environmentalism.

Vers des techniques agricoles fondées sur la science
[Towards science-based agricultural technics]

P. Byé (Station d'économie et sociologie rurales de l'INRA, 2, place Viala, 34060 Montpellier) and Maria Fonte (Dipartimento di Economia e Politica Agraria, Facolta di Agraria, via Universita,
96, 80055 Portici (Naples))

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 24-25, 3rd and 4th terms 1992, pp 93-114

Abstract : The use of biotechnologies is part of a more general and progressive change in the "common pool of knowledge" used to increase agro-food output. Their present development cannot therefore be separated from their ability to reinforce present knowledge and techniques. But their real potential - leading to a veritable "scientisation of farming knowledge" - can only be expressed through a redefinition of the relations between man and nature. The development of biotechnologies depends in the long term on their ability to combine the production of consumable goods and the reproduction of cultivated ecosystems.

Key-words : biotechnologies, knowledge, techniques, production, ecosystems.

Les biotechnologies dans l'agro-alimentaire : un impact limité
[Agrofood biotechnologies : a limited action]

Roberto Fanfani (Université de Bologne, Faculté des statistiques, chaire de politique économique, via delle Belle Arti, 41, 40126 Bologna), Raùl Green (Laboratoire de recherches économiques sur les industries et les marchés agro-alimentaires de l'INRA, 65, boulevard de Brandebourg, 94205 Ivry cedex) and Manuel Rodriguez Zúñiga (Conseil supérieur de la recherche scientifique, Pinar 25, 28006 Madrid)

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 24-25, 3rd and 4th terms 1992, pp 115-130

Abstract : This article analyses the diffusion of innovations in the food industry considered as a privileged sphere for the implementation of biotechnologies. It is opposed to an approach exclusively focused on the developing knowledge in biology. It insists, on the other hand, on the necessity to take structural and organisational problems into consideration in the food industry, so as to take hold of the real impact of biotechnological innovations and their possible articulation with current techniques such as informations processing and production problems.

Key-words : food industry, biotechnologies, biology.

S'adapter à la demande alimentaire : nouvelles orientations industrielles en matière d'innovation
[Agrofood demand adjustment : new industrial orientations for innovation]

John Wilkinson (c/o CPDA, av. Venceslau Bràs, 71 - Fundos Prédio da ASUFRJ, UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro)

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 24-25, 3rd and 4th terms 1992, pp 131-142

Abstract : The analysis of the agro-food biotechnologies used in industrial production reveals two major characteristics : the extremely high degree of heterogeneity of the productive structures that adopt such biotechnologies on the one hand, and their transversal or generic nature on the other. A survey covering twenty-six major companies corroborate the idea that for biotechnologies to be industrially applicable there must be new forms of integration and cooperation within the agro-food complex. These new forms of organisation will, however, have to take into account the new consumer demands concerning food quality and safety.

Key-words : agro-food biotechnologies, agro-food complex, consumer.

Les grandes entreprises face à la révolution biotechnologique
[Corporates face biotech revolution]

Gerd Junne (Université d'Amsterdam, Oudezijds Achterburgwal, 237, 1012 DL Amsterdam)

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 24-25, 3rd and 4th terms 1992, pp 143-159

Abstract : Big corporations account for an increasingly large share of the R&D budget as regards biotechnologies. Their own constraints would seem to have led them to slow down rather than accelerate the applications of these new techniques. This could continue to be the case as long as the "Fordist" options that until now have influenced agricultural growth have not been called into question. The new research options could thereafter allow for a gradual change in the predominant technological paradigms.

Key-words : big corporations, R & D, biotechnologies.

La réglementation du risque biologique : un frein à l'innovation ?
[Biological risk regulation vs innovation ?]

Joanna Chataway (Centre for technology strategy, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA) and Joyce Tait (Strathclyde Graduate Business School, Sir William Duncan Building, 130 Rottenrow, Glasgow G40GE)

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 24-25, 3rd and 4th terms 1992, pp 161-176

Abstract : This paper discusses strategic decision making in firms pursuing biotechnology innovation and the influence of risk regulation on firm strategy. Data from three research projects, involving interviews with over 60 managers from agricultural and food related biotechnology companies and also over 60 key participants in the regulatory process in the UK and EC, shows a diversity of strategy and opinion. While some industry representatives identified new risk governing the release of genetically manipulated organisms (GMOs) as the primary constraint on biotechnology innovation, the findings of the study painted a more complex picture. The controversies surrounding the issue of risk regulation and its impact on innovation are best understood if viewed in the context of other political and economic factors. We conclude that the actual impact of risk regulation on industry strategies is probably less than the rhetoric of industry lobbyists would suggest. At the same time, the very act of lobbying so forcefully could lead to a public backlash against industry that would be much more damaging than the regulation itself.

Key-words : biological risk, innovation, risk regulation, industry strategies.

Brevets sur le vivant : débats et controverses
[Controversies on the potentiality of living organisms]

Paolo Bifani (Université autonome de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria de Canto Blanco, Madrid)

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 24-25, 3rd and 4th terms 1992, pp 177-188

Abstract : Intellectual property rights (IPR) appear to be a major factor in the competition being waged between both firms and governments over the appropriation of biotechnologies. Present debates are about the extension of the areas to be protected as well as the scope and duration of protection. For the major innovating firms, it is above all a matter of weakening the mechanisms of diffusion of new knowledge in order to make the IPR into international constraints. For the users, both North and South, the issue is about limiting those procedures and norms that would lead to the excessive appropriation of a public good and the monopolisation of new techniques.

Key-words : potentiality of living organisms, appropriation of biotechnologies, protection.

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