In print

The State of Food and Agriculture 2000 - lessons from the past 50 years

Published by The Food and Agriculture Organisation, Sales and Marketing Group, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100 Rome, ITALY
Email: publications-sales@fao.org or http://www.fao.org/catalog/giphome.htm
2000, 356pp + diskette, ISBN 92-5-104400-7 Price US$39.00

The advances of science and technology, including agriculture have produced achievements in the last 50 years that would have seemed inconceivable at the turn of the Century and there is no doubting their impact on the lives of millions. Certainly, in the developed world these advances have given longer life, better health, nutrition, education and prosperity. But for millions more in the less developed regions of the world the impact, if ever it reached them, was often short-lived. Over-turned by the multiple scourges of conflict, corruption, over-population, environmental degradation and disaster, the poorest of the poor remain where they always were poor and at the bottom of the heap. They could rightly question the inequity that allows them a mere one percent share of global income whilst the richest twenty percent of the world enjoy eighty-six percent. This shocking statistic, as compiled by the World Resources Institute, states that between 1960 and 1994, the income ratio between the richest twenty percent and the poorest twenty percent increased from 30:1 to 78:1 - a figure that should give all in Government, especially those of the G8, pause for thought.

So what lessons have been learned over the past 50 years? The State of Food and Agriculture takes a comprehensive look at the areas of food and agricultural development decade by decade, examining the advances and reversals. It looks not only at the production of food but also at the factors that influence how and whether it is produced: climate, conflict, commodity prices, finance, trade, trade negotiations, policy-making, and socio-economic issues.

Many of the findings are stark, but some are encouraging. Thirty years ago, 960 million people did not have enough to eat, now, despite the rapid increase in population, the number is reduced to 800 million. Since 1970, the number of malnourished has doubled in Africa but has halved in East and Southeast Asia. However, the tremendous increase in agricultural production does not reveal the growing disparity among agricultural systems and populations. Dr Marcel Mazoyer of the Institut National Agronomique Paris-Gringo in his essay entitled "The socio-economic impact of agricultural modernisation" warns that, "the gap between the most productive and least productive farming systems has increased twenty-fold in the last 50 years."

Can we learn from the past? History itself would tend to suggest that by and large man does not: the selfish gene is dominant. We just repeat our mistakes under different headings. But the overall tone of the book tends to suggest that we can. Let's hope so. Indeed we must meet this challenge for very selfish reasons - global stability.

SOFA 2000 is also available in Arabic, French and Spanish.

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Chemical Pesticide Markets, Health Risks and Residues - Biopesticide Series No 1

By J Harris
Published by CAB International, Wallingford, Oxon OX10 8DE, UK
Email: orders@cabi.org Website http://www.cabi.org/bookshop
2000, 64pp., ISBN 0 85199 476 8 (Pb) £17.95/US$35.00

The impact on human health and the environment of increased use of chemical pesticides is worrying, particularly in the case of developing countries which often lack the means to minimise risk and rectify problems.

The purpose of this short book is to provide a review of manufacture, use, abuse and problems. The focus is on acute problems in developing countries, particularly Latin America, Asia and Africa, but information is also provided about developed countries. It is aimed at all those work in the fields of crop protection and pest management.

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Priorities in Biopesticide Research and Development in Developing Countries - Biopesticide Series No 2

By J Harris and D Dent
Published by CAB International, Wallingford, Oxon OX10 8DE, UK
Email: orders@cabi.org Website http://www.cabi.org/bookshop
2000, 80pp., ISBN 0 85199 479 2 (Pb) £17.95/US$35.00

The second volume in the new Biopesticides Series, this book looks at ways that biopesticides could offer more 'green' ways of controlling crop pests. The book discusses the reason why, to date, there are few biopesticides actually in use and it will be of interest to all those involved in crop protection, pest management, agricultural development and research planning.

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Clearing a Continent - the eradication of Bovine Pleuropneumonia from Australia

by L G Newton and R Norris
Published by CSIRO Publishing, PO Box 1139, Collingwood 3066, Victoria, AUSTRALIA
Email: sales@publish.csiro.au Website: http://www.publish.csiro.au
2000, 308pp., ISBN 0 643 06562 8 (Hb) US$55.00

Contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP) entered Australia through one infected cow in 1858 and within a year had erupted into a major epizootic with infection spreading from the south to the north in six years. It took over a hundred years, until 1973, when Australia was declared CBPP-free. Clearing a Continent, charts the progress of the disease, the development of the veterinary and research services that struggled to understand and overcome the disease and the measures that were tried, abandoned, reappraised and finally succeeded in bringing about eradication of CBPP in 1968. Clear diagrams, charts and colour plates supplement the text of this extensively researched work. It serves as an important resource not only as an historic record of one country's battle with the disease but also supplies vital information on vaccination thus providing a reference for other countries throughout the world to gain a better understanding of the behaviour of the disease. (See also Focus On Animal Health)

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Legumes in Rice and Wheat Cropping Systems of the Indo-Gangetic Plain - constraints and opportunities

Edited by C Johansen, J M Duxbury, S M Virmani, C L L Gowda, S Pande and P K Gosh
Published ICRISAT, Patancheru 502 324, Andhra Pradesh, INDIA
Email: icrisat@cgiar.org Website: http://www.icrisat.org/
2000, 223pp., ISBN 92 9066 418 5 (Pb)

"There is increasing concern about the sustainability of high input, intensively cropped, cereal-dominated crop rotations in Asia". This is the opening statement of the book which looks at the dominance of cereal crops and the consequent decline in legume crops. Because of their lower yield and susceptibility to pests and diseases, resource-poor farmers have looked on legumes as high risk crops, despite their better nutritive value to both themselves and the land. This book examines ways of redressing this imbalance and will be of particular interest to research managers and policy-makers.

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Agricultural expansion and Tropical Deforestation - poverty, international trade and land use

By Solon Barraclough and Krishna Ghimire
Published by Earthscan, 120 Pentonville Road, London N1 9JN, UK
Email: earthinfo@earthscan.co.uk Website http://www.earthscan.co.uk
2000, 150pp., ISBN 1 85383 665 6 (Pb) £14.95

There is no clear-cut causal relationship between tropical deforestation, agricultural expansion and international trade in developing countries. The book puts the case for the need to find far-reaching reforms at local, national and international level particularly in the area of institutional and governmental policy making.

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The Exploited Child

Edited by Bernard Schlemmer
Published by Zed Books Ltd, 7 Cynthia Street, London N1 9JF, UK
www: http://zedbooks.co.uk
2000, 338pp., ISBN 1 85649 721 6 (Pb) £16.95/$27.50

"The Exploited child" is composed of papers that were originally discussed at an international symposium held in Paris in 1994 looking into the subject of the exploitation of children, including in agriculture. Brought up to-date, the authors look at different aspects of child labour worldwide from coffee plantations of Guatemala, child labour in the Indian carpet industry, coal mines of Colombia, street workers of Mexico through to household labour in Togo. At a time when increasing awareness of the exploitation of children exists, it nevertheless makes shocking reading that the scale is both so rampant and universal (See also Points of View 00-5 Children in Agriculture).

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The Bees of the World

By Charles D Michener
Published by The John Hopkins University Press, 2715 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363, USA
Email: bkinfo@jhupress.jhu.edu Website http://www.press.jhu.edu
2000, 872pp., ISBN 0 80818 6133 0 (Hb) US$135

This comprehensive book by the leading authority on bees, covers 1,200 genera and subgenera, that go to make up more than 16,000 species of bee. The book is beautifully illustrated with 48 colour photos of bees and more than 500 black and white drawings and photographs that depict behaviour, detailed morphology and ecology. Bees of the World is a major work on bee systematics which will enable the reader to identify bees and to understand their classification and phylogeny. (See also Focus On Bees 00-5)

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Cambodia

By Ian Brown
Published by Oxfam Publishing, 274 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 7DZ, UK
Email: publish@oxfam.org.uk
2000, 80pp., ISBN 0 85598 430 9 (Pb) £6.95/US$9.95

The profile of Cambodia in this book emerges not just from presentation of the facts and figures, but perhaps more so from the testimony of six families featured. Their stories, their fears and aspirations, are woven throughout the book and dramatically highlight the plight of a people who have lived through 30 years of conflict and lack of basic civil rights. The profile depicts a nation that has a rich cultural heritage and a recent violent past that it is seeking to put behind it, in order to take its place among the advanced economies of South East Asia.

This is another in the Oxfam Country Profile series, which give fascinating insights into the background, issues and people of the countries researched. (See also Ghana In Print 00-3 and Brazil In Print 00-4)

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Working for the Environment - a growing source of jobs

By Michael Renner
Published by Worldwatch Institute, 1776 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036-1904, USA
Email: mcaron@worldwatch.org or http://www.worldwatch.org
2000, 85pp., ISBN 1 878071 54 8 (Pb), US$5.00

Packed with excellently researched facts and figures, Working for the Environment is another in the Worldwatch Institutes series of study papers. It is becoming a widely accepted fact, both by governments and the 'man-in-the-street', that sustainable economic growth cannot continue to be at the expense of the environment: but the debate as to how the dilemma is to be resolved. Vested interest on the one hand, and fear of change on the other, often stifle the very measures that could bring about both growth and the reduction of practices that have a detrimental impact on the environment.

There is an old adage that says "there is no gain without pain". However, innovative taxation and fiscal policies that are aimed at boosting efficient use of energy, materials and manpower would go a long way to easing any pain that the gain would bring. The paper states that "environmental regulations have led to the creation of an industry that employs at least 11 million people worldwide". It would have been reasonable to suppose that the reverse would have been true. This one area alone shows that change can work positively rather than negatively.

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Animal Welfare

By Colin Spedding
Published by Earthscan, 120 Pentonville Road, London N1 9JN, UK
Email: earthinfo@earthscan.co.uk Website http://www.earthscan.co.uk
2000, 188pp., ISBN 1 85383 672 9 (Pb) £12.95

This book deals with animal welfare in its broadest possible sense. It covers not just the more obvious areas of animal welfare in intensive farming and laboratory animals for their use in research, but also show animals, breeding for pets and sport, zoo and circus animals. Livestock transportation, 'religious' slaughter and trapping are among other subjects dealt with also. A comprehensive list of the major animal welfare organisations is given in an appendix at the end. This book will prove very useful for anyone concerned or interested in animal welfare.

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Agriculture and Intellectual Property Rights - economic, institutional and implementation issues in biotechnology

Edited by V. Santaniello, R.E.Evenson, D.Zilberman and G.A.Carlson
Published by CAB International, Wallingford, Oxon OX10 8DE, UK
Email: orders@cabi.org Website http://wwww.cabi.org/bookshop
2000, 280pp., ISBN 085199 457 1 (Hb) £45.00/US$85.00

Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) is a highly topical, but also increasingly contentious subject which, whilst provoking fierce debate, until recently evoked little policy analysis. This book seeks to redress the balance by presenting the subject from the perspective of policy-makers and economists.

IPRs are particularly relevant in the field of agricultural biotechnology as the issues that are raised effect public and private sector organisations and companies in both the developed and developing world. The book will be of particular interest to agricultural economists, policy-makers, legal advisers, researchers in plant and animal breeding and biotechnology.

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