Bias towards the Large farm subsector in agricultural research: the case of Malaysian Rubber

The economic effects of historical research bias towards the estate subsector of the Malaysian rubber industry are examined. This bias may be expected to have induced technologies using factors appropriate to the relative input prices and other characteristics of estates. It may thus have benefitted them more than the other major subsector of smallholdings, which has had higher prices of capital. The consequences of bias are first investigated by compring the resource use, yields, and profitability of sampled units of the two subsectors on successive technological strata, from the early 20s to the mid 70s. In both subsectors the adoption of successive new technologies has permitted considerable savings in the land, labour, capital, and management required to achieve a given output. While these technologies have been land and labour-saving and capital-using, they have also permitted substantial factor substitution, and smallholdings have all along employed more labour and less capital than estates. The analysis denotes that up to the early 60's estates benefitted more than smallholdings in applying new technologies, but that subsequently there has been little difference. The bias is also scrutinized by examining major features of modern rubber technology of the 80s. This indicates a wide possible substitution between labour and capital at current output levels, but shows too that the move to higher output is strongly capital-using,with less possibility of factor substitution. The new techniques of the 80s are further highly anagement-using compared to previous strata.Factor prices to estates and smallholdings now seem likely to converge in the increasingly commercialized Malaysian economy, and in these circumstances the earlier bias will no longer be a problem. The main current policy indication is to ease the adjustment of smallholdings to the emerging technology. Thus in working along the innovation possibility curve, researchers should provide somewhat more for substitution between labour and capital. At the field level extension services should be improved, so that small farmers can better handle the greater management requirements of new techniques

Oil Palm in Indonesian socio-economic improvement: a review of options

The Indonesian government has used oil palm as a major tool of rural socio-economic improvement, doing this through ‘nucleus estates’ operated by estate companies and through assisting individual smallholdings. The initiatives have together raised the incomes of more than 500,000 farmers, and may be judged successful market interventions which are far superior to laissez faire. But although the average economic and social performances of both initiatives have been reasonable, their outcomes have been variable. The nucleus estates have sometimes suffered from faulty management, bad community rapport, difficult land conversions, and the mistakes of government agencies and settler cooperatives. They were also discontinued in 2001, due to scarce finance. The assistance to individual smallholdings has always had short funding, limiting its scope. Both initiatives were commenced under the New Order, and face new challenges in the present era of democracy and otonomi daerah. The analysis of this paper nonetheless shows that these Indonesian interventions should be continued, albeit with more capital being provided and their deficiencies being remedied. It denotes that the interventions compare well with official efforts in other countries, strengthening the general case for public action to assist poor rural dweller

Growth, structural change and plantation tree crops: the case rubber

The effects of advancing economic growth on plantations are classed in five stages, starting with conditions in a backward subsistence economy and ending under circumstances where manufacturing is dominant and planting tree crops no longer economic. Changes in relative resource prices and other factors and consequent adjustments of estates and smallholdings are taken into account, doing this in light of international experiences with such crops. The case of natural rubber is scrutinized in depth, comparing economic effects and responses in chief producing countries. The key elements in plantation adjustments of market conditions, technologies, institutional arrangements, and government interventions are finally addressed, with policies likely to facilitate appropriate modifications being indicated

64 Orionis: Three-Dimensional Orbit and Physical Parameters

We have obtained radial velocities of the components of the short-period subsystem of the B-type triple star 64 Orionis, covering a full cycle of the long-period orbit since the date of our earlier paper by Fekel & Scarfe. We use all of our radial velocities, together with available speckle interferometry, to derive a three-dimensional orbit for the long-period system. The system has orbital periods of 14.57213 days and 12.98 yr. We also determine spectroscopically a magnitude difference at 4500 Å of 1.0 ± 0.1 between the components of the close pair. Although radial velocities of the third component continue to elude us, we are able to derive masses and luminosities for all three components by requiring that they lie within the populated band of the observed mass-luminosity relationship. With this constraint, the orbital parallax is 0farcs00374 ± 0farcs00017. Our results are consistent with the spectral types and colors derived previously and with the b magnitude difference determined by earlier lunar occultation observations, within the uncertainties of those parameters