Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Hansard, Alan

Menz, Kenneth M.

Simmons, Phil

Singh, Satbir

English

Research Papers in Economics

Book reviews
Sustainable Forest Management by Ian S. Ferguson. Published by Oxford
University Press, Melbourne, 1996, pp. xii and 162, ISBN 0-1955-0628-6.
With Australia's forest management moving into a new era of regional forest
agreements, it is timely that this book addressing the issue of sustainable
forest management has been published. As the preface states, the book
attempts to tackle an issue that is not a simple one, in fact, a practical and
acceptable de¢nition of sustainable forest management is still to be de¢ned.
However, the author has successfully captured the essential aspects of
sustainable forest management in a way that assists the reader in clarifying
the issue.
The ¢rst part of the book addresses the practical and theoretical aspects
of natural resource management. The ¢rst chapter outlines some funda-
mental theory drawing from welfare, production and resource economics
and provides a good discussion on how these theories relate to the issue of
forest management. The subsequent chapters take the reader through
various aspects of forest use including conservation, recreation, water, and
wood, highlighting some of the more challenging characteristics of these
uses including joint production and multiple use management. The reader
is also introduced to regulatory mechanisms in the form of legislation,
policies and regulations designed to address the issue of sustainable forest
management.
In the second part of the book the author presents his approach to
managing con£ict over forest use. Through these chapters the author outlines
a hierarchical framework for dealing with the various levels at which con£ict
over forest use can occur. For each level, a discussion of institutional
organisation and mechanisms is provided. If there is a criticism of this book
it is that the author has not provided a fuller discussion on why he presents
`a complex overlay of property rights, planning and regulatory process' as
the best approach to managing con£ict over forest use. A discussion of
alternative frameworks would have assisted the reader in understanding why
the author arrived at the approach he suggests.
Part three of the book deals with issues and conclusions. In these chapters
the author tackles the factors that make the determination of sustainable
forest use and management a contentious issue. These include de¢nitional
issues of sustainable development and sustainability, the problem of forest
rotation, inter-generational equity ethics and social rate of time preference.
# Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society Inc. and Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998,
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK or 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
The Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 42:3, pp. 333^336This is an excellent book for those interested in ¢nding out about the
economic and scienti¢c issues related to sustainable forest management. It
successfully unravels the complex mix of scienti¢c and economic issues in an
easy to understand way. It is also a good ¢rst step reference for those who
wish to pursue the wide range of economic literature relating to this topic.
ALAN HANSARD
Bargaining Power, Wages and Employment: An Analysis of Agricultural
Labour Markets in India by Gaurav Datt. Published by Sage Publications,
New Delhi/Thousand Oaks/London, 1996, pp. 224, ISBN 0-8039-9338-2.
This book is based on the author's PhD dissertation study carried out at
the Australian National University, Canberra, during the late 1980s. The
main focus of the study is to analyse bargaining power, wages and employ-
ment in the agricultural labour markets in India. One needs an econometric
background to understand the methodological part of the book, which uses a
fair amount of technical jargon. The book is comprised of eight chapters.
Chapter one provides an introduction to agricultural labour markets in
India. Agricultural labour households account for about 30 per cent of all
rural households and about 60 per cent of the total unemployed person days
in India. ICRISAT village level data were used to estimate and develop a
new bargaining model. It is important to note here that many changes have
occurred in the agricultural labour market situation in the present decade
compared to the mid-1980s' study period.
Chapter two provides a review of the literature on wage and market theories
and labour models. It includes relevant empirical applications from agri-
cultural markets and addresses the key issues of wage and employment
determination. The aim of the chapter is to identify salient features of Indian
labour markets. The ICRISAT study villages are used to characterise the
labour markets of India. Earlier studies are discussed under sections including
subsistence wage theory, e¤ciency wage theory, interlinked markets theory,
labour turnover models and supply and demand models.
Chapter three discusses the study area covering ten villages in ¢ve districts
of four states in India. In this chapter, all of the stylised features of the
agricultural labour markets were examined using ICRISAT village-level
studies data for ten study villages. In addition to ICRISAT data, additional
information is also provided by the author from an informal ¢eld survey
which he carried out in two villages. Rural wage determination was analysed
in the context of the stylised features developed previously and in terms of
wage bargaining. Special features are identi¢ed such as the signi¢cance of the
334 Book reviews
# Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society Inc. and Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998casual labour market, the incidence of involuntary unemployment, intra-
village uniformity of the wage rate, the domain of the labour market and the
absence of undercutting. Village and operation-speci¢c wage functions for
male hired labour and female hired labour are also brie£y described.
Chapters ¢ve, six and seven deal with model speci¢cation and empirical
estimation of models using Indian labour market data. In chapter seven, an
attempt is made to examine seasonal and regional variations in the relative
bargaining power of employers and labourers. Attention is also given to the
di¡erence between male and female bargaining power. The model allows the
author to measure the agricultural wage rate, the level of employment and
the employers' pro¢t. However, the author concedes that the model has
limitations as far as information on the determinants of bargaining power
are concerned. In the last chapter a summary concludes the study.
We would recommend this book for those who are interested in Asian
rural labour markets. Rural planners and policy-makers would ¢nd the book
valuable and informative and it also may be useful for researchers as a basic
reference text in agricultural economics. For the lay person interested in the
labour market, the book is di¤cult to understand except for the ¢rst two
chapters and these people should not be encouraged to read it. However, the
book does contribute to the literature on market activities.
SATBIR SINGH AND PHIL SIMMONS
Department of Agricultural and
Resource Economics
University of New England
Armidale
Farm Forestry in South Asia by N. C. Saxena and Vishwa Ballabh. Published
by Sage Publications, New Delhi, 1995, pp. 393, ISBN 0-8039-09218-1.
This book represents the output of a workshop held in India on `Socio-
economic Aspects of Tree Growing by the Farmers of South Asia' in 1991.
It consists of three overview chapters and a series of case studies focusing on
farm forestry. Some of the case studies are a little dated, and the high degree
of speci¢city in the descriptions will be excessive from the viewpoint of many
members of the Society. However, the diversity and richness of the systems
described reveal the folly of strongly prescriptive farm forestry, especially by
those who lack an intimate knowledge of local conditions. The foreword
describes this inference as a major outcome of the book, although some
might regard it as unremarkable.
Book reviews 335
# Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society Inc. and Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998The most powerful chapters are the ¢rst two: `Farm Forestry in the
Context of Farming Systems in South Asia', by the book's editors, and
`Law, Private Forestry and Markets', by A. Pathak. These two chapters are
comprehensive reviews of recent experiences of farm forestry in India.
Lessons learnt there would have relevance elsewhere. Marketing and pricing
issues feature in the book, but there is a lack of compelling conclusions
regarding price trends, and supply and demand for relevant tree products.
There has been well-publicised controversy regarding the use of Eucalypts
for farm forestry in India. The subject is addressed in various chapters, and
opinion di¡ers. Two quotations exemplify the situation:
Eucalypts . . . are thus ecologically incompatible with farm forestry, since
they act as sinks and not sources of nutrients and moisture. They are
ecological destabilisers [and] disrupt the nutrient cycle . . . [It] is nothing
short of an unscienti¢c prescription for deserti¢cation.
(Shiva and Bandyopadhyaya 1985)
The cropping of Eucalypts in short rotation, especially if the whole
biomass is taken, leads to rapid depletion of the reserve of nutrients in the
soil. This is a direct consequence of their rapid growth; it would apply in
much the same way to any other highly productive crop.
(FAO 1985)
The farm survey work on Eucalypts in the case studies was conducted over
too short a time frame to be meaningful. The review chapters reported
methodological weaknesses in other studies. Perhaps the nutrient and
moisture drawing power of Eucalypts was underestimated in the early
promotion e¡orts. My front lawn in Canberra provides con¢rmation of the
`deserti¢cation' e¡ects of Eucalypts. Clearly, where farm forestry is intended
to be undertaken in conjunction with food cropping in a semi-arid
environment, the risk of excessive competition from Eucalypts is a serious
issue.
The book is well presented and those with a direct interest in the subject
should have access to it.
KENNETH M. MENZ
Australian National University
Canberra
336 Book reviews
# Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society Inc. and Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998

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