Human Factors Affecting
Agriculture
A Mal, K8y n Gig production
However favourable the physical
environment may be, it is of limited value
until human resources are added to it.
Economic man, the term introduced by
Von Thunen, applies resources are often
available only in developed countries or
where farming is carried out on a
commercial scale.
This includes the types of transport available,
the time taken and the cost of moving raw
materials to the farm and produce to the
market. For perishable commodities, like milk
and fresh fruit, the need for speedy transport
to the market demands an efficient transport
network, while bulky goods, like potatoes,
transport costs must be lower for output to be
profitable. In both cases, the items should
ideally be grown as near to their market as
possible.
The role of markets is closely linked with
transport. Market demand depends upon the size
and affluence of the market population, its
religious and cultural beliefs, its preferred diet,
changes in taste and fashion over time and
health scares.
Most economically developed countries with their
supporting banking systems, private investment and
government subsidies, have large reserves of readily
available finance, which over time have been used to
build up capital-intensive types of farming such as
dairy, market gardening and mechanised cereal
growing. Capital is often obtained at relatively low
interest rates but remains subject to the law of
diminishing returns. In other words the increase in
input ceases to give a corresponding increase in output,
whether that output is measured in fertiliser, capital
investment in machinery, or hours of work expanded.
Farmers in developing countries, often lacking support
from financial institutions and having limited capital
resources of their own, have to resort to labour
intensive methods of farming. A farmer wishing to
borrow money may have to pay exorbitant interest
rates and may easily become caught up in a spiral of
debt. The purchase of a tractor or harvester can prove
a liability rather than a safe environmental, economic
and political conditions.
. Technological developments such as new strains of
seed, cross-breeding of animals, improved machinery
and irrigation may extend the area of optimal
conditions and the limits of production. Lacking in
capital and expertise, Third World countries are
rarely able to take advantage of these advances and
so the gap between them and the developed world
continues to increase.
In Britain, farmers have been helped by governments
subsidies. Today, most decisions affecting British
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farmers are made by the European Community.
Sometimes EC policy benefits British Farmers e.g
support grants to hill farmers and sometimes it
reduces their income, e.g reduction in milk quotas.
Certainly countries in the EC have improved yields, as
evidenced by the butter and beef ‘mountains’ and wine
and olive oil ‘lakes’, and have adapted farming types to
suit demand. Governments are also responsible for
agricultural training schemes and for giving advice on
new methods.
Pre - 1949-
Before the establishment of the Peoples Republic in
1949, farming was typical of South East Asia- I.e it was mostly
intensive subsistence. Farms were small and fragmented with many
tenants having to pay up half of their limited produce to rich.
Peoples communes, 1958
- After taking power in 1949,
communists confiscated land from large landowners and divided it among
the peasants. However, most plots proved too small to support individual
farmers. After several interim experiments, the Government created the
peoples communes. The communes, which were meant to become selfsufficient units, were organised into a three tier hierarchy - Production
teams, Brigade teams and the Commune (head of hierarchy)
Responsibility System, 1979 - to current date
- This
system encouraged farming families to become more ‘responsible’,
preceded the abolition of the commune system in 1982, Under it,
individual farmers were given land in their own village or district. They
then had contracts with the government to deliver a fixed amount of
produce. Farmers were supplied with tools and seeds.Excess produce was
kept and sold by the farmer. Increase in yields occurred by 6% by the
hard work of the farmers. Standards of living improved for the farmers.
In the USSR, the belief was that large scale farms were preferable
to smallholdings and that co-operative enterprise was better than
that undertaken by individuals. During the 1920’s, the Kolkhoz system
was created in which farmers were forced to join with their
neighbours to form collective farms. Each Kolkhoz unit was managed
by an elected committee.
Since WW2 the Soviet administration has ‘encouraged’ the sovkhoz
system. A sovkhoz is a state-owned farm where the workers are paid
a weekly wage and where the government sets and controls production
targets which the farm must meet. The individual farmer as a
decision maker has not existed in the USSR for most of this century,
though the situation has changed in the late 1980’s. The sovkhoz are
so large that the workers live in large blocks of flats.
This system has been less successful than had been hoped, possibly
because of the lack of personal incentives, and it appears that output
targets have not always been met. Recently, to try to increase
production, farms which have exceeded their production targets have
been allowed to sell their surplus produce privately.
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