upon the vulnerabilities of democratic institutions; bureaucrats compete and collaborate over hidden agendas that have less to do with solving problems than with plumping organizations; political adultery runs rampant among the strangest of bedfellows; sacred cows are nurtured and myths substi- tute for reality. Whether practiced in Washington or Brussels, the politics of agricultural policy follow the course of highest reward and least resistance, and therefore eschew change. Reform is something one advocates, but not something that one implements.

No benefits

A perplexity in the political economy of agriculture that the Moyer and Jos- ling analysis disturbingly brings to the fore is that almost no one actually benefits from the byzantine games- manship of farm policy making. Food consumers loose heavily. Taxpayers are bled. Agribusinesses pass high commodity prices along, neither gain- ing nor suffering from them. Interna- tional traders look out on depressed markets, and farmers, no matter what their governments’ policies, are chro- nically in crisis. As Moyer and Josling repeatedly and astutely observe, far- mers seem to suffer regardless of what governments purportedly do for them, which suggests that their economic problems are probably not solvable within the confines of agricultural policy per se. Even the large-scale American farmers, in whose interest the politics of US agriculture are per- ceptibly skewed, frequently find them- selves in economic quandries. Add to this the international frictions gener- ated, and the efficiencies sacrificed, by headlong dashes toward protectionism in the food and farmstuff trade and anomalies compound. The strength of the Moyer and Josling analysis is that their insights into US and European policy processes render these negative-

sum games eminently understand-

able. Moyer and Josling do not find either

the political cosiness of agriculture policy processes or the irrationalities of their results acceptable. The au- thors make a great effort to discover conditions under which the reform of

FOOD POLICY April 1991

agricultural policies becomes practic- able in the USA and the EC. But their findings are not terribly encouraging: reform appears to require budgetary crises of rather monumental propor- tions, concurrent economic good times in agriculture, notable break- downs in time-tested political coali- tions and clever reformers able to exercise legislative sleight of hand so as to ‘slip things by’ the vigilant forces

of the status quo. Agricultural Policy Reform reads

well, and it should be read by serious students of agricultural policy and political economy. The analysis, however, would serve its purposes somewhat better if the authors had included lengthier discussions of the substance of actual US and EC agri- cultural policies. To get the most out of Moyer and Josling requires that readers bring to the study an earlier acquired familiarity with the elements, instruments and results of all of the policies that the authors find ripe for

Book reviews

reform. As it stands the book is a communication among experts, and novices are largely excluded. In addi- tion, the ‘analytical framework’ that the authors adopt - an amalgam of rational actor, public choice, bureau- cratic politics and mutual adjustment theorizing - generates little insight in its own right. It inserts a good deal of cumbersomeness into the text and also a smattering of nonsense as in the conclusion that ‘this paradigm predicts that individuals will maximize values and interests which are important to them’ (p 206). It remains a mystery why good scholars continue to defer to the silliness of so-called paradigms like ‘public choice’, but it is to the credit of Moyer and Josling that they do not allow social scientific ritual to seriously mar an otherwise fine study.

Donald J, Puchala University of South Carolina

Columbia, SC, USA

Rome viewed from Washington THE FOUR WORLD FOOD AGENCIES IN ROME

by Ross 6. Talbot

Iowa State University Press, Ames, IA, USA, 1990, 188 pp

The history and rationale for action by the four leading United Nations orga- nizations dealing with food are the focus of this book. For more than a decade Ross Talbot has followed the work of these agencies through re- search in Rome as well as with officials in Washington, DC, who deal with the Rome agencies. Now he presents to us his carefully considered judgments ab- out these agencies - their various suc- cesses and failures, their conflicts and problems, and utimately their effec- tiveness in the mission of ending hunger.

tions and personalities seek power first, however much their mandate may be humanitarian and liberal in character. Using these two lenses to view the four agencies Talbot unfolds a series of answers to general ques- tions about the origins, evolution and current political problems of each agency. For someone unfamiliar with the work of these agencies this book provides an excellent overview, with a respectful balance between detailed information regarding budgets, proce- dures and personalities and broader discussions of the major functions of these agencies and the politics within and among them.

FAO

Two touchstones for evaluating and analysing the agencies are used by Talbot: the goal of alleviating hunger _ as proclaimed by the World Food Conference in 1974 - and the view- point of realism in international poli- tics. The latter suggests that institu-

Focusing on each organization succes- sively, beginning with the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the book walks us through the organiza- tional structure, budget, programme activities and politics of each agency with this technique. The reader can quickly see the basic forces shaping organizational behaviour. One under- stands the role of different global in-

171

Book reviews

terest groups upon the FAO Gov- erning Council and FAO Conference, and appreciates how the power of the Director General has expanded over the years. We are given a clear picture of the FAO as an agency dedicated to serve the interest of its largest block of constituents - the Group of 77 (G-77).

Examples document the way in which initiatives to assist Third World countries have o~ginated in the FAO pressing for the allocation of increas- ing resources to assist development activities in these countries. Such efforts, even when only rhetorical, help to secure political alliances be- tween the FAO leaders and ministers of agriculture and heads of state in the developing world.

The issues of trust fund expendi- ture, and the political aggressiveness of the Director General of the FAO since 1975, Edouard Saouma, are de- lineated. For example, Saouma’s suc- cess in leading the FAO through va- rious troubled times is chronicled, along with the rather strident critic- isms of his leadership.

A secondary theme throughout the book is the role of the USA and its foreign policy towards these agencies. With respect to the FAO, for exam- ple, Talbot makes clear the difficulties created since 1985 by the Katzenbaum congressional amendment and execu- tive decisions to withhold contribu- tions. Further, he delineates the un- successful effort of the USA and others to unseat Saouma in his 1987 election to an (unprecedented) third term. For the vast majority of in- terested readers the book is a well crafted, readable and consciously ba- lanced account of the four organiza- tions and the role of the USA in dealing with them.

In dealing with the FAO and with the other agencies, and in discussing the role of US foreign policy in Chap- ters 6 and 7, Talbot organizes his material by asking a series of simple, direct questions and providing focused answers. For instance, on p 10 he poses the question: ‘What have these agencies accomplished over the last 40 years?’ In subsequent chapters he attempts to answer this question in some detail, though he leaves out technical materials that were available

to him which would be of little interest to the general reader. Consequently he offers broad judgments but not technical ones focused for insiders.

A second characteristic of the book is the manner in which Talbot draws the reader’s attention to the work and politics of the agencies. For example, he introduces the role of decision making at the FAO with the sentence, ‘By and large, FAO meetings are not exciting affairs.’ This style pushes the book away from being a more erudite disciplinary tome and towards a more personal, accessible account of what goes on. Surely most observers agree with such a judgment about the FAO even if it seems rather personal and normative in a book attempting to provide an objective account.

WFP

Talbot’s review of the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Food Council (WFC) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) follows the pattern estab- lished in his longer chronicle of the FAO. Meticulous details are provided about the origin of the WFP in 1961 and the beginning of its operations in 1963. He makes us aware of the extent to which, from an early point, tensions between the FAO and WFP existed. For instance, Boerma, an early Execu- tive Secretary, was given little credit by the then Director General of the FAO (Sen) but later succeeded to the Director Generalship. This history, combined with other details about the relationship between the WFP and the FAO, provides a structural basis for understanding the periodic and occa- sionally quite hostile conflicts between the World Food Programme and the FAO. As Talbot notes, WFP re- sources to aid the Third World have come to exceed those of the FAO. Nevertheless, the now smaller (in transfers) FAO sees the larger WFP as ‘its’ food aid agency while the WFP has increasingly seen itself as an autonomous UN agency struggling to get out from under the exploitative control of the FAO.

In addition to the institutional account, Talbot touches upon the ma- jor intellectual issues of food aid as an international resource. These include dealing with the question of disincen- tive effects, project versus emergency versus programme modality for pro- viding food aid, and the prospects for secular increases or decreases in food aid in general and of WFP food aid in particular. On the whole, the evalua- tion of the WFP is rather favourable, but it is cautiously balanced with opposing judgments drawn from liter- ature about the organization and by Talbot’s own effort to mingle a ‘tough- minded’ realist approach with a strong sympathy for the humanitarian and liberal aims of the WFP food aid efforts.

WFC

The World Food Council is given con- siderable attention. Talbot’s own judgment is that it is a relatively minor organization on the international scene, but still important because of the involvement of putatively high- level governmental officials. With a budget of a few million dollars and a secretariat and staff of less than 20 professionals, the WFC has been li- mited to serving as a forum for leading ministers of agriculture and as a potential check on the authority of the FAO. Given its weak impact, Talbot notes, in the mid-1980s the FAG prop- osed that the WFC be abolished.

The sense that it was an unneces- sary, redundant and ineffective orga- nization was not unique to the FAO leadership. On the other hand, as Talbot notes, the rationale for the creation of the WFC, namely a gener- al disappointment and criticism of the FAO, coupled with a desire to create a network among agricultural ministers and other senior officials in govern- ment, remains. Thus the WFC would ideally be able to deal with problems quickly and promptly through quick

Important changes occurred to the WFP in the 1980s. It became in- creasingly reorganized as distinct from

the FAO, its field and headquarters staff were allowed to circulate as a universal service (much akin to prac- tices at the World Bank and most bilateral development agencies), and it expanded, with projects in nearly every UN developing country.

172 FOOD POLICY April 1991

bilateral consultations (as opposed to slower and more cumbersome interna- tional bureaucratic procedures). This rationale has allowed the WFC to weather the criticisms of the mid- 1980s and to continue its mission of bringing together ministers of agricul- ture on an annual basis.

Talbot convincingly points out how the personality and nationality of the various executive directors, John Han- na, Maurice Williams and Gerald Trant - two Americans and a Cana- dian - affected the performance and degree of antagonism between the WFC and the FAO. For example, Trant, with a strong political back- ground, has found dealing with Saouma, a consummate politician, far more agreeable than did his two pre- decessors. This point of personality and nationality is made even more forcibly in Talbot’s earlier description of the clash between James Ingram, Executive Director of the WFP, and Saouma. The book’s interpretation neatly blends personal and structural explanations for rivalries that have arisen and fallen over the last 15 years.

IFAD

The final agency reviewed is the Inter- national Fund for Agriculture and De- velopment (IFAD). There was a three-year struggle to found the IFAD (197477) while OPEC and OECD countries worked out a funding formu- la and a constitution for allocating votes based on a tripartite division of power between the two major donor groups, the Western OECD countries, the OPEC countries, and the recipient countries of the Third World. Thus the IFAD was slow to get moving and came into existence only after the intense concern about a food crisis had abated.

Although Talbot deals quickly with the programmatic aspects of the IFAD, leaving out some of its key successes, such as the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh that helps poor farmers to obtain credit, he does chronicle well the difficulties encountered in reple- nishing the fund. In the 1980s both OPEC and Western country contribu- tions fell (in current as well as constant dollars). The funding capability of the

IFAD in 1990 was half that of a de- cade earlier. Nevertheless, the formu- la for its political and economic con- stitution has proven cohesive. With a president from an OPEC country and a vice-president from the Western world (always an American) along with other vice-presidents from de- veloping countries, the organization has been reasonably lean, certainly compared to the World Bank, and yet has been able to focus on an area largely neglected by regional banks and the World Bank, namely the small peasant farmer. Talbot also points out that the IFAD has to a large extent been able to avoid internecine con- flicts that have raged from time to time among and between the FAO, the WFC and the WFP. As with the other organizations, the reader gets a good sense of the size, administrative layout and key issues that IFAD has faced.

Role of the USA

Talbot concludes his book by focusing on the role of the USA. Understand- ably, as a US political scientist his understanding of the Rome agencies is concerned with the important role the USA has played in the founding and continuing financial support of these agencies. He examines the decline of US influence and resources in these agencies and questions whether this trend is to be applauded or regretted. His judgment, also not surprisingly, is that the time has come for the USA to reassert leadership and restore finan- cial support for these agencies. This judgment is generally at odds with that held by executive branch officials in the US government in the last decade but conforms to the sentiments of a large group of Americans who have worked in voluntary agencies or the UN system, or have dealt with world hunger problems.

Talbot’s seventh and concluding chapter, which makes a case for ‘re- sumption of US leadership’, requires support from the sixth chapter in which he discusses ‘US foreign policy and the world food agencies’. Unfor- tunately, this earlier chapter is heavy on history and short on analysis which might explain the shift in US policy

Book reviews

beginning in the 1970s. Since the de- cline in US attention and support for the Rome food agencies has been con- sistent through different administra- tions, it would seem important to find structurally based explanations for this trend and to show why such structural forces could be countered under cer- tain other conditions that Talbot fore- sees in the 1990s.

His principal effort in this arena is to look at the role of the USA as a grain exporter and a holder of surplus stocks. No doubt these factors play an important part in the way in which the USA exerts its influence in food and agricultural trade and sees its interest in the affairs of the food agencies. Nevertheless, the particular activities of the USA in giving or withholding funds, in supporting or opposing par- ticular leaders, or supporting or opposing rhetorical initiatives and re- solutions by the governing bodies of these organizations only modestly coincides with surges and declines in US exports or stock holding. The rise in nationalistic and protectionist senti- ment in the USA is given brief atten- tion by Talbot, though as a ‘realist’ he recognizes that such forces are at play. Moreover, the specific causal patterns by which such broad issues as declin- ing hegemony may affect US policy in the 1980s and 1990s is an area left largely untouched. As a result his con- clusion, as he largely admits himself, is based on sentiment as much as on any social science analysis of shifting pat- terns of interest and capability.

Applause

Overall, one can applaud this book as a readable, informative and balanced account for ‘moderately important’ agencies (to the US government: p 3) dealing with food issues and located in Rome. An easy, graceful and personal style to the writing makes it accessible to the reader, but moves it away from incisive or technically persuasive ex- positions. Furthermore, the chronicle of various evolutions and conflicts among these agencies, while pithy, is too broad to provide the reader with a full account of any episode. Conse- quently the book represents a fine place for someone unfamiliar with the

FOOD POLICY April 1991 173

Book reviews

workings of the United Nations food the suggested readings that Talbot agencies to begin their understanding. proposes, including some of his own Someone interested in sharper inter- work. pretations or a finer-grained analysis of the politics of these agencies or Raymond Hopkins their relationship to key supporting Swarthmore College, states might have to follow up some of Pennsylvania, USA

Stimulating thought on the Left THE FOOD QUESTION

Profits Versus People?

edited by Henry Bernstein, Ben Crow, Maureen Mackintosh and Charlotte Martin

Earthscan, London, 7990, 214 pp,

f7.95

The Left has always been squeamish about markets. When food is the com- modity being traded, this squeamish- ness increases. Food is vital for human survival; it should not be merely a source of profit to greedy merchants and multinationals. This collection of papers is about the political economy of food (or, as the editors state in their Introduction, ‘the obscene connec- tions between abundance and scarci- ty’) at all levels, from the international grains trade to food production and marketing in rural areas to conflicts over the control of food between men and women within poor households.

Despite its dialectical subtitle, The Food Question: Profits Versus People?

goes beyond the ‘anti-everything’ stridency of pure polemic. Partly this is because the authors, while writing ‘from a broadly socialist position’. are careful to avoid the moralizing and reductionism which diminishes much of the literature in this area; more importantly, it is because many of the contributions are grounded in solid empirical research.

Any book written by many hands should explain its genesis, and my first general criticism is that it is not clear how The Food Question came to be written. The editors are associated with the Open University’s Develop- ment Policy and Practice research group, but whether these papers were presented at a DPP conference or

174

specially commissioned for the book is not stated. The result is an unex- plained and rather bewildering variety of geographical and theoretical cover- age. In the (excellent) index, ‘Bang- ladesh’ is followed by ‘Barcelona’; ‘food poisoning’ by ‘food policies in Britain’; and ‘strawberry imperialism’ by ‘structural adjustment’!

In terms of structure, the first 12 of the 15 papers follow a sequence dic- tated by their scope or focus: starting with theoretical expositions and ex- plorations of global inequalities and moving into case studies at the nation- al, district and finally local level. Paralleling this geographical narrow- ing is a shift in theoretical emphasis, from the first major theme of the book ~ aid and trade - to the second - gender relations at the household level. The final two chapters, by But- tel and Jenkins, are so different as to seem almost out of place in this collec- tion, while Watts’s chapter is surely out of sequence.

Transfers and dependence

Following an articulate and provoca- tive editorial Introduction, Harriet Friedmann begins with an overview of the contribution of international food transfers to Third World dependence. Despite a shift in emphasis since the early 1970s from aid to trade (and to increasingly conditional aid), Western grain surpluses continue to dominate rather than serve production patterns and consumption needs in the Third World. (This argument comes full cir- cle when Robin Jenkins asserts, in the final chapter, that UK food produc- tion is the most subsidized, inefficient, mechanized, processed and packaged in the world.)

Ben Crow pursues Friedmann’s theme. In the realpolitik of contem-

porary international relations, ‘food aid imperialism’ is a weapon used to force dissenting governments to toe the ideological line, as Crow demons- trates in the case of the Bangladesh famine of 1974. The trigger cause of this famine was the withholding of vital food aid by the USA simply because it objected to the fact that Bangladesh was exporting jute sacks to Cuba.

This example aside, it is striking that a book on food issues by 15 writers manages so studiously to avoid discussing famine. Crow’s extensive work on Bangladesh in 1974, pub- lished elsewhere, is here summarized in four paragraphs, while Maureen Mackintosh takes the same space to discuss Sen’s theoretical treatment of famine.

In her brilliantly incisive essay Mackintosh explores an uneasy rela- tionship between academic theorizing and policy reality. The World Bank document of 1986, Poverty and Hun-

ger, echoes the title of Amartya Sen’s 1981 book, Poverty and Famines, from which it selectively borrows. ‘Poverty causes hunger’, the Bank discovered, and concluded (as usual) that econo- mic growth will generate the wealth needed to end hunger. But, as Mack- intosh notes, Sen’s argument was more complex - it is social security which alleviates hunger and prevents famine in high-income countries, not (just) high average incomes. Similarly, Sen argued that famines can occur even with well functioning, efficient markets, but the World Bank diagno- sis remains that fragmented, distorted markets are largely to blame for food crises in the Third World.

Mackintosh concludes that, while ‘markets’ and ‘security’ are antithetic- al, markets are here to stay, and attempts to abolish them are unrealis- tic and outdated. ‘The left is therefore condemned to try to understand mar- kets better.’ This echoes Friedmann’s argument against the obsession many Third World governments have with food self-sufficiency. ‘Socialist food politics . . are not about self- sufficiency as such, but about self-

determination. Imports and exports can play a role.’

These two quotes suggest an intri-

FOOD POLICY April 1991