In print

Blue gold: The battle against corporate theft of the world's water

By Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke
Published by Earthscan
Email: earthinfo@earthscan.co.uk
Website: www.earthscan.co.uk
2002, 278pp, ISBN 1 85383 937 X(Hb), £20

The global water shortage is threatening to be one of the greatest ecological, economic and political crises of the 21st century; critically, the solutions being proposed are only making the crisis deeper. Commodification of the world's fresh water, such that it becomes a resource whose distribution and use is controlled by market principles, is already having devastating impacts on the environment and on the poor. For when scarce water resources are sold to the highest bidder, be it industry, agriculture or the urban middle-classes, who is going to bid on behalf of natural ecosystems and poor communities? Both the UN and the World Bank deem fresh water a human need, not a human right, and the distinction is critical: it allows for access being a function of our ability to pay, rather than any natural entitlement. Supported by international institutions, including the World Bank and the IMF, governments around the world are abdicating their responsibility to protect the water resources within their borders, giving authority to private companies that make a business of resource exploitation, and distribute according to the principles of profit.

To describe a book on water as 'refreshing' may be a cliché, but the directness and commitment that springs from these pages is both engaging and motivating. This is no dry, 'I-have-to-publish-to-keep-my-job' book. It is an indignant exposé of an international injustice towards which national governments and international institutions have shown complicity and support; and a call for communities to regain control of the water resources within their localities. The story is told in three sections: firstly a description of the crisis that is endangering us and our planet; secondly, the politics of that crisis, driven by economic globalisation, commodification, and the policies of governments, international institutions and the trans-national corporations; the last section indicates the way forward for regaining public control over fresh water. It documents ways that communities are already actively resisting the theft of their water rights, the common principles and goals that could save the world's water supply, and steps that ordinary people can take to achieve this. Highly recommended.

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Making global trade work for people

Edited by Bruce Ross-Larson
Published by Earthscan
Email: earthinfo@earthscan.co.uk
Website: www.earthscan.co.uk
2003, 341pp, ISBN 1 85383 982 5(Pb), £18.95

What is the link between trade and human development? Is trade liberalisation good for economic growth? The authors of this impressive UNDP publication suggest not, and have plenty of evidence to support their case. For example: since the mid 1980s, Vietnam has taken a gradual approach to economic reform, engaging in state trading, maintaining import monopolies, restrictions and high tariffs (30-50%) on agricultural and industrial imports, and declining to join the WTO. In the same period the country has achieved GDP growth of more than 8% per year, has reduced poverty, dramatically expanded trade, and attracted considerable foreign investment. It has, moreover, become rapidly integrated with the global economy. Economic growth and human development, it is argued, have been achieved by maintaining a balance, combining the opportunities offered by global markets with strategies for investment and institution building to stimulate domestic entrepreneurs. The experiences of India and China add further evidence that most economic development success stories in recent decades have involved partial, gradual opening to imports and foreign investment.

'Making global trade work for people' analyses the current multi-lateral trade regime that operates under the WTO, and how it could be improved so as to maximise human development. Specific chapters are devoted to trade agreements and issues, including whether agriculture should be treated differently, the effects of international anti-dumping legislation on developing country exporters, subsidies, and managing trade-offs between environmental and trade policy. International trade has, it is argued, enormous potential to contribute to human development, but only if trading arrangements are designed to maximise the development possibilities.

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Fatal Harvest: The tragedy of industrial agriculture

Edited by Andrew Kimbrell
Published by Foundation for Deep Ecology and Island Press
Distributed in Europe and Africa by Eurospan
Website: www.eurospan.co.uk
Email: orders@edspubs.co.uk
2002, 384pp, ISBN 1 55963 941 5(Pb), £35.50/US$45

If glossy packaging and presentation are notable features of consumerism, persuading us to part with money for things we do not really need, the publishers of Fatal Harvest have clearly been learning from the enemy. Stunning photographs and worthy essays have been gathered as ammunition for the fight against monoculture and globalisation, a 'mental and visual antidote' to the 'disinformation' being spread by the corporate sector and its minions. There is plenty of substance in the case being made, both in its philosophy and its supporting evidence. The global economy, it is argued, institutionalises a global ignorance in which producers and consumers cannot know, or care, about one another. As a result we continually make choices in what we buy and eat, while being completely divorced from the ecological or social effects of those choices. The alternative proposed is one where production and consumption operate on a local level, an ideal that should apply as much to manufacturing as agriculture. The model is based on the principles of agrarianism, where the uniqueness of each and every place is recognised and responded to. This is contrasted with the 'one size must fit all' goal of big business, which for the boosting of profits is attempting to homogenise the planet, to the detriment of societies, cultures and the environment. Fatal Harvest primarily focuses on industrial agriculture in America, but the issues addressed are undoubtedly global.

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Farming systems and poverty: Improving farmers' livelihoods in a changing world

By John Dixon and Aidan Gulliver with David Gibbon
Published by FAO and World Bank
Rome and Washington DC
Websites: www.fao.org/FarmingSystems/ and www.worldbank.org/rural
2001, 412pp, ISBN 92 5 104627 1(Pb), $30

While all farmers could rightly claim to have their own unique set of circumstances and options, agricultural planners working at a global level need to be able to generalise. This excellent resource book jointly published by the FAO and the World Bank, defines 70 major farming systems across the world's six developing regions, and then takes a detailed look at 25 of those systems that appear to show most potential for poverty and hunger reduction. For each of those potentially fruitful farming systems, contributing authors have summarised the key strategic priorities - whether local, regional or international - in the light of five possible ways forward for those farming communities: intensification of production; diversification of agricultural activities; increased farm size; expansion in off-farm income; and a complete exit from farming. The result is an invaluable reference guide to developing country agriculture, and the 'best bet' options for agricultural development across the globe over the next decade and beyond.

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Appropriate food packaging: Materials and methods for small businesses

By Peter Fellows and Barrie Axtell
Published by ITDG Publishing
Website: www.itdgpublishing.org.uk
2002, 136pp, ISBN 1 85339 562 5(Pb), £17.95

Technical and practical, this guide to food packaging is aimed at small and medium scale food manufacturers in developing countries who are keen to boost their competitiveness by better packaging of their products. It lists the pertinent characteristics of most foods popular with small-scale processors, most importantly their propensity to different types of deterioration. These characteristics are then related to packaging requirements; comprehensive coverage is given to different materials and methods of packaging, as well as filling and labelling. Further chapters look at how to assess whether investing in a new packaging system will be worthwhile in terms of increased sales, and the implications for operation systems and staffing that new systems may entail. For small and medium scale food manufacturers, whose market share is increasingly endangered by the better presentation and marketing of large companies, high quality packaging is extremely important, not only to maintain product quality, but to attract customers. For all those involved in the sector, this will be a valuable source of information and guidance.

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Shifting burdens: Gender and agrarian change under neoliberalism

Edited by Shahra Razavi
Published by Kumarian Press
Distributed in Europe and Africa by Eurospan
Email: orders@edspubs.co.uk
2002, 265pp, ISBN 1 56549 143 2 (Pb), £23.50

Drawing on field research conducted in the late 1990s, this collection of case studies and theoretical analysis presents an ambivalent time for women in the developing world; while structural adjustment policies were increasing the burden on rural people, the capacity of women to influence rural development was also increasing, thanks to a new focus on participation. The case studies include: how gender structures have influenced Uganda's policy to promote non-traditional crops for export; the relationship between South Africa's land reform programme and the country's long term commitment to gender equality; rhetoric and practice of participatory microfinance programmes in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala; and a study from Mexico on gender structures within the agro-industry labour market. By employing a gender-based analysis, the authors argue, they are able to identify often unrecognised obstacles that can lie between policy announcements and intended outcomes. But above all, the studies reveal the diversity that exists across rural societies and economies, which can make standardised gender theory dangerously misleading as a guide to policy.

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Milk Producer Group Resource Book: a practical guide to assist milk producer groups

By Jurjen Draaijer
Published by Animal Production and Health Division,
Food and Agriculture Organisation, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100, Rome, Italy
Email: jeanclaude.lambert@fao.org
2002, 86pp, free from above email

This FAO publication should be very useful to extension staff and project workers involved in establishing or developing small-scale milk producer groups. It is entirely practical in content, and intended to fit with a participatory approach to group management. The five main chapters cover: how to form a group; developing groups (recruiting staff, solving conflicts, joining an association); methods of collecting, testing, processing and marketing milk, and other group activities such as accessing inputs, financial and information services, and livestock health and breeding services. A final chapter sets out participatory activities that can be used with group members, such as deciding on locations for collection centres by creating a milk production map.

Also available in Spanish by download from FAO website.

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How to unravel and solve soil fertility problems

By Colin Asher, Noel Grundon and Neal Menzies
Published by ACIAR/CSIRO Publishing
Distributed in Europe by Eurospan
Email: orders@edspubs.co.uk
2002, 139pp, ISBN 1 86329 321 4(Pb), £10.50

When confronted by soil fertility problems, many researchers and farm advisors are anxious to get started with field-based trials as soon as possible. But if time-wasting mistakes and false starts are to be avoided, several weeks of pot-based trials are essential, allowing accurate identification of the nature and extent of fertility problems for a given soil. Without such a detailed understanding of the chemical shortages or excesses present in a soil, 'blind' application of fertilizer can be counter-productive as well as expensive. The practice of applying N,P and K fertilizer, for example, may exacerbate problems by inducing deficiencies of secondary nutrients. Aimed at soil scientists and extension staff in developing countries, this well-structured guide sets out the stages needed to establish the problems a soil has and find the correct solutions to them.

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Sheep (Revised Edition)

By Ruth M. Gatenby
Published by Macmillan Education
Email: info@macmillan.com
Website: www.macmillan-africa.com
2002, 178pp, ISBN 0 333 79881 3 (Pb), £7.85

Sheep are an extremely convenient way of converting poor quality feed resources into valuable products. They can thrive on short grass, plantation weeds, even peri-urban rubbish, survive periods of scanty grazing and infrequent watering, and provide meat, milk, wool, skins and manure. For poor families they can be an ideal investment, being much cheaper and requiring much less land than cattle. They are also a more flexible investment, since they provide meat and milk in small amounts, and allow risk from disease or theft to be more easily spread across a larger flock, rather than concentrated in a few animals. This revised edition in the Tropical Agriculturalist series offers clear and comprehensive coverage of the basics of sheep raising, including: different production systems, characteristics of different breeds, feeding, reproduction and lamb rearing, health, husbandry and production of milk, wool and meat.

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Enhancing impact:
Strategies for the promotion of research technologies to smallholders in eastern and southern Africa

By M Blackie and D Gibbon
Published by NR International
Available from Communications Manager, Crop Protection Programme, NR International
Email: info@nrint.co.uk
Websites: www.nrinternational.co.uk and www.cpp.uk.com
2003, 56pp, ISBN 0 9539274 6 6(Pb), free

This report of the UK Department for International Development's Crop Protection Programme highlights farmer-scientist collaboration in crop research in Africa. Conducting participatory research with many people over an extended area has presented a major challenge to scientists. The report provides examples of many of the methods developed, including 'Mother and baby' trials, benchmark sites, best-bet approaches, and farmer field schools. It also gives examples of how, in order to scale up new technologies, partnerships must be built with a wider community, including extension services, NGOs and commercial companies.

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Directory of agricultural research institutions in Africa 2002

Published by UN Food and Agriculture Organisation
Copies available from Isabel Alvarez
Fax: +3906 570 53801
Online catalogue: www.fao.org/catalog/giphome.htm
2002, 631pp, (Pb), $24

This directory provides brief descriptions and baseline information about National Agricultural Research System institutions in Africa. Written as a joint initiative of the FAO and the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa, the intention is to promote sharing of information and the building of partnerships among national, regional and international research institutions and systems. The directory is also available on diskette and will soon be added to the FAO website.