3.4 Report themes
The dual themes of this project - farming in context and farming in transition - emerged after completion of the field-work, during analysis of the data. Prior to that the focus was on farming families, their living standards, power relationships and structures. Placing farming in context enables the dynamics of transition to be illustrated. When studied in context, what became apparent is that these served as tools to enable a more fundamental understanding of what is happening in rural areas in the mid Rangitikei - what can be termed farming in transition.
3.5 Farming in context
Farming can be studied in isolation – or in the context of its background and history. In part 4 farming is placed in the context of past and present understandings of what farming was and is.
3.6 Farming in transition
The placing of farming in context has highlighted the rapid transition farming has made and is making since the late 1960s. The following diagram has been developed to illustrate this transition (though as with any diagram complexities can get reduced to simplistic symbols).
All of these segments will be discussed in more detail in the report but a brief comment of explanation is appropriate.
Pre-1980s: in the first diagram the different shapes represent different farm, family structures. They are precise and ordered, and know where they are in relation to one another. Most farmers, farm families prior to the 1980s knew with a semblance of certainty what they were doing as farmers, what they wanted from life, how to be ‘successful.’, though of course there were always families who left farming, for a variety of reasons.
1980s – 1990s: the arrows represent the massive number of changes – in government policies, technology, markets and social mores - impacting on the local community due to what has been called the ‘liberalisation of the economy’.
The economic reforms... accentuated the impacts of global and macro-social change in rural communities... The reforms improved the way the price and incentive system operates in individual markets through more efficient allocation of resources... international trade was liberalised and markets deregulated, the taxation system was fundamentally transfigured, the delivery of income support, health and education was significantly changed... many government trading activities were corporatised and privatised. (Pomeroy 1997:4)
The agricultural sector moved from a pattern of high state intervention and assistance - to reliance on a market style economy. Farmers felt they took the brunt of the changes. They experienced change at a more immediate and faster pace than the rest of the society.
At the national level tere was a loss of 9,700 male sheep farmers and 2,800 female sheep farmers between the 1986 and 1991 censuses. Pomeroy 1997:4)
The restructuring has left people confused as to what they need to do to cope with such rapid economic and social change.
Contact for Enquiries
Rural Affairs Coordinator
Sector Performance Policy
MAF Policy
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
PO Box 2526
Wellington
NEW ZEALAND
Phone: +64 4 894 0675
Fax: +64 4 4 894 0745
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