Revolution or evolution? New Zealand agriculture since 1984

Agriculture was the primary target of moves to deregulate the New Zealand economy in 1984. Within twelve-months all production subsidies had been removed, including those for fertiliser and other inputs, as well as funding for drought relief, floods and other natural weather disasters. Whereas at the start of 1984, subsidies were estimated to represent as much as 33% of farm income, by 2003 this had fallen to less than 2% with most of this spent on agricultural research. The anticipated shift of thousands of people off the land did not appear to occur, and by conventional measures at least New Zealand agriculture in 2003 is a major success story. At the core of the changes imposed on agriculture was a commitment to remove all state or government distortions from the system and to fully expose the agricultural sector to market forces. This included wide-ranging and fundamental changes in the broad institutional context within which agriculture must operate. All this was achieved at great social cost and with a significant impact on the environment. In many respects New Zealand agriculture is now very different from that in 1984. Some sectors, such as dairying, have grown and become increasingly industrialised. On the other hand, sheep farming, particularly for wool has struggled to maintain its market share, while other enterprises have emerged as significant sources of income, including horticulture, viticulture and fruit. It is argued here that the trends evident in New Zealand agriculture since 1984 pre-existed the reform period and that the apparent success of the reforms evident at a national scale have not addressed or removed the fundamental problems which face New Zealand agriculture, just as they do modern agricultural systems elsewhere. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Public Is Intellectual

This article is a discussion and critique of public intellectualism in the present. Rather than reify a self-aggrandized form of public intellectualism within academia that centers individualized intellectual development and that encourages a greater flow of findings outward to communities, I highlight black women public intellectuals who have used their skills, talents, and station within the university and society in novel ways. Moreover, I suggest that scholars take seriously the questions, research methods, and analyses emerging from the general public, particularly from within communal and political organizations. These encouragements are illustrated by highlighting three political education workshops that have been developed across the United States.     

International Mineralogical Association (IMA)

International Mineralogical Association (IMA)15th General Meeting, Beijing, China, June 28–July 3, 1990     

Rainfall characterization of the Bumbu watershed,Papua New Guinea

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - Accurate assessment of the rainfall characteristics of a river basin is essential for its proper management. In this study, we examine long-term trends in...     

International Mineralogical Association (IMA)

International Mineralogical Association (IMA)Constitution as of July 2, 1990     

Time-spectra of chromospheric activity of old solar-type stars: detection of rotational signals from double wavelet analysis

We introduce a novel technique, called the double wavelet analysis (DWA), for the determination of stellar rotation periods from time serial data. This first paper aims narrowly at the discussion, introduction and application of the DWA technique to records of surface magnetism in solar-type (relatively old) lower main sequence stars that are obtained by the Mount Wilson Observatory (MWO) HK Project. The technique takes a series of careful steps that seek to optimize wavelet parameters and normalization schemes, ultimately allowing fine-tuned, arguably more accurate, estimates of rotation-modulated signals (with, e.g., periods of days to months) in records that contain longer periodicities such as stellar magnetic activity cycles (with, e.g., period of years). The apparent rotation periods estimated from the DWA technique are generally consistent with results from both “first-pass” (i.e., ordinary) global wavelet spectrum and earlier classical periodogram analyses. But there are surprises as well. For example, the rotation period of the ancient subdwarf Goombridge 1830 (HD 103095), previously identified as ≈31 days, suggests under the DWA technique a significantly slower period of 60 days. DWA spectra also generally reveal a shift in the cycle period toward high frequencies (hence shorter periods) compared to the first-pass wavelet spectrum. For solar-type stars analyzed here, the character of the DWA spectrum and slope of the first-pass global wavelet spectrum produce a classification scheme that allows a star's record to be placed into one of three categories.