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.     

A Raman spectroscopic study of H/D isotopically substituted hydrous aluminosilicate glasses

We have obtained high quality Raman spectra for two H/D isotopically substituted hydrous aluminosilicate glasses with compositions along the NaAlSi₃O₈-SiO₂ join. Consistent with the results of previous studies, the isotope shift for the band near 900 cm^–1, whose intensity grows with increasing water content, is extremely small: v _h /v _d = 1.004 ± 0.004. The lack of a definite H/D isotope shift for this band does not, however, preclude its association with a vibration of a hydrous species in the glass, because of likely strong coupling between different vibrational modes of hydrated framework species. The 900 cm^–1 band could well be due to a T — OH (T = Si, Al) stretching or bending vibration in the hydrous glass, as required by the presence of a combination band near 4500 cm^–1 in near-infrared spectra.     

International Mineralogical Association (IMA)

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

Paleomagnetic stratigraphy of Pliocene Centerville Beach section,northern California

Samples from the upper two-thirds of the approximately 1900 m thick Neogene section exposed south of Centerville Beach on the northern California coast have predominantly reversed detrital remanent magnetism. Fossil evidence suggests a lower Pliocene through lower Pleistocene age for the section. The combined paleomagnetic and fossil data indicate that a large part of the section was deposited during the Matayama reversed epoch (2.4-0.7 million years ago). Samples from correlative sections exposed a few kilometers inland from the Centerville Beach section have a predominantly normal polarity and appear to have been remagnetized. The Centerville Beach section is important because it may serve as a standard with which to compare both other on-land Pliocene sections from western North America and nearby Deep Sea Drilling Project cores.     

Hydrological observations across the tropical convergence north of New Zealand

Hydrological observations, mainly sea surface temperature measurements, are presented for the triangular region bounded by New Zealand, New Caledonia, and Western Samoa. The existence of the Tropical Convergence and the general seasonal variation of the surface parameters are discussed. A secondary convergence lying between the Subtropical Convergence and the Tropical Convergence is proposed and its relationship to the general surface circulation of the Tasman, Sea is examined.