agriculture || planning for rural development in jamaica: spatial systems analysis

PLANNING FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN JAMAICA: SPATIAL SYSTEMS ANALYSISAuthor(s): BARRY FLOYDSource: Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1, Agriculture (MARCH 1972), pp. 5-13Published by: University of the West Indies and Caribbean QuarterlyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40653232 .

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5

PLANNING FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN JAMAICA: SPATIAL SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

"It is one of the anomalies of this scientific age that as life grows more complex and as knowledge proliferates to form a myriad of specialized subjects, the demand for people with broad perspective and general understanding is greater than ever before".

Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg (Chairman, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission), Science and Man in the Modem World (1967).

There is general consensus on the objectives of programmes for rural advancement in Jamaica, as elsewhere in the Caribbean and in most emerging states of the "Third World". Their goal is to bring about major improvements in social conditions and economic opportunities for rural populations, through the rehabilitation and development of the physical and human resources of the countryside. The broad issues at stake in traditional agriculture and rural living are also widely appreciated: the combatting of environmental constraints, the wrestling with economic adversities, the struggle against sociological inhibitions.

While the Jamaican environment has frequently been viewed as favourable for a wide range of agricultural activities, its hostile elements are nevertheless ubiquitous, and must be controlled or at least cushioned for the better purpose of man. The hazards of torrential rains, prolonged or unseasonal drouth, high winds, steep slopes, secular erosion, and infertile soils are receiving increased attention from physical planners in rural Jamaica.

In terms of economic development, the modernization of the agricultural sector is vital to the orderly political growth of the country. It is in this sector that the plans framed by governmental leaders in Kingston are ultimately implemented. The rural areas are the object of a large part of the planning process. The dispersed dwellings of Yallahs Valley farmers, the clustered homes in upper Clarendon, the hamlets and villages in Hanover or St. Thomas are the nerve ends of an elaborate and costly governmental process.



6

FIGURE 1 THE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM

FACTORS & LINKAGES AFFECTING IMPROVEMENTS IN FARMING

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In politically realistic terms, economic integration of the rural areas is the price the ruling élite must pay to achieve political growth, in order to ensure their perpetuation in office. While the national focus is often upon the problems of the fast-growing urban areas, more particularly upon unemployment and the slums and shanty-towns of Kingston and Montego Bay, it is in the rural areas that the issue of social inequalities, disguised unemployment and the economically disadvantage«! have their origins.1 The country parts, with their problems of poverty, deprivation, malnutrition, and disease are the ultimate breeding ground for political unrest, disorder, even rebellion.

The most important priority that is emerging in rural research, in the Caribbean and elsewhere, is that social scientists must come to grips with the stubborn question of the rural poor. There is a fundamental need for the "action-intellectual" to be involved in the problems of rural poverty.

Agriculture and "Systems Analysis". Agriculture or land husbandry is, in essence, a "systems" problem. There are

innumerable interacting factors which need to be taken into account if improvements in the agricultural system and hence rural society at large are to be generated. More efficient and productive modes of farming, leading to social and economic uplift, are not achieved through the fulfilment of one or two, or even several, needs of man and land. They require the satisfaction of a whole range of inter-linked conditions (Fig. 1). Tinkering with the system in terms of selecting one section of the circuit for upgrading, for example, physical inputs (soil conservation and beneficiation, improved seed), or cultural factors (incentives to social change in attitudes towards farming, the behavioural, motivational, and attitudinal dimensions of small farmers), or economic factors (improved marketing arrangements, low-interest loans, paved roads) will not in itself ensure the smoother and more fruitful operation of the entire system. Co-ordinated planning, embracing the impact of innovations in any one section on all other sections, is called for: an amalgam or integration of specialist approaches to the problems of rural advancement. A synthesis of strategies adopted by planners and scientists in many separate fields of enquiry, but all concerned with the "common ground" issues of man/rural land relationships, is urgently required.

This is not to deny that trained minds from a host of specialist subjects are needed in the decision-making processes of agriculture and rural rehabilitation. The skills of researchers, technicians and administrators of many different persuasions require focussing on the many intractable problems of rural land use, with a view to achieving their rational solution. It is to suggest, however, that the excessive zeal and parochialism of experts in certain specialized areas need to be balanced against the potentially equally relevant contributions of workers in other disciplines. All too often in the past (and Jamaica has been no exception), analyses of agricultural problems and plans for their resolution have tended to follow too rigidly the particular aptitudes of the diagnostician; the specialist has found the factors most familiar to him as crucial in a given situation. His



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prescription was thus most likely to read: "take care of my recommendations first, and all other difficulties will be resolved later in consequence". A review of recent reports and recommendations by soil and plant scientists, fertilizer and pesticide specialists, water management experts, agricultural engineers, development economists, land tenure legalists, rural sociologists, authorities in public administration, political scientists, and many others, provides adequate testimony of one-sided approaches to the issues at stake.

The perhaps understandable predilection for seeking answers to agrarian problems from within the confines of one's personal expertise and experience has been aptly caught in the following light-hearted verses:

The Old Agricultural Lag2

I

Ο why does agriculture lag? The answers all lie in the bag But the bag in which the answer

lies Turns out to have enormous size.

II For Anthropologists, Tradition remains the major inhibition, And peasants, oftener than we

think, When led to water, do not drink.

Ill The ardent fertilizer fan Thinks NPK will beat the ban, Compost zealots, on the other

hand Preach "Muck and Magic" on the

land.

IV Then some there are who argue

that The major culprit is the rat, And so encourage, far and wide The massive use of pesticide.

V Plant breeders feel that all

is nice

Since dwarf hybrid wheats and miracle rice

Will really yield the grand solution,

Ushering in the "Green Revolution".

VI

Economists, it's plain to see All think that Prices are the key For no economy will grow With inputs high and outputs

low.

VII Markets and competition now Must be the hand that speeds the

plough Making, in one Rostovian leap, Corn dear and fertilizer cheap.

VIII

Some think the answer lies in Risk,

Others, that land reform's the whisk

To brush away the blocks that bar

Development's immobile car.



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IX

Some say, when growth occurs, what fed it

Is careful grants of shaky credit, With Government to underwrite The debts of those who fly by

night.

X

With facts too many now to list 'em

The answer is a General System. So what has got to be advised, Is, "get the stuff computerized".

XI

When scientists use common sense They fall into mistakes immenst, It's better far to place reliance On familiar skills and home appliance.

On at least three international occasions within the last decade, the specialist approach to problems of agriculture has been much in evidence. It was noted by a group of development economists at the Center for International Studies, Massachussetts Institute of Technology (U.S.A.) when they sought to find answers to the sluggishness of agriculture in underdeveloped countries in 1963.3 There was a tendency for it to flourish also at an International Seminar on Change in Agriculture, held at Reading University (U.K.) in 1968.4 On this occasion, some 225 seminar members from nearly 40 countries, including many of the leading workers in the world on agricultural development, assembled in interdisciplinarian groups on a regional basis, then in cognate subject-matter sessions, to evaluate over 60 studies of recent significant schemes to promote agriculture. This highly informative conference led many participants to a new and beneficial respect for the endeavours of workers in disciplines often far removed from their own, yet directed towards the solution of common problems of land and animal husbandry. Closer to home, the successful Consultation on Agricultural Development Problems in the Caribbean Region, sponsored by the Jamaica Agricultural Society and held in Kingston early in 1971, produced a lively exchange of views between experienced workers and researchers in several specialized branches of agriculture; hopefully it also induced a fresh appreciation of the value of co-ordinated efforts to overcome the constraints of traditional farming in the Caribbean.

The Need for "Combined-Studies" Planners. In terms of the formidable tasks ahead, we are making the case for a new

breed of rural development planners, whose formal training will be broad (encompassing aspects of agriculture, the environmental earth sciences, the social sciences, human ecology, etc.) and whose field experiences will be no less limited in scope. Such men and women will be the grand synthesizers; they will possess a distinctive vantage point, a way of thinking, an integrative or syncretic turn of mind, but not a hard core of narrow empirical or theoretical knowledge peculiar to any one specialized field. In their approach to farming systems, it will not be



10

simply a matter of "grinding their own axe" in the manner of some specialists. They will have, on the other hand, a whole shed-full of academic tools and rural

development techniques with which to cultivate the common ground, most of them borrowed to be sure from workers in the physical and social sciences, but for use in combination rather than in isolation.

To the criticism of superficiality or dilettantism which may be levelled at the new school of integrated planners, we would simply reply: "Are you sure that being shallow is worse than being narrow?" The benefits to be derived from overall analysis of an area and its problems, and knowledge of the ramifications - both positive and detrimental - which may result from different strategies for

growth, are surely of considerable value to any master-plan for overcoming "the old agricultural lag". The detailed, painstaking examination of particular blockagçs'in the rural system by experts may well be indispensible; if this is so, however, the broad integrative perspective of rural systems analysts is equally essential for achieving the ultimate solutions to the problems being faced.

"Spatial Systems Analysis". One methodological procedure for implementing the integrative approach to

land use planning may now be noted. Its application to the essential components of agricultural society, and the functional interconnections between man and the land in rural areas, is particularly appropriate. The procedure has been termed

"spatial systems analysis". It involves a spatial logic or areal approach to man/land relationships; it directs attention to the integrated patterns of those

ecological, sociological, economic, and administrative or organizational variables which together create agricultural land use systems from one area to another. The emphasis is, in fact, on the geometry of agriculture and rural modes of living ("life-styles"). With this approach, one is concerned with the visible and tangible landscape patterns which have arisen from man's attempts to produce foodstuffs, agricultural raw materials for industry, and livestock, as well as the invisible but equally significant patterns of land use systems as, for example, applications of NPK per acre, tenurial arrangements, property taxes, the spread of innovations in farm operations, farmers' organizations, credit facilities, levels of literacy among rural populations, and many others. The areal manifestations of most of the factors shown in Figure 1 may therefore be considered as falling within the domain of the spatial systems analysts.

Yet it is not with static rural patterns that one is dominantly or even

exclusively concerned. There are, in addition, those vital aspects of mobility, of functional circulation (flows and linkages), ef movement of inputs, throughputs and outputs, to be examined spatially: the dynamic features of agricultural systems which spell their very life, their vigour, or their decay. Time and distance studies are also an integral component of the spatial systems analysis of

agriculture.

An illustration of how this spatial methodology can be applied may be

helpful. The integrated, spatially-orientated planner is assured that greater



11

attention to location, shape, area, distances and directions will aid the creation of more efficient farming practices. Simply stated, movement exacts a charge on the husbandman: the greater the distance and the more time-consuming the move, the heavier the charge on productivity, i.e. a reduction in output or increased costs. The journey to work of the farmer, the propinquity or otherwise of markets, of sources of inputs (e.g. improved seed, fertilizers, tools and machinery), of storage facilities, of extension staff, and so forth, all affect in a most direct way the efficient functioning of the agricultural system.

A prime objective of the spatial systems approach is, then, to make recommendations for a smoother, more productive farming operation within the area of activity. One seeks to establish the most effective farm plans and circulation patterns in order to maximize the fruits of agricultural enterprise. Layouts and locations designed to cut down on unproductive movements, commensurate with economies of scale in the farming operation, can aid appreciably in making agriculture more efficient and profitable. Location analyses and applied studies of rural circulation may, in fact, provide a break-through to new and penetrating procedures for tackling the bottlenecks of established farming practices; they may even point the way to a conceptual restructuring of schemes for transforming traditional agriculture and rural societies.

If this reads like a specialist prescription comparable to those criticized earlier in this article, the resemblance is merely superficial. For the spatial or locational analysis approach is not the exclusive perogative of any one group of scientists or technicians, it represents a way of thinking, a set of analytical procedures, which may be exercised by scholars, researchers and rural administrators of diverse backgrounds in their approaches to problems of agricultural development. No one body of workers can lay exclusive claim or seek a copyright to these deductive processes. Their adoption by specialist colleagues in many fields should, indeed, be welcome, for their application is clearly all-pervasive in any examination of agricultural systems, no matter what the standpoint or skills of the investigator.

A neglected tool in the spatial analysis of rural life is the map. The graphic representation of land use and settlement patterns, whether in the form of realistic thematic maps at differing scales (Fig. 2), or through theoretical farm and community layouts, symbolic models, or abstract mathematically-derived patterns, is an essential aid to the systems approach. The frequent neglect by many agriculturalists of visual techniques for exploring the facts of present-day farming operations, and the hoped-for changes following the implementation of "package" programmes for development, deserves to be rectified.

Conclusions. The translation into action of the theoretical concepts outlined in this article

is not easy. Nevertheless, it is heartening to detect in current planning in Jamaica a move towards the integrated systems approach in rural rehabilitation and the



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advancement of small-scale agriculture around the island.5 The Land Authorities are one positive illustration of co-ordinated planning for the future, involving liaison between officials of several Government agencies, developers in the private sector, and foreign specialists.6 The North Clarendon Developmv t Project ("Operation Self-Help",) sponsored by the Jamaica Agricultural Society, is another example of integrated planning, emphasizing as it does a comprehensive scheme for rural expansion, with improved social facilities (e.g. health, education, recreation) and economic developments (e.g. rural industrialization) other than those in the agricultural sector alone.7 The project has the further advantage of being based on community co-operation and internally generated action, rather than relying solely on governmental-imposed improvement schemes which, in former times at least, often failed to take the people's needs and aspirations sufficiently into account.

Nevertheless, the application of spatial analysis with supporting cartography to schemes for re-arranging the existing patterns of rural land use requires further encouragement, in North Clarendon, the Land Authorities, and elsewhere around Jamaica. The spatial synthesis of the contributions of specialists within a regional systems framework is about the best answer we can provide at present towards tackling the shortcomings of traditional agriculture, with its associated depressed social conditions in rural areas. It would be presumptuous to claim that it will provide the complete answer; but it will come very close towards advancing that ideal answer.

BARRY FLOYD

FOOTNOTES

1. Barry Floyd, "Commentary on the Recent Agricultural Census in Jamaica: a Dire Prospectus", Farmlife, Vol. 2, No. 4 (October, 1971) pp. 32-35. 2. Adapted from the verse of Kenneth Boulding, included in Max F. Millikan and David Hapgood (eds.), No Easy Harvest The Dilemma of Agriculture in Underdeveloped Countries (Boston, little Brown and Co., 1967), p. xii. 3. Ibid. 4. A.H. Bunting (ed.), Change in Agriculture (London, Duckworth, 1970). 5. Barry Floyd, "Rural Land Use in Jamaica*', in Dawn Marshall (ed.), Essays on Jamaica (Kingston, Jamaican Geographical Society, 1970), pp. 10-29. 6. Barry Floyd, "Agricultural Innovation in Jamaica: the Yallahs Valley Land Authority. Geography Department, U.W.I. Occasional Publications No. 4 (Kingston, 1969). 7. Hugh Robotham, North Clarendon Rural Development (Self Help) Survey (Kingston, Jamaica Agricultural Society, 1969).



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