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Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).
Douglas H. Constance and M. Kirk Jentoft
This chapter combines a global value chain methodology with the case of the development of the farmed Atlantic salmon industry in Chile to inform discussions regarding the…
Abstract
This chapter combines a global value chain methodology with the case of the development of the farmed Atlantic salmon industry in Chile to inform discussions regarding the globalization of economy and society. The research documents the shifting structure of the value chain from the north to the south as Chile replaced northern Europe as the locus of production and the major world supplier of farmed Atlantic salmon. Farmed salmon was supported by the Chilean state as part of its export-oriented industrialization model that attracted foreign direct investment (FDI) from northern TNCs. Chile's low costs of production combined with growing environmental problems in the north and global retailers' demand for large quantities of low-cost product resulted in the restructuring of the farmed Atlantic-salmon value chain as northern capital sourced the south as a lucrative production platform to service northern consumers. A detailed investigation of the rise in dominance of the firm Marine Harvest is provided to illustrate the process of industry concentration the Chilean farmed-salmon industry. This model has generated a legitimation crisis related to environmental degradation and labor abuses resulting in social movement organization both nationally and internationally. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications of the Wal-Mart Effect on the agrifood industry in particular and in the farmed-salmon industry in particular.
Qiuchang Cao, Li Liao and Keith Leverett Warren
To analyze networks of social interactions between the residents of a therapeutic community (TC) for women and the way, in which such interactions predict the discussion of issues…
Abstract
Purpose
To analyze networks of social interactions between the residents of a therapeutic community (TC) for women and the way, in which such interactions predict the discussion of issues that arise in treatment.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 50 residents of a corrections-based TC for women were surveyed on the peers with whom they socialized informally, shared meals, shared letters from home and discussed issues that arose in treatment over a 12 h period. The data were analyzed using exponential random graph models (ERGM).
Findings
Reciprocity occurred in all networks while transitivity (a tendency of two residents who are connected to both connect to a third peer) occurred in all networks measuring informal social interactions. When controlling for reciprocity and transitivity, residents avoided spending social time or sharing meals with the same peers. There was no evidence of homophily by race, age or years of education. Homophily by entrance time and case manager occurred in social time. Case manager homophily occurred in the discussion of treatment issues but disappeared when controlling for social time and sharing letters from home.
Research limitations/implications
Social networks in this TC arise from factors endogenous to the TC itself. It should be possible to determine the characteristics of optimal social networks in TCs. External validity is limited.
Practical implications
It should be possible to intervene to optimize the social networks of TC residents.
Originality/value
This is the first ERGM analysis of both informal and formal interactions in a TC.
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While the physical dispossession of Aboriginal Australians since European settlement has been well documented, a more insidious role, which has been played stealthily and with…
Abstract
While the physical dispossession of Aboriginal Australians since European settlement has been well documented, a more insidious role, which has been played stealthily and with little publicity, is that played by accounting practices. Through their contribution to the displacement of social values by economic imperatives, measured by yardsticks such as profitability and financial accountability, these practices have acted to continue the dispossession process. Accounting concepts are examined in the light of a hunter‐gatherer social economy and the unsuitability of modern accounting to provide for a social accountability is highlighted. Examples show that the meaning of today’s accounting concepts is in many instances directly opposed to the understanding of those concepts in traditional Aboriginal societies. More important, perhaps, are the effects of currently popular beliefs that dispossession and injustice are historical, and have been remedied by government and social initiatives. Contrary to this perception, it will be shown that in many cases attitudes remain that hold Aboriginal organisations to a higher level of accountability than other government‐funded bodies. These accountability hurdles, that effectively restrict access to resources, are simply a less overt continuation of the processes of dispossession.
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At each New Year we stand at the threshold of fresh scenes and hopes, of opportunities and pastures new. It is the time for casting off shackles and burdens that have weighed us…
Abstract
At each New Year we stand at the threshold of fresh scenes and hopes, of opportunities and pastures new. It is the time for casting off shackles and burdens that have weighed us down in the old year; almost a new chapter of life. We scan the prevailing scene for signs that will chart the year's unrolling and beyond, and hope profoundly for a smooth passage. The present is largely the product of the past, but of the future, who knows? Man therefore forever seems to be entering upon something new—a change, a challenge, events of great portent. This, of course, is what life is all about. Trends usually precede events, often by a decade or more, yet it is a paradox that so many are taken by surprise when they occur. Trends there have been and well marked; signs, too, for the discerning. In fields particular, they portend overall progress; in general, not a few bode ill.
This article charts the major structural changes that have occurred in both UK brewing and pub retailing during the period 1989–2000. A key theme has been the rapid consolidation…
Abstract
This article charts the major structural changes that have occurred in both UK brewing and pub retailing during the period 1989–2000. A key theme has been the rapid consolidation of the brewing sector in an attempt to achieve economies of scale in production, distribution and marketing. The dominance of the national brewers has allowed them to place increased product emphasis on marketing and me power of brands — particularly lager, me national breweries control all me major lager brands. In tandem with these brewers, me growth and dominance of me national pub chains has garnered apace over the past ten years and in order to maximise profit margins they have established supply arrangements with me national brewers; it has been in the interests of these chains to limit choice thereby maximising the discounts received from their suppliers. The article therefore shows that regional and local brewers cannot compete on price. Competition between pubs is also highlighted. Because beer prices are relatively inelastic, emphasis is placed on the level of amenities provided in pubs, and in particular the branding of pub outlets. Key among these amenities is the provision of food, which now accounts for a substantial percentage of total pub sales.
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It is almost to the day ten years since I had the honour of delivering before your Society the third of the Cantor Lectures for 1932. It is no less wise for the scientist than for…
Abstract
It is almost to the day ten years since I had the honour of delivering before your Society the third of the Cantor Lectures for 1932. It is no less wise for the scientist than for the politician to remind himself of what he has said on previous occasions, so I read again what I had written then. Although it is part of my job in life to keep myself acquainted with advances in the study of nutrition I found myself wondering that so much had been learnt in these ten years. I was surprised to be reminded that nutrition experts at that time were unable to indicate more precisely than by a series of plus and minus signs what amounts of the more important vitamins are present in our common foods. Many other matters I discussed in those lectures brought home forcibly to me how inadequately prepared we would have been on what I may term the “ nutritional front,” had plans for feeding the people of this country for several years of war been called for in 1929. Comparisons between conditions prevailing during the warof 1914–18 and those existing to‐day constantly come to the mind of those whose experience covers both. But I will remind you of one great difference which is curiously rarely appreciated. In the last struggle the food position in Great Britain did not materially deteriorate until the latter part of 1917—after three years of war—and it was not found necessary to introduce rationing until February of 1918—a mere nine months before the Armistice. We are apt complacently to think our people were reasonably well fed for the latter part of that war period, and to point to the contrast with terrible conditions in Germany and Central Europe. What we often fail to recognise or even, perhaps, admit, is that, had the submarine campaign of 1918 continued for another year and become intensified to an extent comparable with what is being faced to‐day, we would probably have run into serious nutritional troubles because we had not then the scientific knowledge either to foresee them or to devise protective measures. The outbreak of the second world war in 1939 found us in an incomparably stronger position. It is true there were still disconcerting gaps in our knowledge, such, for example, as the lack of any trustworthy data as to the protein requirements of the adult man and woman, but, by and large, it was possible to draw up a basic plan for providing all categories of the population with food suitable for their nutritional requirements. The foundations of this plan were quantitative data, much of which had been acquired in very recent years. The importance of this basic plan lay in the fact that, whereas it was constructed in the first instance from these quantitative data concerning proteins, calories, vitamins and other nutrients, it could be developed in a variety of ways when it came to translation in terms of actual commodities. This gave it the quality of flexibility so essential if the plan were to be adaptable to changes in the quantities of individual foodstuffs available. We had something more than the estimates of requirements on which this basic plan was built. We had the invaluable information which Sir John Orr and others had collected from the surveys they had conducted during the four or five years before the war. This gave us a measure of the extent to which diets consumed in this country were nutritionally defective and in need of improvement. Moreover, it indicated quite clearly how important it would be to control the distribution of essential foods so that gross nutritional inequalities, revealed by these surveys, should be redressed as far as possible. The striking example of the success that has been achieved in this latter direction concerns the distribution of the liquid milk supply. Nutrition experts agree that the average consumption per head of the population ought to be not less than a pint a day. Before the war we drank about about half that quantity, but the curve relating volume consumed to income spent on food was disturbingly steep. Families spending more than 18s. a week per head on food were able to purchase nearly six pints a week for each member. Those who were unable to spare more than 5s. a week on their diet could not afford to purchase more than 1½ pints. It was clear at the beginning of the war, and even more obvious after the fall of Denmark and Holland, that there would be very great difficulties in the way of raising significantly the total milk consumption, much as that was to be desired. On the other hand, there was everything to be said for distributing more equably such supplies as were available. By one measure or another this has been achieved. The Milk in Schools Scheme, the National Milk Scheme, the Special Category Priority Scheme, each has served to flatten out the steep consumption income curve of pre‐war years. To‐day, we find that the poorest families covered by our surveys are drinking nearly 3½ pints of milk per head per week; the well‐to‐do families, scarcely more than 4½ pints. This naturally has raised a few grumbles from those who were fortunate enough before restrictions were imposed to be able to purchase all they wished to have, but we regard their troubles as trivial when we look at the benefits gained by the poorer people who have thus been enabled to get a fairer share of a food that has been aptly described as the keystone of the nutritional structure. If we look to the post‐war years—and it is one of the most heartening signs of the spirit in which we are waging this struggle against barbarism that so much attention is being paid to questions of reconstruction—we cannot see ourselves reverting to a state in which the consumption of milk can be seriously restricted by lack of purchasing power. The consumption of milk in one form or another must be raised. Our post‐war target should be a level 100 per cent. higher than the present figures, which, it may surprise you to learn, are actually higher than in 1939. But the curve must not be allowed to become steep again. Nearly a horizontal line, as it now is, its level must be raised without changing in shape. I believe that will be done. If it is, it will be a direct outcome of our nutrition policy during the present war. Those of us who have for many years studied experimental animals have long known of the profound effects of pre‐natal diet on the welfare of the mother and her offspring. Although there was every reason to believe that the same conditions would influence a woman and her child, precise information was curiously scanty. Here and there in the medical literature, suggestive records or observations could be gleaned, but there was not a convincing picture and much remained mere surmise. Largely as a result of the enthusiasm and enterprise of Miss Olga Nethersole, founder of the People's League of Health, an investigation was begun in London a year or so before the outbreak of war. I was privileged to serve on the Committee that directed the work. In all, no less than 5,000 women, typical of those coming for their confinements to the large London hospitals, were covered by the investigation. Approximately half the number of women were given vitamin and mineral supplements during the latter half of pregnancy; the supplements being in quantities likely to bring their total intake up to what scientists regard as desirable for that condition. The remainder were not so treated and served as controls. I will not give you the results in detail of this very comprehensive test, for they are about to be published in the medical press, but the chief finding was that the treated group showed a reduction in the incidence of toxæmic conditions and their sequelæ of such an order that, had the figures been applicable to the country as a whole—and, may I remind you that London has a relatively low toxæmia incidence by comparison with some other large towns?—the lives of no less than 10,000 women a year would have been saved.
IN the October number of THE BRITISH FOOD JOURNAL, while disclaiming any intention of supporting or opposing any political party or any section of politicians, we stated our…
Abstract
IN the October number of THE BRITISH FOOD JOURNAL, while disclaiming any intention of supporting or opposing any political party or any section of politicians, we stated our opinion that the fiscal policy which has been outlined before the country by Mr. CHAMBERLAIN is eminently one which requires to be put to the test of experiment and which cannot be profitably argued about upon theoretical bases. In connection with the allegation that by following the policy of leaving our doors open to those who shut their own doors in our faces, we are able to obtain goods at less expense than would be the case under other conditions, we pointed out that it would be well for the public to consider whether that which is so cheap may not also, to a great extent, be particularly nasty. The desirability of considering the nature and quality of so‐called “ cheap ” foods, supplied to us by various countriies without restriction, does not, as yet, appear to have entered the heads of those who have made matter for political controversy out of what is, in reality, a scientific question. The facts are not sufficiently known, or, in consequence of the proverbial carelessness of our generation, are not clearly appreciated. And yet, as it seems to us, some of those facts are of paramount importance to those who desire to study the subject in a calm and scientific manner and outside the region of political turmoil. What do we get from the various countries whose producers and merchants are free to “dump” their goods in this country without the restrictive influence of duty payments? Great Britain has made it known to all the world that “Rubbish may be Shot Here,” and we venture to say that the fullest advantage has been taken, and is taken, of the permission. From America, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, and Belgium, in fact from every producing country—including now even Russia and Siberia, we get inferior or scientifically‐adulterated articles which are sold to the public “ cheap.” Milk and butter scientifically adulterated, or produced under improper conditions in such a way that their composition becomes the same as physically‐adulterated products, condensed “milk” minus cream, cheese practically devoid of fat, or “ filled ” (as it is called) with margarine, all reach us in enormous quantities from most of our near and dear neighbours. Butter and certain wines and beers, loaded with injurious ‘ preservative” chemicals and the sale of which is prohibited in the country of production, are sent to the easily‐entered British “dumping‐ground” for the delectation of its confiding inhabitants. “Tinned” foods prepared from raw materials of inferior character or of more than questionable origin, are copiously unloaded on our shores to feed our complaisant population,—instead of being consigned to the refuse destructors which should be their proper destination; while, every now and then, when something worse than usual has been supplied, representative specimens of this delectable class of preparation are proved to have caused outbreaks of violent illness—those so‐called ptomaine poisonings which, of late years, have increased in number and in virulence to so distinctly alarming an extent. Flour made from diseased or damaged grain, or itself “ sick ” or damaged, and so “ processed ” as to mask its real condition; flour, again, adulterated with other and inferior meals, are “ goods ” supplied to us in ample amount for the benefit of those whose mainstay is some form of bread or flour‐food. The list might be continued literally ad nauseam.
‘WHY MUST EVERYBODY IN IRELAND’, says Sean O'Faolain, in one of his recent flashes of inspiration, ‘live like an express train that starts off for heaven full of beautiful dreams…
Abstract
‘WHY MUST EVERYBODY IN IRELAND’, says Sean O'Faolain, in one of his recent flashes of inspiration, ‘live like an express train that starts off for heaven full of beautiful dreams, and marvellous ambitions and, halfway, Bejasus, you switch off the bloody track down some sideline that brings you to exactly where you began?’ Such highly coloured comment might equally well be applied to the characters and situations we find in the plays of that Dublin genius—the centenary of whose birth we are commemorating this year—John Millington Synge. The writings of both authors, incidentally, are characterized by a rueful, amusing, gently self‐mocking tone about Ireland and the Irish. Both adopt a wider, detached, almost continental view of their country. Synge, in particular, refers to Ireland as the furthermost corner of Western Europe and himself as an Irish European.