Examining the Policy, People and Cultural Areas of Agriculture

1. INTRODUCTION

It is a long time since Bowler and Liberty endeavored to reinvigorate research into agricultural change through a 'redefinition' of agricultural geography in Area. Drawing upon prior thoughts regarding the political economy of agriculture communicated by Marsden et al. Bowler and Liberty‘s framework was an endeavor to guarantee that research into agriculture did not turn into a repetitive zone of scholarly attention. The reason for their concern as of right now was that research topics examined by agricultural geographers concentrated on regional changes in farm inputs, farm-estimate structures, farm incomes and agricultural marketing. According to Bowler and Ilbery, these demonstrated 'each indication of diminishing returns' and were attracting 'a declining number of researchers in all countries'. Atkins, in a remark on this article, went further by stating that agricultural geography had lost its way in an overconcentration on 'production functions and dreary typologies', emphasizing that food rather than farming ought to be central to research. A 'theoretical impasse' had moved toward becoming associated with such work, further explaining the timing of Bowler and Liberty' paper The development of new theoretical thoughts in human geography offered potential pertinence to explanations of changes in the agricultural sector. Indeed, they contended that 'There is presently a requirement for agricultural geography to stretch out its theoretical base to incorporate the structuralism points of view of political economy'. Backing for this dimension was forthcoming from Marsden who given a progressively definite evaluate of the 'issues and conceivable outcomes' of incorporating political economy viewpoints into agricultural geography. An additional boost to Bowler and Ilbery's research motivation was that agriculture itself had entered a period of policy uncertainty after a long time of soundness. In the mid-1980s, the prevailing productivist ethos dependent on increasing food yield was tested by a political crisis consisting of inter-related budgetary, production and environmental issues. This extremely upset the traditional context for agricultural geography, however all the while opened up new roads for research. Bowler and Ilbery proposed that research into agriculture be revamped around three central components. To start with, the 'food chain' was pushed as adequate in extension to give an 'integrating conceptual framework' and a convenient method to investigate the linkages between agricultural production and urban and industrial food systems. Secondly, from this platform, an all-inclusive theoretical base using political economy thoughts could be created. Thirdly, this in turn would give a more extensive exact content to agricultural research. It was trusted that such a redefinition would 'restore a cognizance at present lacking in research work and teaching'. An imperative observation about Bowler and Ilbery's proposed framework was that political economy approaches were not introduced explicitly to preserve institutionally-defined sub-territories, for example, agricultural geography. Instead, it was change and in so doing they demanded 'an interdisciplinary effort whereby the limits of sub-disciplines are progressively debilitated'. This drove researchers to look beyond the farm gate to understand the agricultural sector, leading therefore to interaction with other disciplines and geographical sub-fields and extending the scope of topics considered. This is illustrated plainly in the investigation of an increasingly globalized food system. A profusion of research on agricultural issues adopting this methodology has been forthcoming, ensuring revitalization rather than an excess of scholarly interest, albeit minimal further discussion has occurred about the idea of agricultural geography itself. Notwithstanding, political economy has turned into the dominant talk to the degree that, for some, it has come to speak to agricultural geography. This is reinforced in a host of late reviews which compare unequivocally the development of political economy thoughts with agricultural geography. An irony is that along these lines political economy could be seen as providing rationality in agricultural geography through an unmistakably defined theoretical position, as behaviouralist work and models of economic lease did before it, contributing to a reinforcement of the distinguish of agricultural geography as a distinct sub-field of inquiry. The importance of the contribution of a political economy thesis in agriculture is unquestioned. Further, in its adjusted form it has increasingly endeavored to catch some appreciation of the 'decent variety of social relations and social works on shaping accumulation and regulation' However, consistently approaching an investigation of agricultural change from one theoretical position has would in general overshadowing the rich assortment of work on agricultural change existing alongside that adopting a political economy point of view. Consequently, work which makes no direct case to create political economy thoughts will in general fall beyond the transmit of reviews of political economy which have dominated 'progress' gives an account of agricultural research. Instead, it embraces a scope of conceptual positions and it is this assortment in research that offers quality and imperativeness to the investigation of agrarian issues. It likewise mirrors a general move within human geography far from the scan for a single theoretical position and towards an assorted variety of accounts on research topics. Consequently, one motivation behind this paper is to review progress around there of 'other' agricultural work and so give a voice to a scope of talks which give alternate points of view on agriculture to that of political economy. It might reasonably be normal that such points of view would be included by those reviewing the considerable new dynamism to be found within rural geography. Be that as it may, agricultural issues have gotten insufficient explicit attention in these cases. It is the intention here to made by Cloke in the rural realm. Both new research topics and new conceptual ways to deal with these topics are proposed, drawing upon relationships with the new theoretical advances made in rural geography, explicit agricultural policy-drove work, observational investigation of farming patterns, and more extensive commitment with human geography and related disciplines. The idea of the discussion, as Phillips as of late acknowledges in a review of rural social geography, mirrors the creators' very own trajectory in scholarly examination. One result of this is attention is confined to agriculture in created market economies and explicit precedents are principally taken from the literature.

RESEARCH

Using explicit precedents, this section tries to demonstrate that research into agricultural change is a long way from repetitive and that future prospects for scholastic work are brilliant. This can be uncovered through a discussion of 'other' agricultural research which at the same time investigates progress and illuminates further conceivable outcomes for research. Given the numerous open doors that present themselves and limitations of room, selectivity is important with the goal that the consequent discussion is sorted out around three sub-headings. These depend on volume of research interest generated, issues that have been featured however still can't seem to be completely investigated, and those presenting novel and interesting research conceivable outcomes. Initial, an enormously disregarded zone in progress reviews is the considerable amount of work embraced on the evolution of agricultural policy. Secondly, a critical component deriving from policy shifts has been the ongoing commitment of researchers with the concept of a 'post-productivist transition', a particular issue which is deserving of nearer attention. Thirdly, a general gathering of concerns offer refreshing points of view on agricultural change for geographers, comprising continued development of issues surrounding people working in the agricultural sector and better approaches for thinking about 'culture' and 'creatures' emanating from somewhere else in human geography.

There is little uncertainty that there have been huge changes in agricultural policy since the mid-1980s. Already, there was a general scarcity of policy-situated work within agricultural geography, that of Bowler being a noteworthy exception. This spoke to an uncommon spatial analysis of the adoption of explicit policy measures by farmers, (for example, the slope cow appropriation and plowing stipend)

of policy-related research. Work has been of two main kinds. In the first place, research has taken a macro-policy view, investigating the nature and form of state intervention in agriculture, the implications of this intervention for the environment, and how national/European Union (EU) policy making has increasingly been molded by international occasions and procedures especially GATT and WTO. Secondly, developments in agri-environmental policy (AEP) have come to speak to an especially critical concentration for those interested in policy analysis. Here, research has fundamentally examined the structure of the agri-environmental policies themselves, however increasingly attention has been given to the implementation of these initiatives with the flawlessly defined spatial limits of numerous AEP schemes providing a convenient expository core interest. A noteworthy tranche of studies has examined the effect of AEP on farmers, to a great extent through investigation of the adoption procedure of individual agri-environmental schemes. A significant number of these expand upon a conduct tradition in agricultural geography by focusing on the decision-making procedures of farmers. In spite of the fact that not in every case theoretically plain, the connected and policy-situated work on agricultural and agri-environmental policy has made essential conceptual and observational contributions to agricultural geography alongside those of political economy, a reality which tends be ignored in reviews of the last mentioned. It has made a direct contribution to the development of agri-environmental initiatives by informing policy producers about the adequacy of explicit policy measures. Of more extensive hugeness than this, it has illustrated the procedures by which farmers accept environmental considerations. It is obvious that this work has made a positive contribution to the geography of agriculture; however three specific dissatisfactions can be watched. To begin with, some agri-environmental schemes have gotten more research effort than others. This can be explained to some extent by the differential attention and financing given to individual schemes by government, particularly as certain schemes have been concurred a higher political profile than others. Additionally, there are challenges associated with gaining access to schemes and their members that don't have spatially delimited limits. Consideration of those schemes which have gotten less research effort would therefore be profitable. For instance, there still can't seem to be reports of the agri-environmental aspects of Objective 5b supported schemes, so this is a conceivable future development. Secondly, despite the fact that it is critical to acknowledge neighborhood contrasts, featured by contextual investigation work, for example, that on explicit Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs), this way to deal with agri- extensive objectives of biodiversity, sustainability and future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform. One reason for this issue is that some contextual analysis take a shot at AEP has been gotten from the monitoring and evaluation of individual agri-environmental schemes embraced for state divisions. This has been incredulous of explicit policy components however flimsier on in a general sense challenging this form of help for the environment. For instance, Skerratt concedes that work dependent on the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food's (MAFF) evaluation of ESAs allowed only a specific view of ESA members and their experience of participation. An absence of basic analysis can be viewed in the context of Murdoch and Ward's concept of governmentality. Rather than being led by agricultural offices who are trying to actualize policy, it would seem increasingly pertinent to investigate how the state has constructed agricultural and agri-environmental policy to manage the sector. This has been obviously uncovered in a talk analysis of the 1992 agri-environment regulation received by J. Clark et al.. Thirdly, in spite of the fact that takes a shot at agri-environmental policy formulation by the state and its implementation at the farm level has progressed, there has been surprisingly little exploration of the manner by which AEP is intervened. As Wilson proposes, clear conceivable outcomes exist for integrating actor network investigations into investigations of AEP, helping to uncover something about the regulatory idea of the organizations involved. Agricultural policy changes will without a doubt continue to inspire research into the effects of policy; especially those initiatives which endeavor to invigorate deliberately 'greener' conduct amongst individuals from the farming community. Be that as it may, taking the more extensive view will likewise continue to be vital, particularly as the policy structures of the CAP go under further weight from economic and other policy weights both external and internal to the EU.

The changes in agricultural policy talked about above have increasingly been conceptualized as 'post-productivism'. The notion of a post-profitable transition (PPT) rose in the mid-1990s to catch the change in agrarian needs (basically of the EU's CAP) far from food production towards meeting more extensive rural development and environmental objectives. The PPT ought to be a key development for geographers occupied with agricultural research, yet it has an inquisitive double job as a descriptor of work previously attempted and a concentration for further analysis. All the more explicitly, it very well may be aspects of agricultural modification which had already and differently been conceptualized as 'survival and accumulation strategies', 'components of farm alteration' and 'farm business development ways'. It spoke to a convenient method to acknowledge the differential responses made by farm households at the point of production to new conditions in the farm sector. Secondly, there has been a concise stage attempting to build up the attributes of the PPT. According to Ilbery and Evans, the remaining attributes of the PPT incorporates: a move in accentuation far from amount towards quality in food production; the growth of elective farm ventures, conceptualized as 'pluriactivity'; state efforts to urge a return to increasingly traditional, sustainable farming systems through agri-environmental policy; the growing environmental regulation of agriculture; and the progressive withdrawal of help for agriculture, this last trademark being predominantly relegated to a contextual position within agri-environmental research. Thirdly, the PPT has most as of late turned into the subject of procedure situated theorization. Ilbery and Bowler view the PPT as a basic inversion of past productivist components of change which underlines extensification rather than intensification, dispersion rather than concentration and diversification rather than specialization. Such developments bring with them new regulatory conditions which again displays chances to use theoretical advances made in rural geography. Maybe unsurprisingly, the piecemeal amalgam of conceptual and experimental work spoken to by the PPT has neglected to generate all the more searching questions. For instance, there has been little discussion about the value of a conceptual division among 'productivism' and 'post-productivism' to abridge complex procedures of agricultural change. Insights from work in rural geography (and somewhere else in the discipline) on 'Fordism' and 'post-Fordism' could be utilized to inform an evaluation of post-productivism. For this situation, it could be contended that the post-productivist transition is all the more suitably viewed as encompassing a number of changes which accompany a predominantly productivist agriculture rather than a wholesale move in the sector. Notions of organized rationality, as proposed by Cloke and Goodwin, may portray the post-productivist transition 'all in all arrangement of developments between the differing practices and methods of different strategies of regulation operating at overlapping scales'. This would help analysis of another 'mode of regulation' in agriculture, as Goodwin and Painter have recommended for industrial organization and neighborhood governance in inclination to a post-Fordist model, and move research beyond clear cataloging of these changes as essentially fitting a 'post-productivist model'. Such a methodology may conquer the unsatisfactory impression that 'post- that in spite of the reorientation of agricultural policy far from uni-dimensional food production, for most farmers it is 'business not surprisingly' in meeting food yield objectives. Two demonstrative components of post-productivism, to be specific pluriactivity and agri-environmental policy, both effect fundamentally only on a modest number farming businesses, while environmental regulation (another component) remains a minor inconvenience in everyday farming practice. For instance, in the late 1980s blast time of on-farm diversification, only an expected 6% of farms had accommodation ventures (the most well-known type), and only a fraction generated noteworthy income. So also, Potter and Goodwin demonstrate that present spending on agri-environmental policy is fewer than 4% of the agricultural spending plan. Further, a considerable lot of these analytic exercises are not new to the agricultural sector, with significant undertakings, for example, farm-based accommodation being found as far back as the nineteenth Century. This isn't to deny that the scale, number and assortment of non-food gainful exercises has increased on farms since the mid-1980s, yet to question whether an accentuation on these conditions is adequate to speak to a 'transition'. A conceivably interesting discussion about a 'post-productivist legend' still can't seem to set up itself in the literature.

The past two sections have acknowledged the critical policy changes that have happened in the agricultural sector and began to investigate the manner in which people respond to such moves. In any case, imperative in 'other' agricultural research has been the particular spotlight on people in agriculture, and it is to this territory of inquiry that the discussion currently turns. It was in the 1970s that social viewpoints introduced the significance of individual farmers as decision-producers and built up a strong organization orientation within agricultural research. The accentuation was predominantly on the procedure by which male farmers settled on economic decisions about 'their' farm business, separated from external influences. Further, little consideration was given to the manner in which farmers experienced their lives in a more extensive sense, interacting with other people in the farm household. Political economy viewpoints, which dismissed the social tradition, drew attention far from individual operators and the decisions settled on within their decision-making forms towards the structures which constrain these decisions. Conceptualized in the altogether different terms of adjusted political economy, office was available yet not central to investigations of agricultural change. For instance, office was incorporated into investigations of the 'strategies' that individual farm households were adopting to adapt to falling farm incomes and changing policy,

'people' of farm families and households, rather than the farmer alone, broadening the extent of analysis. One developing string of research on agricultural people has been the contribution of farm ladies to the farm business. An informal identification of farm ladies' worlds was accomplished in the rural 'community studies' type of research. In spite of the fact that these investigations gave representations of the contribution of ladies to the functioning of farms, ladies were not central to these descriptions of rural life. The primary nitty gritty spotlight on ladies in agriculture was endeavored by Gasson who distinguished a scope of job types for ladies in farming. Building on this methodology, Gasson then given enlightening accounts of the farm spouse's contribution to the farm household. As the significance of the farm household in agriculture was all the more by and large realized, research began to incorporate insights from work on sexual orientation relations emerging in mainstream human geography. Farm ladies were investigated as one factor explaining the survival of the family farm in capitalist conditions as a major aspect of a reconstituted political economy in which sex relations were put the focal point of the audience. This was taken further through recognition of the farm family as a various unit of capital-work relations within which actions and decisions get from imbalances of intensity between farm people. Feminist points of view were introduced to center upon this relationship and its consequences for farm life. In spite of this interest, explicit theories of sexual orientation relations remain to be completely abused in agricultural geography and considerable extension for feminist work within investigations of agricultural change exists. For instance, it should be conceivable to conduct examinations of ladies farmers (independent of guys) and those ladies directly inheriting farms in comparison with those marrying into farming, or to examine mainstream agricultural issues, (for example, the BSE crisis, the new accentuation on conservation in farming, farming suicides) from the farm ladies' point of view. Ironically, changes in agricultural policy have had the double and contradictory impact of diverting attention far from farm ladies and helping to refocus research on this gathering. For instance, agri-environmental policy work has based on the social tradition in that there is a research accentuation on the mentalities of the individual, commonly male, 'farmer' and his decision-making in the business, and less on other farm household individuals. In contrast, the pluriactivity work has served to extend the emphasis of attention on other farm household individuals, including the contribution of farm ladies. Work on individuals in agricultural research has not been to the detriment of that maintaining a progressively aggregate core interest. Imperative in affected upon rural geography. For instance, an adjusted political economy point of view has discovered 'closer affinities with those concerned with the material and social geologies of food and nature'. A portion of this work has drawn in with Dutch rural humanism on endogenous rural development and 'nearby knowledge systems', however has not completely considered these as social marvels. In this last case, a starting point is perceived that farmers are bearers of locally explicit knowledge effectively shaping the policy context, rather than basically recipients of information from policy-creators as is commonly accepted. Such a critical conceptual development is one that is yet to be completely misused in agricultural research. The insights from social points of view presently can't seem to affect completely on agricultural geography. Rather, a continued evolution of a behaviorally grounded methodology in a post-structuralist context can be distinguished strongly in the main research roads of pluriactivity and agri-environmental policy. Here and there, it is understandable that work has not been all the more socially delicate on the grounds that a lot of it has been conveyed within a 'policy evaluation' mold. The monitoring brief demanded by government organizations drives inevitably to questionnaire type ways to deal with inform their policy changes, focusing on the 'principal' decision-creator. In spite of these limitations, the utilization of socially touchy points of view has started to have an effect. This is halfway in light of the fact that the AEP move has an inherent social dimension, as exemplified by the ESA approach, the government's lead AEP. These are targeted on explicit geographical territories and are delicate to a portion of the peculiarities of farming practice established on neighborhood tradition. In spite of the fact that work has been to a great extent policy-drove, there are conceivable outcomes for research to begin with social constructions of farmers. For instance, investigations could begin with surely understood constructions of farmers as 'gatekeepers' from the 1942 Scott Report, as attendants of a 'pastoral legend', as 'cheats' of the countryside, or now as 'others' amongst to a great extent non-farming rural populations . Then again, a de-coding of the meanings of 'farmer' could be embraced on how this gathering make and interpret understandings of political, social and economic issues, building on the ethnographic methodology received by Pile and McEachern. They individually investigated the political world in which farmers operate and the job of 'conservationist' that a farmer is relied upon to satisfy. Nevertheless, there has been little discussion whether research should begin with farming or farmers as social constructions, so avoiding a return to a conduct type modeling of seen in agriculturally-related work, however not in the express way that the exchange of views in rural geography between Philoand Murdoch and Pratt about post-modernism and 'post-rurality' may propose. The restricted effect of the social turn in examinations of agricultural change is fairly surprising given the degree to which rural geography has drawn in with social geography. This is illustrated by Cloke's review of the influence of the social turn in sociology for rural investigations. Social topographies are recognized as inspiring a 'bubble' of interest in 'the rural', yet this is yet to pervade 'the agricultural'. Consequently, a 'socially touchy' agricultural geography offers new conceptual and methodological points of view on old issues and proposes new topics for inquiry. To put it plainly, farmers are as yet a significant concentration for analysis; however this should be supplemented by more extensive views of farming in the public arena. Drawing upon the observations made over, three territories of inquiry quickly present themselves. 1. Greater attention ought to be paid to cultural constructions of various gatherings within the farming 'community', which is all too as often as possible assumed to be homogenous by investigations of non-farming people in rural locales. Certain agricultural gatherings continue to be dismissed in spite of some recognition within earlier research work, for example, farm laborers, tenant farmers and ladies in farming. The value of considering 'others' is already apparent in rural geography, as illustrated by work on new age travelers and people of shading. Further, actor network thinking has stimulated research on the links among farmers and other people, for example, agricultural advisors, inspectors and company sales representatives, which is deserving of more emphasis. 2. Drawing on crafted by Short and Bunce, more work could be attempted on various constructions of farming as an activity, on farmers themselves, and of the places in which farming happens. An increasingly detailed exploration of the agrarian hyper realities that are so clear in on-farm recreational pluriactivity is one area deserving of attention in this context. Extending this type of analysis beyond the farm gate to consider images and constructions of food would also be beneficial. This approach demands the utilization of a variety of various media including literary messages and images, film, academic/polemical writing, the national press, policy records and promotional for example, those of ramblers and mountain-bikers, are relatively unexplored. 3. The geographies of animals has special relevance to agricultural geographers. Astonishingly, animals have almost by 'tradition' been disregarded. It very well may be interpreted as a consequence of human-centeredness got from a sharp dualism in the public eye and nature relations. Animals are therefore observed as homogenous things of mass production, broad types within policy mechanisms or at best as supplying 'quality items' within the food production system 4. Little has been composed on the association of animals with local legends and culture, so a talk is lacking on the importance of particular animals to particular locales, and to the constructions of these locales. For example, there has been some recognition of the association of sheep with the English Lake District, yet progressively detailed explorations of the significance types of sheep have not been attempted. Only as of late has work started to appreciate the distinctiveness of various types of farm livestock in the cultural landscape. Work which pays greater recognition to the agency of animals, even within an agriculturally domesticated situation is conceivable, (for example, the geography of sheep heaves and hefting) Similarly, Philo's work on exclusion and inclusion offers interesting insights into the micro-geography of farming units. 5. Animals were formerly located within farmers' domestic spaces, becoming avoided to adjacent barns after some time and in divert increasingly relocated to farmyards from which the residential function has been expelled affected by farm amalgamation forms.

Given the political gravity of agrarian questions and their distinctiveness within 'the rural', agriculture should continue to give a meaningful starting point to debates and research into the following thousand years. Identification with agriculture as a starting point for geographical investigations can assist an exploration of changes in the sector itself and in related economic, social, cultural and political activities, as agro-food considers are currently acknowledging. Having established the continued value of an agricultural concentration for

economy talk. That a political economy approach has been of huge value to inform and revitalize agricultural research is unquestionable

There has been minimal ongoing acknowledgment of the value of decent variety apparent within agricultural research, apart from reiterations that political economy, as applied in a changed form to agriculture, has tried to accommodate such assorted variety. This can be viewed as rather disappointing, especially given the discussions that have taken place in rural geography which have propagated a substantial group of new research. Clearly, there is a multi-dimensional research agenda in agriculture and so it is hard to distinguish one unifying conceptual framework as envisaged by Bowler and Ilbery or Marsden (1988). It is the range of conceivable conceptual and empirical positions that allow researchers to appreciate the multifaceted nature of old and new agrarian issues preventing any future notion of redundancy in agricultural research.

1. Atkins, P. (2008). Redefining agricultural geography as the geography of food. Area 20, 281-283. 2. Baldock, D., Cox, G., Lowe, P. and Winter, D. (2010). Environmentally Sensitive Areas: incrementalism or reform? Journal of Rural Studies 6, pp. 143-162. 3. Bateman, D. and Ray, C. (2014). Farm pluriactivity and farm policy: some evidence from Wales. Journal of Rural Studies 10, pp. 1-13. 4. Battershill, M. and Gilg, A. (2016). Traditional farming and agro-environment policy in southwest England: back to the future? Geoforum 27, pp. 143-147. 5. Bell, D. and Valentine, G. (2017). Consuming Geographies: we are where we eat. Routledge, London. 6. Berlan-Darqué, M. and Gasson, R. (2011). Changing gender relations in agriculture: an international perspective. Journal of Rural Studies 7, pp. 1-2. 7. Bouquet, M. (2015). Family, Servants and Visitors: the farm household in nineteenth and twentieth century Devon. Geo Books, Norwich. 9. Bowler, I. (2016). Government and Agriculture: a spatial perspective. Longman, London. 10. Bowler, I. (2013). Revising the research agenda on agricultural policy in developed market economies. Journal of Rural Studies 5, pp. 385-394.

Extension Lecturer of Geography, Government College MEHAM, MDU, Rohtak