All too often, researchers in the academic world find themselves cut off from their colleagues in other disciplines by the level of specialization required in their own fields. The gap between the social and physical sciences, in particular, seems unbridgeable to many scholars. Yet many of the problems confronting the world today demand an integrated approach.

The vast issue of global change -- encompassing changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and the possibility of global warming, or the dramatic increases in world population and consequent increased pressures on land use and on political systems -- demands a problem-solving approach that integrates our knowledge about the nature of human interaction and activity with the scientific knowledge we have gained on atmospheric, oceanic, and terrestrial patterns of interaction.

Ecological and Social Dimensions of Global Change, published by the Institute of International Studies as part of its "Insights in International Affairs" series, is a collection of lectures by leading physical and social scientists and international legal experts on the implications of global changes in climate and in population, migration, and land use. (See the Table of Contents.) These lectures also examine the responses of the international legal and political communities to these complex changes.

The volume is composed of thirteen talks from an interdisciplinary graduate seminar conducted at the University of California at Berkeley in the fall of 1992. The evolution of this seminar provides a cogent example of how research from a specific field, brought into an interdisciplinary teaching arena, becomes enriched by the input from researchers in other fields. The seminar as originally conceived focused primarily on the ecological dimensions of global change, but the numerous and fundamental links of any given ecological issue to its surrounding social circumstances persuaded the organizers to expand the focus to include the social dimensions of these problems as well. Both the physical and social scientists involved in the seminar subsequently incorporated knowledge gained from their colleagues into their own fields of study. In addition, seminar participants in the fields of legal and political policy-making were able to integrate each discipline's contributions into the prescriptions that they offered for the problem of global change. During the course of the development of this book from the lecture series, commentaries by scholars from a different academic field were added to a few of the original lectures, further broadening the focus.

Following each of the lectures is a transcription of the discussion from the classes which deepen and elaborate some of the key theoretical, methodological, and policy questions raised by the lecturer. In addition, a short bibliography and further questions for class discussion are suggested, making this an ideal text for coursework on the subject of global change. Each section of the book -- the ecological dimensions, the social dimensions, and policy and legal responses -- is preceded by a short introduction to the central ideas encompassed by the contributors to that section.

Economic growth and rising labour costs in many regions of Asia have led to the widespread adoption of herbicides in rice production. This trend has been reinforced by the spread of direct seeded rice technologies that require chemical weed control in the early stages of crop growth to prevent substantial yield losses. Herbicide use has been shown to be privately profitable for Asian rice farmers, but the question remains as to whether it is socially profitable when environmental costs, health costs, and the societal costs of labour displacement in some economically stagnant regions are accounted for. This paper analyses the causes and potential environmental, health, and equity consequences of extensive herbicide use in Asian rice systems, and discusses the importance of an integrated weed management strategy for future rice production. Case studies from the Philippines and Indonesia are outlined. The research estimates the extent to which the net benefits of pesticide use is reduced when health costs and the opportunity cost of farmers' time during illness are brought into the analysis. In many Asian countries, herbicides are not used safely and in combination with other weed control practices to minimize labour displacement and environmental and health-related risks. Herbicides are mainly marketed by private chemical companies in most rice-producing areas and are not incorporated consistently into extension recommendations. A successful strategy depends critically on the coordination between public and private sectors in the design of herbicide recommendations and ultimately on the appropriate use of herbicides.

The interaction between real wages and institutional arrangements represents an important equilibrating mechanism that directly affects employment and seasonal incomes for unskilled women in Asia. This article examines recent trends in real wages and employment practices for women in the Javanese rice economy. The evidence indicates that the terms of institutional arrangements, like real wages, have improved with increasing demand for labour off the farm and rising labour productivity in rice production. These improvements have caused the level of women's seasonal incomes from rice production to exceed that which is indicated by the aggregate wage data, and have contributed significantly to the reduction of poverty among women in rural Java.

Rising labour costs and declining terms of trade for rice farmers on Java during the 1980s have encouraged the adoption of labour-saving technologies. This paper uses extensive field survey evidence to illustrate current patterns of labour-displacing technological change in the Javanese rice economy. It presents the recent introduction of pre-emergence herbicides as a potential revolution in labour-saving technologies, comparable to that of small rice mills and sickles. The evidence shows that the growing use of tractors and machine threshers is further reducing labour inputs. These changes will have a profound effect on the role of women in rice agriculture. The paper compares the transition in the Javanese rice economy with that experienced elsewhere in Asia, and shows that the adoption of labour-saving technologies has occurred more slowly on Java than in other countries in the region.

This chapter reviews the complex set of relationships among rice strategies, policy instruments, economic variables, and food policy objectives as they have evolved since the early 1970s. The intent is to provide readers unfamiliar with the recent history of Indonesian rice policy with a summary of rice policy and production performance and to offer already knowledgeable readers an interpretive approach to understanding how strategies, policies, variables, and objectives have fit together. The modest goal, then, is to review the set of policy instruments available to Indonesian decision makers, whereas the more ambitious intention is to interpret these instruments' recent se in the context of food policy objectives.)

This book examines the components of Indonesia's rice policy to help policymakers, analysts, and observers sort out the pros and cons of alternative courses of action. Containing the results of the Food Research Institute's third multiyear research project on Indonesian food policy, the book combines new field-based empirical evidence on rice farming profitability and rural employment and wages with long experience in analyzing Indonesian food policy issues and the international market for rice.