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Associate Professor Bill Pritchard, BA, PhD

Bill Pritchard

Madsen Building, Rm 450
Phone: +61 2 9351 3309
Fax: +61 2 9351 3644
Email:

I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
Stephen Jay Gould

...Where's the professor? We need him now!
Ed Kuepper & Chris Bailey, Know Your Product, 1977

Research Interests

Bill Pritchard is an economic geographer. His research and teaching addresses the ways that economic, social and cultural processes intermesh with one another to create the specificities of place and space.

Within this broad agenda, he focuses on the geographies of global change in agriculture, food and rural places: the ways that the emerging global economy in food and agriculture is transforming places, industries and people's lives. These questions have been pursued through a series of Australian-based and international studies into the global value chains of specific industries (wine grapes, dairy, beef, tomatoes, tea, coffee), complemented by in-depth examination of the policies, rules and institutions that have guided the globalisation project. He remains a skeptical internationalist - believing in the promise of a better world but frustrated by the obstacles that beset this objective.

Dr Pritchard has undertaken research for a number of leading national and international organisations, and his work is cited widely within professional circles. He is an author of two books, an editor of a further four, and has published almost 50 refereed articles and chapters. He has been engaged in several major consulting research projects, and given over 50 conference presentations. He is an active member and former convenor of the Agri-Food Research Network, and from 2007 - 2011 was a member of the Australian Research Council Research Network on Spatially Integrated Social Sciences. Bill Pritchard is on the executive committees for the International Geographical Union’s Commission on the Dynamics of Economic Space, and the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee on the Sociology of Food and Agriculture.

Dr Pritchard carries with him a geographer's passion to understand our world. His philosophy is to eschew abstract modelling in favour of approaches with seek to appraise how places and economies are forged through the cluttter of geographical circumstance, historical process, and institutional practice. In his own life, by way of contrast, he tries to avoid as much clutter as possible with interests in bush and urban walking, falling asleep on beaches on warm days, taking an entire day to read the paper, and watching the look of utter disbelief on his daughter's face when yet another of his terrible jokes fails to amuse.

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Past and Present Research Projects

Bill in the field

Value chains and agri-food globalisation (ARC Discovery Project, 2001-03, with Prof David Burch and Prof Bob Fagan). This project involved a series of case studies of the value chain dynamics of different agri-food products. Major outputs included: the book Agri-food Globalisation in Perspective: International Restructuring in the Processing Tomato Industry (Ashgate, 2003, co-authored with David Burch) and Cross-Continental Food Chains (ed, Niels Fold & Bill Pritchard, Routledge, 2005), and numerous journal articles and conference presentations, including an invited Plenary Address to the World Congress on Processing Tomatoes, at Istanbul in 2005.

Traceability as a mode of ordering: implications for developing countries’ participation in international agro-food systems (ARC Discovery Project, 2004-07, with Dr Jeff Neilson). This project focussed on the global value chains of tropical commodities (tea, coffee, spices and cocoa), using detailed field-based research from the Western Ghats in India and various sites in Indonesia. It considered the fate of smallholders and plantation estates at a time of difficult global conditions within these industries. A major output from the project was the book Value Chain Struggles: Institutions and Governance in the Plantation Districts of South India (Wiley Blackwell, 2009, co-authored with Jeff Neilson), and numerous other publications and invited addresses.

Indian agriculture in the 21st Century: The political economy of market reforms (ARC Discovery Project, 2007-10). This was a broad-ranging study into the liberalization of Indian agriculture, using various case studies from the southern states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Several journal articles were produced from this project.

The productive and environmental implications of farm consolidation and fragmentation (RIRDC Project, 2008-12, with Dr Melissa Neave, Deanne Hickey, Laurence Troy). This project sourced land titles data from state agencies in Australia to develop spatially referenced databases on the incidence and character of changing ownership arrangements for rural land. The Final Report to RIRDC was submitted in 2012 and is in the process of being published. Other journal articles will follow.

Australia’s Rural Heartlands: Declining Economic Fortune or Dynamic Regional Adjustment? (ARC Discovery Project, 2008-10, with Prof John Martin, A/Prof Neil Argent, A/Prof Lisa Bourke, A/Prof Scott Baum, A/Prof Phil McManus, Prof Tony Sorensen, Prof Jim Walmsley). This project developed new survey technique-based methodological techniques to assess processes of economic and social change in inland Australia. Two landmark publications (in ‘Regional Studies’ and the ‘Journal of Rural Studies’) were the major outputs from the project, along with a number of book chapters and numerous presentations.

Rural adjustment or structural transformation? Discovering the destinations of exiting farm families (ARC Linkage Project, 2010-14, with A/Prof Sally Weller, Prof Margaret Alston, Prof Michael Webber). This project has involved large-scale surveying of farm establishments in rural Victoria, and supports two PhD students. Several publications are in progress.

Institutions for Food Security: Global Insights from Rural India (ARC Discovery Project, 2010-14, with Prof Anu Rammohan, Prof S. Parasuraman, Prof Madhushree Sekher). This project involves assessment of the relationships between food and livelihoods using collected household survey data across nine states in India. During 2011, over 900 households were interviewed for this project. Publications are currently in various stages of preparation. This major project is being conducted in collaboration with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai.

Units Taught

Selected Publications: Books (since 2000)

  • Neilson, J. and Pritchard, B. (2009) Value Chain Struggles: Institutions and Governance in the Plantation Districts of South India, Blackwell, Oxford.
  • Pritchard, B. (ed) (2006) Japanese Official Development Assistance in South-East Asia. Research Institute for Asia and the Pacific (University of Sydney) for the Ministry of Finance (Japan), Sydney.
  • Fold, N. & Pritchard, B. (eds) (2005) Cross-continental Food Chains, Routledge, London.
  • Pritchard, B. (ed) (2005) The Regulation of Foreign Direct Investment: Southeast Asia at the Cross-roads. Research Institute for Asia and the Pacific (University of Sydney) for the Ministry of Finance (Japan), Sydney.
  • Pritchard, B., Curtis, A., Le Heron, R. & Spriggs, J. (eds) (2003) The Social Dimensions of the Triple Bottom Line in Rural Australia, Bureau of Rural Sciences, Canberra.
  • Pritchard, B. & Burch, D. (2003) Agri-food Globalization in Perspective: International Restructuring in the Processing Tomato Industry, Ashgate, Aldershot.
  • Beer, A., Maude, A. & Pritchard, B. (2003), Developing Regional Australia, UNSW Press, Kensington.
  • Lockie, S. & Pritchard, B. (eds) (2001) Consuming Foods, Sustaining Environments, Australian Academic Press, Melbourne.
  • Pritchard, B. (2001) The Aboriginal Component of the Kimberley Economy, Kimberley Development Commission, Kununurra.
  • Pritchard, B. & McManus, P. (eds) (2000), Land of Discontent: The Dynamics of Change in Rural and Regional Australia, UNSW Press, Kensington.
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Articles and Chapters (since 2000)

  • Pritchard, B., Rammohan, A., & Sekher, M. (accepted) “Food security as a lagging component of India’s human development: A function of interacting entitlement failures”, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies
  • Bernzen, A. and Pritchard, B. (2012, forthcoming) “Australiens Landwirtschaft und Lebensmittelbranche im 21. Jh (Golden soil and boundless plains to share?)” Geographische Rundschau
  • McManus, P., Martin, J., Argent, N., Baum, S., Bourke, L., Pritchard, B., & Sorensen, A., Walmsley, J. (2012) The sustainability of towns, livelihoods and nature in Australia’s rural heartlands, The Sustainability of Australia’s Country Towns: Renewal, Renaissance, Resilience, J. Martin & T. Budge (eds) VURRN Press, pp.145-56.
  • Pritchard, B. (2012) “Food security”, in Bradshaw, M.J. and Daniels, P. (eds) An Introduction to Human Geography (4th Edition), Pearson, Toronto.
  • McManus, P., Walmsley, J., Argent, N., Baum, S., Bourke, L., Martin, J.,
    Pritchard, B., & Sorensen, A. (accepted, forthcoming) “Rural Community and Rural Resilience: What is important to farmers in keeping their country towns alive?” Journal of Rural Studies http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074301671100084
  • Pritchard, B., Argent, N., Baum, S., Bourke, L., Martin, J., McManus, P., Sorensen, A., & Walmsley, J. (2012) “Local-if-possible: How the spatial networking of economic relations amongst farm enterprises aids small town survival in rural Australia”, Regional Studies, 46(4), pp.539-58.
  • Broadbent, J. & Pritchard, B. (2011) “Is farmland ‘up for grabs’? Patterns of land ownership in rural NSW”, Farm Policy Journal 8 (2), pp. 11-19.
  • Pritchard, B. (2011) “Trading into hunger? Trading out of hunger? International food trade and the debate on food security”, in Rosin, C., Stock, P. & Campbell, H. (eds) Food Systems Failure: The Global Food Crisis and the Future of Agriculture, Earthscan, London, pp. 46-59.
  • Fold, N., Neilson, J. & Pritchard, B. (2011) “Being sandwiched: The reshaping of ASEAN–China food trade”, in Jarvis, D. & Welch, A. (eds) ASEAN Industries and the Challenge from China: The Dragon and Tiger Cubs, Palgrave, London, pp 180-209.
  • Pritchard, B. & Connell, J. (2011) “Contract farming and the remaking of agrarian landscapes: Insights from South India’s ‘chilli belt’”, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 32(2), pp. 236-52.
  • Oro, K. & Pritchard, B. (2011) The evolution of global value chains: The displacement of captive upstream investment in the Australia-Japan beef trade, Journal of Economic Geography, 11 (4), pp. 709-729
  • Pritchard, B. & Tonts, M. (2011) “Market efficiency in agriculture as the basis for prosperity in rural Australia? Rethinking agricultural transformations and regional development”, Globalisation, Agriculture and Development: Perspectives from the Asia-Pacific, M. Tonts & M.A.B. Siddique (eds) Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp.29-53.
  • Neilson, J. & Pritchard, B. (2010) “Fairness and ethicality in their place: The regional dynamics of fair trade and ethical sourcing agendas in the plantation districts of South India”, Environment and Planning A, 42(8), pp. 1833-51.
  • Pritchard, B., Gracy, C.P. & Godwin, M. (2010) “The impacts of supermarket procurement on farming communities in India: Evidence from rural Karnataka”, Development Policy Review, 28(4), pp. 435-56.
  • Pritchard, B. (2009) “The long hangover from the second food regime: A world-historical interpretation of the collapse of the WTO Doha Round, Agriculture and Human Values 26, pp. 297-307.
  • Pritchard, B. (2009) ‘Food regimes,’ in Kitchin, R. & Thrift, N. (eds) International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Elsevior, London.
  • Pritchard, B. & Searle, G. (2009) Planning for creativity and innovation in a global city: Sydney's IT Clusters in the context of the 2005 Metropolitan Strategy International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy 5(1-2-3), pp. 205-213.
  • Pritchard, B. (2008) On its own terms: India’s emergence as an agri-food exporter, Farm Policy Journal 5(2), pp. 15-27.
  • Searle, G. & Pritchard, B. (2008) Beyond planning: Sydney’s knowledge sector development’, in Yigitcanlar, T., Velibeyoglu, K. & Baum, S. (eds.) Knowledge-Based Urban Development: Planning and Applications in the Information Era, Idea Group Reference, Hershey (PA), pp. 184-202.
  • Neilson, J. & Pritchard, B. (2008) “Big is not always better: Global value chain restructuring and the crisis in South Indian tea plantations”, in Le Heron, R. and Stringer, C. (eds) Agri-food Commodity Chains and Globalising Networks, Ashgate, Aldershot, pp. 35-48.
  • Neilson, J. & Pritchard, B. (2007) “The final frontier? The global roll-out of the retail revolution in India”, D. Burch & G. Lawrence (eds) Supermarkets and Agri-Food Supply Chains: Transformations in the Production and Consumption of Foods, Edward Elgar, Melbourne, pp. 218-42.
  • Neilson, J. & Pritchard, B. (2007) “Green Coffee? The contradictions of global sustainability initiatives from the Indian perspective”, Development Policy Review, 25(3), pp. 311-331.
  • Pritchard, B. & Tonts, M. (in press) “Market efficiency in agriculture as the basis for prosperity in rural Australia? in A. Beer (ed) Region and Nation, Ashgate, Aldershot.
  • Pritchard, B., Burch, D. & Lawrence, G. (2007) “Neither ‘Family’ nor ‘Corporate’ Farming: Australian Tomato Growers as Farm Family Entrepreneurs” Journal of Rural Studies, 23, pp.75-87.
  • Neilson, J. & Pritchard, B. (2006) ‘Traceability, supply chains and smallholders: Case studies from India and Indonesia’, Report to the 17th Session of the Committee on Commodity Problems/Intergovernmental Group on Tea, Food & Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Nairobi. Document CCP:TE 06/4.
  • Godwin, M. & Pritchard, B. (2006) “Self-helping from the hand that feeds? Evaluating the ‘deserving community’ ethic of governance in North East Tasmania”, Rural Society, 16(3), pp. 329-40.
  • Pritchard, B. (2006) “More than a ‘blip’: The changed character of Southeast Asia’s engagement with the global economy in the post-1997 period” Asia-Pacific Viewpoint 47(3), pp. 311-26.
  • Neilson, J., Pritchard, B. & Spriggs, J. (2006) “Implementing quality and traceability initiatives among smallholder tea producers in Southern India”, Acta Horticulturae 699, (Proceedings of the 1st International Symposium on Improving the Performance of Supply Chains in the Transitional Economies, ed. Batt, P.): 327-334.
  • Pritchard, B. (2006) “The political construction of free trade visions: the geo-politics and geo-economics of Australian beef exporting”, Agriculture and Human Values, 23(1), pp.37-50.
  • Pritchard, B. (2005) “Implementing and maintaining neoliberal agriculture in Australia. Part II: Justifying policy” International Journal of the Sociology of Food and Agriculture, 13(2), pp. 1-14.
  • Pritchard, B. (2005) “Implementing and maintaining neoliberal agriculture in Australia. Part I: The development of policy” International Journal of the Sociology of Food and Agriculture, 13(1), pp. 1-12.
  • Pritchard, B. (2005) “How the rule of the market rules the law: the political economy of WTO dispute settlement as evidenced in the US-Lamb Meat decision”, Review of International Political Economy 12(5), pp. 776-803.
  • Pritchard, B. (2005) “Beyond the resource enclave: Regional development challenges in northern remote Australia” Journal of Australian Political Economy, 55, pp.77-93
  • Searle, G. and Pritchard, B. (2005) “Industry clusters and Sydney’s ITT sector: Northern Sydney as ‘Australia’s Silicon Valley’?” Australian Geographer, 36(2), pp. 145-69.
  • Pritchard, B. (2005) “Unpacking the neoliberal approach to regional policy: a close reading of John Freebairn’s ‘Economic Policy for Rural and Regional Australia’, Geographical Research 43(1), pp. 103-12.
  • Pritchard, B. (2005) “The world steer revisited: Australian cattle production and the Pacific Basin beef complex”, in N. Fold & B. Pritchard (eds) Cross-continental Food Chains, Routledge, London, pp. 239-53.
  • Fold, N. & Pritchard, B. (2005) “Introduction”, in N. Fold & B. Pritchard (eds) Cross-continental Food Chains, Routledge, London, pp. 1-22.
  • Pritchard, B. (2005) “The internationalisation paths of Australian and New Zealand food MNEs”, in Rama, R. (ed) Multinational Agribusiness, The Haworth Press, Binghampton, New York (ISBN 1-56022-937-3), pp.219-52.
  • Pritchard, B. & Curtis, R. (2004) “The persistence of national institutions in global commodity chains: Japanese dairy provisioning, the WTO and the Australian connection” Economic Geography 80(2), pp. 173-190.
  • Herbert, B. & Pritchard, B. (2004) “The changing geographies of power and control in rural service provision: recent restructuring of the Australian tractor dealership system” Australian Geographical Studies, 42(1), pp. 18-33.
  • Pritchard, B. & Lloyd, K. (2003) “Business cultures, the state, and the changing investment environment of East and Southeast Asia”, in N.Phelps & P. Raines (eds) The New Competition for Inward Investment, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, pp. 173-92.
  • Pritchard, B., Curtis, A., Le Heron, R. & Spriggs, J. (2003) “Introduction”, in Pritchard, B., Curtis, A., Le Heron, R. & Spriggs, J. (eds) The Social Dimensions of the Triple Bottom Line in Rural Australia, Bureau of Rural Sciences, Canberra, pp. 9-21.
  • McManus, P. & Pritchard, B. (2001) “Regional policy: towards the triple bottom line” Australasian Journal of Regional Studies, 7(3), pp. 249-60.
  • Pritchard, B. (2001) “Transnationality matters: related party transactions and corporate finance in the Australian food industry” Journal of Australian Political Economy, 48, pp 23-45.
  • Lockie, S. & Pritchard, B. (2001) “Linking production, consumption and environment in agri-food research”, in Lockie, S. and Pritchard, B. (eds) Consuming Foods, Sustaining Environments, Australian Academic Press, Melbourne.
  • Pritchard, B. (2000) “Geographies of the firm and agro-food corporations in East Asia” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 21(3) pp246-62
  • McManus, P. & Pritchard, B. (2000) “Geography and the emergence of rural and regional Australia” Australian Geographer, 31(3), pp.383-91.
  • Pritchard, B. (2000) “Negotiating the two-edged sword of agricultural trade liberalisation: trade policy and its protectionist discontents”, in Pritchard, B. & McManus, P. (eds) Land of Discontent: The Dynamics of Change in Rural and Regional Australia, UNSW Press, Kensington, pp 90-104.
  • Pritchard, B. (2000) “Introduction”, in Pritchard, B. & McManus, P. (eds) Land of Discontent: The Dynamics of Change in Rural and Regional Australia, UNSW Press, Kensington, pp 1-13.
  • McManus, P. & Pritchard, B. (2000) “Concluding thoughts”, in Pritchard, B. & McManus, P. (eds) Land of Discontent: The Dynamics of Change in Rural and Regional Australia, UNSW Press, Kensington, pp 218-22.
  • Pritchard, B. (2000) “Transnational corporate networks and the case of breakfast cereals in Asia” Environment and Planning A 32(5) pp 789-804.
  • Daly, M.T. & Pritchard, B. (2000) “Sydney: Australia’s financial and corporate capital”, in J. Connell (ed) Sydney: The Emergence of a World City, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, pp 167-188.
  • Pritchard, B. (2000) “Beyond the modern supermarket. Geographical approaches to the analysis of contemporary Australian retail restructuring” Australian Geographical Studies 38(2), 204-218.
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