Journal of Research in Rural Education, Spring, 1994,Vol. 10, No.1, 2-43 Beyond the Conventional Wisdom: Rural Development as if Australia's Rural People and Communities Really Mattered Jonathan P. Sher Katrina Rowe Sher Rural Education and Development, Inc. Preface and Overview communities of Hawker, Leigh Creek, Marree, Nepabunna, and Parachilna. Complementing When we were approached by Australia's Katrina's perspective were Jonathan's years of in­ Commonwealth Department of Primary Indus­ ternational experience as a researcher, author, and tries and Energy (DPIE) in June 1993 and asked to program developer in both rural education and write a report on rural Australia, the officials entrepreneurship-including his work at there did not have in mind the document now in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and De­ your hands. They asked us to prepare a paper that velopment (OECD) as the head of such initiatives would focus on strategies for advancing "rural as the Education and Local Development Program. development" through education and entrepre­ To be frank, we reckoned this would be a reason­ neurship. While they encouraged us to establish ably easy assignment (even given the Department's the broader context-to sketch the whole puzzle draconian two-month deadline!). into which the education and entrepreneurship Everyone simply assumed the contextual in­ pieces could be placed-this was assumed to be a formation required was readily available. Surely, minor part of the assignment. the government had a comprehensive rural devel­ Their idea made sense to us. It suited our opment policy lying around somewhere (even if backgrounds and seemed like a fairly straightfor­ only gathering dust). Similarly, we all assumed ward task. Katrina brought years of teaching in that Australia's seemingly unending "rural cri­ rural South Australia to this assignment-includ­ ses" must have prompted some journalists, offi­ ing her work as the director of a Commonwealth cials, or professors to publish useful overviews of Schools Commission special project in the outback the people, places, and economy of rural Austra- Jonathan P. Sheris President and Katrina Rowe Sher is Vice-President of Rural Education and Development, Inc., Route 1, Box 323K,Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27516. The views and recommendations found in this article are those of the authors. The Department of Primary Industries and Energy (DPIE) neither wrote nor altered any word of this text. Thus, it should not be construedas a statement of official DPIEor government policy, nor should the opinions expressed herein be quoted as if they are those of officials connected with DPIE. Similarly, any errors of fact and interpretation are ours alone. This article is dedicated to Nadineand Jeffery Rowe, at whose small family farm it was written-and without whom it never would havebeenwritten at all; to MaxJeffery Sher, in the hopethat he, along with other members of the next generation, will reap the benefits of the rural development strategy we have proposed here; and to Susie and Tevie, who quietly and contentedly have devoted their lives to rural regeneration. We also would like to acknowledge the trust, collegiality, and valuable assistanceaccorded us by DPIE's Rural Division staff members, especially Gordon Gregory, Megan Cook, Jayne Gamaut, and Onko Kingma. Thanks also are due to Geoff Caldwell and the staff of the Centre for Continuing Education at Australian National University for so kindly making space and support availableto us duringthe period we were in Canberra. BobMeyenn (Dean of the Faculty of Educationat CharlesSturt University) andDavid McSwan (Director of the Rural Education Research and DevelopmentCentreat James CookUniversity) read an earlier version of this paperand made a variety of very helpful comments and corrections. Jane Harvey deserves thanks and credit for doing a sensitive copy-editing job of the original report at short notice. Finally, we wish to acknowledge the neighborliness, friendship, and hospitality extended to us by Rose and Wendy Lungenmuss, who opened their home to us whenever we needed a quiet place to read, write, and reflect. 2 5her & 5her Beyond the Conventional Wisdom lia. Accordingly, we thought that all we had to do (a) the nation's concentration of people and re­ was go to the right bookshelf, check out a few such sources into a handful of large, coastal, capital sweeping surveys of the concerns and conditions cities means that rural Australia and rural Austra­ of rural communities, summarise their findings, lians are peripheral to the nation; (b) farmers and and then get on with the analysis of our own farming communities are the "alpha and omega" narrower topic. of rural Australia; and (c) whatever is best for the These assumptions were wrong. We discov­ agricultural industry is the same as what is best ered an amazing lack of written material about for rural Australia and rural Australians as a whole. rural Australia and rural Australians as a whole. In the course of explaining why all these com­ There was more detailed information about spe­ mon beliefs are myths, we highlight the many cific rural places, particular rural groups, and ways in which the entire country-even with its individual rural industries than we could have ostensibly post-industrial society and economy­ absorbed in a decade. However, we could not find is deeply dependent upon rural Australia. We also a single source that convincingly captured the underscore the tremendous diversity of the realities of the Australia existing beyond the nation's rural people, communities, and econo­ nation's cities and suburbs. Despite heaps of data mies. about many rural "trees," and a few well-known From this point, we look at the extent to which "groves," the rural "forest" remained invisible. inaccurate stereotypes and prejudices about ru­ Moreover, there simply was not a full-blown, cred­ rality have shaped-or more precisely, mis­ ible Australian rural development policy to be shaped-public policies and programs (no matter found. what political party happened to be in power). We Consequently, the original DPIE assignment suggest explanations for the evolution of the coun­ to which we so happily had agreed suddenly terproductive confusion of agricultural and rural seemed ill-conceived. After all, how could we craft interests. Nonetheless, such explanations are not two appropriate pieces for a puzzle if the overall legitimate excuses for all the ways in which the design and dimensions of the puzzle did not exist? needs of Australia's non-farm rural majority rou­ So, too, what could we (or anyone else) sensibly tinely have been ignored. A recent OECD report is say about education's or entrepreneurship's con­ cited to indicate the growing international recog­ tribution to the realization of Australia's rural nition that new ways of thinking and new forms of development policy, if thereis no rural development policy in relation to rural people and places are policy in the first place? needed urgently. Our solution to this dilemma was to request We then turn our attention toward the pro­ permission to shift the balance in the report. We found role governments at all levels have played now thought it imperative to spend most of our in the development of rural Australia-even with­ time producing a solid context, and a useful frame­ out a coherent and explicit rural development work, for a national rural development policy. mission. In other words, we discuss how the ab­ Education and entrepreneurship still would be sence of an over-arching policy for rural Australia taken into account. However, they would no longer has not prevented governments from having tre­ be the main focus. Despite whatever misgivings mendous effects on rural peopleand places. Three they may have had, the DPIE officials with whom major forms of governmental intervention-in­ we were working agreed to this reconceptualiza­ dustry support policies and subsidies, govern­ tion of the task at hand. ment-supplied income for individuals, and social Essentially, the paper in your hands retraces policies and programs-are singled out for com­ the path we had to travel as we did our research ment. and writing. It is simultaneously an outline of The story continues with an analysis of what what rural development could-and we believe we regard as Australia's three real rural crises. should-encompass as Australia enters the 21st The first such crisis is the radical decoupling of century, and a brief explanation of how and why the fate of the primary industries from the fate of we arrived at the recommendations offered here. traditional primary producers. We show why the The story begins (for it is written as a narra­ day is fast approaching when Australia will con­ tive, rather than as a technical monograph) with front the bitterly ironic dual reality of record prof­ an exploration of the following three pernicious, its/export earnings from the primary sector and and yet surprisingly pervasive, Australian myths: record numbers of traditional primary producers 3 Sher & Sher Beyond the Conventional Wisdom (and of the businesses dependent upon them) bat­ empowerment, environment, entrepreneurship, tling just to survive. and education. We discuss the meaning and mani­ The second rural crisis stems from the unwill­ festations of each of these four "E"s. ingness of governments to seriously support rural Here, as throughout the paper, we remind Australia's latent economic diversity. While "di­ readers that the rural development challenges fac­ versification" rhetoric abounds, we note it has not ing Australia cannot be met effortlessly or pain­ been matched by effective strategies for turning lessly. However, we have no doubt that a major these good words into equally good realities. renewal and improvement of rural communities The final real crisis can be found in the com­ and economies can be accomplished successfully.