Robin William Morris Johnson was a respected New Zealand agricultural economist, a prolific researcher and author, and a long-time public servant with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. Professionally he is remembered for his rigorous 'first principles' approach, his contribution to professional organisations of economists and his skills in training, mentoring and encouraging other economists and public servants. He was also an active mountaineer and a family man.
Robin died peacefully in his home with his immediate family at 11 am on the 18 July 2008, having had pancreatic cancer for over one year. He was 80 years and seven months old. While his physical health had been affected by illness, Robin's intellect remained as sharp as ever.
Robin was born in Christchurch on 19th December 1927 and was the fourth of five sons. His parents, John and Dorothy (nee Timewell) Johnson, were Quakers (Society of Friends). His father, John, had served as a signaller, a storeman and as a YMCA lay chaplain in Gallipoli and France during the Great War. John had a masters degree in economics and had worked in adult education with the WEA and the University of Canterbury. Robin's mother, Dorothy, was one of the first women to graduate in Home Science from the University of Otago. The family lived at 14 Aranoni Track, Clifton Hill, Sumner, in a villa formerly owned by the parents of the Pascoe twins, John Pascoe, the New Zealand mountaineer, photographer and writer; and Paul Pascoe, the architect.
Robin's formal education started a year late, due to the Depression, in 1934, at Sumner Primary School. In 1937 he spent three years at the New Zealand Friends boarding school in Wanganui, followed in 1940 by four years at Christchurch Boys High School. He left school early, but a year of labouring in 1945 for a cropping farmer at Weedons, near Christchurch, convinced him to obtain his university entrance in 1946.
In 1947 Robin enrolled for two of years of intermediate science subjects at the University of Canterbury. In 1948, Robin enrolled in additional economics papers. In 1949 Robin attended lectures in agricultural science at Lincoln College and continued with two more years of economics papers at Canterbury. At Lincoln, Robin is remembered for his cheerful contributions to the student newspaper, and for regularly arriving late for Monday lectures, just back from the weekend's mountaineering, still with his pack and ice axe.
Mountaineering was Robin's passion . Robin had first tramped over the Southern Alps via the Harper Pass in 1944 with his younger brother Tom. He was a very active young member of the Christchurch Mountaineering Club (the CMC), and he soon learned the craft of mountaineering from older climbers. Through the 1940s, Robin went climbing with the club every public holiday and most weekends. Robin's black and white photo albums record the many trips up the major Canterbury and Westland valleys and many summit photos.
1949, Robin was one of the rescue team for Ruth Adams, who had injured her back climbing with Ed Hillary and Harry Ayres near Mt La Perouse, in Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park. She had to be carried by stretcher over glaciers and down an untracked Westland valley to get her to medical help. The “Ruth Adams rescue” is now considered to be one of New Zealand's most difficult outdoor search and rescue operations.
By the later 1940's, Robin went mountaineering independently with a group of his Lincoln friends, rather than joining up with club trips. Robin's best climbing friends were; Mike Nelson, Ray Newton and Bill Hunt, who, as a sheep farmers son, owned a car. Notable trips from this period included ascents of Mt Aspiring (1951) and a traverse of the Karangarua River, the Douglas Neve, and the Landsborough River.
Robin completed a Bachelor of Agricultural Science with economics papers in 1951 and he moved to Massey College to do a masters thesis under the economics lecturer Brian Low in 1953. Low was an excellent supervisor and Robin completed his Masters in a specialised and up-to-date area of econometrics. The thesis became Robin's first published paper in 1955, in the Economic Record (Vol. 31:1-2) 'The aggregate supply of New Zealand farm products'.
On the basis of his success with his masters, in 1954, Robin obtained a scholarship to go to Oxford University for a Ph.D. on a similar topic. Robin's luck with supervisors ran out, as his supervisor was neither interested in econometrics, or 'colonial' students like Robin. Robin was left largely to his own devices. Robin's work was not awarded the Ph.D., and he left Oxford with a consolation B.Litt in 1956.
However, Oxford had provided other opportunities. Robin climbed in the Swiss Alps with the Oxford University Mountaineering Club. He also met an English librarian called Ruth Flinn and he was offered a job with the British Colonial Office as a research officer in southern and eastern Africa. Robin spent 1957 and 1958 conducting surveys of indigenous village agriculture and corresponding with Ruth Flinn who had moved in 1956 to Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). In 1958, he and Ruth were married in Salisbury (Harare) in Rhodesia and Robin became a lecturer at the University of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Sarah and Simon were born in 1960 and 1962 respectively.
The family returned to New Zealand in 1965 and Robin took up a position as a senior research officer in the Lincoln College Agricultural Economics Research Unit. This group had been established by the late Professor Bryan Philpott in a converted shearing shed. Robin perservered with his doctorate and it was duly awarded in 1968 by the London School of Economics. It was based Robin's surveys of indigenous agriculture, carried out for the British Colonial Office in the 1950s.
After Philpott's departure from Lincoln, in 1971 the family moved for half a year to New South Wales, as Robin had a lectureship at the University of Wollongong for a term.
Robin's career as a public servant started in December 1971 when he became Assistant Director of the newly-formed Economics Division of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in Wellington. Apart from a year as the Agricultural Advisor in the Prime Minister's Department, he remained Assistant Director until 1985. He then returned to a pure research role for four years as the C. Elma Baker Scholar at Massey University. In 1989, he returned to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries as a senior policy consultant and he finally 'retired' from full-time work in 1993. But he continued as a private consultant as well as pursuing his own research interests.
His areas of professional interest covered production economics, development economics, food safety and trade, productivity, economics of Research and Development, institutional economics and government decision making. For many years he prepared forecasts of the agricultural sector for Wellington-based consulting firm, BERL.
Over a 50-year career, Robin wrote over 100 papers, many of which were published in peer reviewed journals. The last paper- with two co-authors – was published in 2007 in Applied Economics (vol.39 issue 19) entitled 'Has New Zealand benefited from its investment in research and development?' A bibliography of his writings can be found on a website maintained by his son, Simon, and Ronnie Horesh.
He also wrote several interesting biographies of his relatives, such as Ruth's parents who had met while on Christian missionary service in the Congo with a team lead by C.T. Stubb in 1916.
Throughout his career, Robin was a mentor and encourager of younger analysts and economists in the Ministry and in universities. He frequently provided peer-review comments for editors of the professional journals. He encouraged younger economists to publish. He also assisted many post graduate students as an external supervisor and examiner.
Robin was one of the instigators in the formation of the New Zealand Branch of the Australian Agricultural Economics Society in 1974, which began meeting for a two day annual conference in Picton. It was supported by staff from Lincoln University, Massey University, industry organisations, agribusiness firms and the Economics Division. For many years Robin was the President. The Branch later became the New Zealand Agriculture and Resource Economics Society (NZARES), but strong links remained with the Australian Society. In 1994, he served as President of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (AARES) and he was editor of their journal, Review of Marketing and Agricultural Economics, from 1994 to 1997. Robin was also a member of the New Zealand Association of Economists. He regularly attended annual conferences and presented papers until his 80th year.
Robin was formally recognised several times for his contribution to his profession. He received the 1990 Commemorative Medal for Services to Agriculture. In 1996, he was made a life member of the New Zealand Agricultural and Resource Economics. In 1998, he was made a Distinguished Fellow of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (AARES).
Robin is survived by his wife, Ruth, son Simon, daughter Sarah and son-in-law, Steve and by three of his four brothers, John, Eric and Thomas.
1,497 words
Rod Forbes and Simon Johnson, 14 September 2008.