Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

homestead - Re: [Homestead] Small farmers are doing okay . . .

homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Homestead mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Small farmers are doing okay . . .
  • Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 10:33:17 EST

Gene forwards:

> The United States had 6 million farms in 1944, and by 1970 that number had
> declined to 3 million, a rate of loss of almost 3 percent each year. If the
> pattern had held, we would have just over a million farms today. Instead we
> have 2.1 million, and the rate of decline has slowed to a trickle, with
> today's total essentially the same as that of 1990

Maybe. But I think some number games are being played here. In the 40's
there were hundreds of farms, around here they were dairy farms, of 100 acres
or
less. In the 70's came the 'get big or die' mentality. Problem was it
wasn't
based strictly on getting a bigger farm, but rather on continuing to increase
in size. Farmer A bought out farmer B and eventually farmers C & D in an
effort to play the 'gotta keep getting bigger' game. So the number of farms
decreasing by half from the 40's to the 70's doesn't tell much of what was
really
going on.

And now of days are the number of farms really increasing or is the USDA
simply measuring them by a different yardstick? I wonder how many other
people on
this list got one of those USDA surveys threatening you with mahem if you
didn't fill it out an return it. People who did, even if they were 'farming'
their 50' x 50' back yard, are now counted as farmers.

I've just searched and can't find the article on an alternative farming site,
but a few months ago a "small farmer" was bewailing how it was necessary for
some of his family to work off farm in order to keep the farm going. The
main
gist of his article though was how he was having trouble selling a specialty
Mexican bean (this was in Southern California). In order to be righteous and
noble, the farmer's pickup was loaded with the beans, vines and all, and
taken
to a Hispanic market where the people recognized what they were but would not
pay his price for them. He then took them to an upscale farmers market where
the Anglos said they'd pay just about any price if he would pick and shell
them. In explaining why he had to have off-farm income, the farmer said his
Hispanic foreman (foreman!?) could not sell the beans to the Oaxaca
immigrants
because they were used to paying 7 cents pound rather than the dollar and
half
he was asking. He said the foreman (foreman!!?) explained that here he had
to
pay the workers (workers!?) seven dollars an hour rather than seven dollars a
day as he had in Oaxaca. Moreover there was the expense of the tractor,
fertilizer, etc. Now wait. His enterprise for that part of the season
ended up
being half a dozen pickup truck loads of beans - vines and all. Foreman,
workers, tractor, purchased fertilizer! I wonder how many of the farms
refered
to in the article as needing someone off farm to support them are because
they
are run on the miniature agribuisiness model. People don't seem to be able
to get out of that mode of thinking.

I know several operations that turn a nice profit and don't have foremen,
laborers, tractors, and don't purchase fertilizer. Makes me think that the
writer of the article hasn't stepped back far enough in time to gain a
perspective.
The 'small farms' that need outside support (to pay for the farming) seem to
be only small in comparison to the huge mega-farms.


James




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page