From supply management to agricultural subsidies—and back again? The U.S. Farm Bill &amp; agrarian (in)viability

Graddy‐Lovelace, Garrett; Diamond, Adam

doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2016.12.007

Cited by 52 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Over the course of these four decades, farmer incomes have become highly volatile because of trade liberalization and financial speculation (Lobao and Meyer, 2001;Baines, 2017). In general, crop prices are too low for farmers to make a living, due to structural overproduction, globalized competition, and externalized costs of industrial processes (Graddy-Lovelace and Diamond, 2017). Like all farmers, new entry farmers must contend with cyclical booms and busts, such as the temporarily high grain prices that encouraged Midwestern farmers to spend more on expensive equipment in 2012.…”

Section: Political Economic Origins Of Us Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

Securing the future of US agriculture: The case for investing in new entry sustainable farmers

Carlisle

Wit

DeLonge

et al. 2019

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

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Sustainable agriculture is among the most urgently needed work in the United States, for at least three reasons: we face an environmental crisis, a health crisis, and a rural economic crisis. Addressing these pressing crises through sustainability transition will require growing our agricultural workforce: both because the current farm population is aging, and because sustainable agriculture is knowledge-intensive work that substitutes experiential knowledge of farm ecosystems for harmful industrial inputs. Given its social value, sustainable agriculture ought to be a welcoming profession. But at present, US agriculture is decidedly unwelcoming for nearly all who work in it – and it puts new entry and sustainable farmers at a distinct disadvantage. In this paper, we first examine why it is so hard to enter and succeed in sustainable farming. We find that new entrants struggle to gain critical access, assets, and assistance, encountering substantial barriers that stand between them and the land, capital, markets, equipment, water, labor, and training and technical assistance they need to succeed. Secondly, we review promising policy and civil society interventions targeted at addressing these barriers, nearly all of which have already been piloted at the local and state levels or through modest public funding. These interventions are most effective, we find, when they are linked up through robustly governed networks to provide “wraparound” coverage for new entry sustainable farmers. Such networks can help patch together complementary sources of support (e.g. federal, state, local, NGO, cooperative) and synergistically address multiple barriers at once. Finally, we propose additional interventions that are more aspirational today, but that could offer important pathways to support new sustainable farmers in the longer term.

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Section: Political Economic Origins Of Us Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

Securing the future of US agriculture: The case for investing in new entry sustainable farmers

Carlisle

Wit

DeLonge

et al. 2019

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

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“…A second significant influence is that U.S. farm policy has for decades generally favored intensive production, industrialization, and relatedly, consolidation [7]. Scholars often contextualize the current era of U.S. farm policy as dominated by a corporate food regime [8,9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in Farmland Ownership in Oregon, USA

Horst

2019

Land

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The ownership of agricultural land has important implications for food systems, the environment, farmer livelihoods, and rural economies, communities, and landscapes. This article examines the changing ownership of agricultural lands in the United States, specifically focusing on Oregon, a state with a history of family farm ownership. I first review historical and recent trends in farmland ownership, including private enclosure, consolidation, investor purchase, development, and rising farmland prices. Next, I examine the county records for all Oregon farm properties that sold between 2010 and 2015. I provide summary statistics about the volume and pace of transactions, price per acre, and the type of owner. I also offer brief cases on top purchasers, attempting to understand their intentions with the farm properties. The findings demonstrate a rapid turnover in Oregon farmland and high prices, though that varies across the state. Agricultural corporations, investment companies, and real estate and development interests are buying large amounts of farmland. I conclude by offering reflections on the implications of the changing ownership and direction for further research.

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“…Though protectionism did not cause overproduction, it aimed, though unsuccessfully, to stem it (B. Wilson, 2018 ; Graddy-Lovelace and Diamond, 2017 ).…”

Section: Historical Crushing Effects and Subsequent Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Family farms disappearance has worked to obscure the trauma of farm loss. As farmer plights compound, latent alliances exist for rural-urban solidarity ( Graddy-Lovelace, 2017 ), around the question of how to support viable, diversified agricultural livelihoods for diverse growers and agricultural communities.…”

Section: Historical Crushing Effects and Subsequent Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…I researched all Farm Bill related documents in the USDA Archives that chronicled farmer engagement, farmer organization advocacy and influence and impact, from 1910s through early 1940s. 1 This social contract between farmers and non-farmers was leveraged through the federal government but was compromised from the beginning by the original appropriations and dispossessions of U.S. agriculture—all racialized and gendered in cause and effect ( Graddy-Lovelace, 2017 ). It was also compromised by the individualized premise of the social contract itself, with its gendered ( Pateman, 1988 ) and racialized ( Mills, 1997 ) assumptions and exclusions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Farmer and non-farmer responsibility to each other: Negotiating the social contracts and public good of agriculture

Graddy‐Lovelace

2021

Journal of Rural Studies

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If farmers expect society to help protect them against the crushing effect of surpluses, they must be prepared to protect society by working out permanent arrangements for storing of reserve food supplies. Both farmers and non-farmers have a responsibility to each other, and any dodging of this responsibility by either group is likely to end in disaster. — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Henry Wallace (1936a, 1936b:14).

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From supply management to agricultural subsidies—and back again? The U.S. Farm Bill & agrarian (in)viability

Cited by 52 publications

References 34 publications

Securing the future of US agriculture: The case for investing in new entry sustainable farmers

Securing the future of US agriculture: The case for investing in new entry sustainable farmers

Changes in Farmland Ownership in Oregon, USA

Farmer and non-farmer responsibility to each other: Negotiating the social contracts and public good of agriculture

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