Talk:Corporate farming

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Contents 1 Old talk from Sep 2003 2 NPOV problems 2.1 NPOV update 2.2 NPOV removed 2.3 In response to Tsavage's comments... 2.3.1 Response to response 2.4 Futher comments 2.5 NPOV tag removed: 23 May 2005 3 GMOs, Monsanto 4 economics of family farms 5 Some NPOV suggestions

[edit] Old talk from Sep 2003

The definition for agribusiness is so bad that it is laughable. The original coinage of the word by Paarlberg in 1959 refers to ALL activities to produce food and fiber in the form that the consumer wants. This includes the input, production, and processing/manufacturing industry as well as all the related service industries (such as extension, teaching, credit, as so forth).

Yup, it's out of date. And the term is really used as a pejorative now, since there aren't a lot of corps saying they're in "agribusiness".

While industrialization in agriculture has occurred, it is no different than the industrialization of other industries except for some left over nostalgia regarding an idealized past that never truly existed.

That's not entirely true. There are clear and well-documented ways in which precision agriculture and sustainable agriculture is similar to, and different from, older craft techniques, and industrial techniques that rely heavily on machines, and on chemicals. Vandana Shiva is a treasure trove of this kind of information. See list of sustainable agriculture topics and agricultural policy for more information.

Industrialization is not in and of itself evil. It is no more or no less than what we make it to be. If we, as a nation, want a different type of agricultural system, then we as a people must be ready to pay for it.

Everyone will pay for the system sooner or later...

Corporate stucture in agriculture is simply a business management tool. Most corporate structures in production agriculture in the U.S. are Subchapter S. These structures provide liability protection, a mechanism for estate planning, and tax management tools not available under the outdated sole proprietorship business model. To eliminate corporations from agriculture would eliminated a business management tool used by countless thousands of family farmers. For more information on agribusiness, try reading a text from a local library. Then form your own opinion.

That could be dealt with in a section on ownership or land ownership or just agriculture laying out the details of limited liability and how it applies.

I agree with you on a couple of points. You are more than welcome to edit that article to correct it. It certainly is tendencious.

I would also like to point out to the fact that agribusiness exist outside of US, and this encyclopedia aims at not being for american people only.

That's a serious problem with a lot of these English-only terms. Can we aim at terms that are at least translatable, and use the terms used only in one language as a redirect?

yup. But that is the term we use as well. Never know what it implies or not in one culture though. User:Kat surprised me a lot when saying monoculture was pejorative. It is not at all in France. Hence, a word, seemingly similar could be used "eyes closed" but does not hold the same meaning really. Since then, I do not use that word anymore :-)

[edit] NPOV problems

1. The bulk of the article is "Criticism of agribusiness", and there's not a word in its defense.
2. The links are all to anti-agribusiness ("Hog lot" has a negative connotation) or pro-organic/pro-local terms.
3. The introduction has a negative tone and paints a negative picture of the intentions and practice of "corporate" farms.
4. "Farms are expensive to operate; costs include farm machinery, fertilizers, pesticides, fuel, and seeds." The bare statement of this fact introduces significant bias; family farms are generally more expensive to operate than large corporate farms (per unit of production) because of higher labor costs and lower productivity.
5. The word "agribusiness" is a loaded term, usually used by critics of large farms operated by large businesses, but this isn't noted anywhere on the page. It might not be a bad idea to move the discussion of the controversy over the replacement of family farms with large corporately-owned farms to a more neutral title, and retain this article as a narrow discussion of how the term "agribusiness" is used and what it means. Or perhaps we should just redirect "agribusiness" to the neutral discussion and explain it there along with all the other terms essential to the debate.

How do you think we should go about fixing this article? -- Beland 09:44, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Agreeing with point 5, I converted the original article from agribusiness to corporate farming (by moving the page and replacing the phrase), then created a new article for agribusiness. I didn't go through the various articles that use/link to agribusiness to change the reference, although a good number of them at least are using the term to in the corporate sense. Hopefully, the agribusiness article will easily lead here for those wishing to explore the fray... Corporate farming is a more effectively descriptive term for negative use, but agribusiness is sufficiently self-evident to make sense in any usage. Or something like that... --Tsavage 04:36, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, this article has gotten somewhat better, but it's still rather lopsided. I actually think I preferred "agribusiness" as the title, as the article is about more than just corporations that own farms. It's also about suppliers.

This article is missing a lot of material that is needed for balance, like a "pro" argument for larger-scale farms. It also needs to present corporations in a more balanced light. It's fine to mention criticisms like harsh contracts or over-agressive marketing. And it's fine to mention bad behavior of specific corporations, and criticisms of some of the largest players. But free market advocates would no doubt point out better-behaved corporate farms, including those friendly to the environment, consumers, and organic practices. In short, the views of the boosters of corporate agribusiness need some screen time, too. -- Beland 03:27, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with the NPOV. I agree the article needs lots more work, but I don't think that balance here is the issue. Corporate farming is a critical term that describes a particular (perceived or real) agricultural paradigm that is seen as a bad thing. The article is describing that outlook. There are appropriate places for describing all aspects of large-scale ag/food production: like starting with agriculture and food industry.

Suggestions for improvement:

• The subhead "Criticism of corporate farming" is confusing because it gives the impression that the article is about "corporations running farms", when in fact the entire article is about criticism. It needs changing. The subheadings should mainly be the different specific areas of critique.

• The introduction could be better written to clearly indicate the meaning of the term.

• A section summing up the pros of large-scale, multinational, vertically integrated food production is necessary to provide context.

Overall, separating this from agribusiness is maybe arguable, but what are the alternatives? Agribusiness is used in the negative, corporate farming sense more often than corporate farming itself, but agribusiness is also widely used to represent simply "agricultural businesses". Google test "agribusiness". The top 10 results are ALL food industry-related and nothing to do with the "corporate farming" connotation: Agribusiness Online - a free market intelligence and technical information service for agribusiness professionals, Global Agribusiness Information Network (GAIN), International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, Agribusiness @ Cal Poly University, and so on. Compare that with a search for "corporate farming", where the results are clearly on the critical side.

There needs to be a place to simply describe what the anti-big vertical farming fuss is about... Tsavage 08:26, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV update

I just implemented a couple of my suggestions. There are new subheads at natural content breaks, also, an additional clarifying paragraph in the introductory overview, and a significant extension to the family farms section.

I suppose the risk is that this article COULD tend towards being indistinguishable from a more generic anti-big multinational, anti-globalism critique, or worse, sound like a ranting polemic. On the other hand, I think the challenge is to present the argument in a way that is neutral and encyclopedic and sticks to the topic without sacrificing the global context. It would be great if someone came to this Wikipedia article wondering "what is the agribusiness/corporate farming fuss all about?", and found a lucid, concise summary of the big picture for this topic. Tsavage 16:13, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV removed

I removed the NPOV tag, for the above reasons, and after waiting a couple of days for additional comments. Tsavage 04:48, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] In response to Tsavage's comments...

You know, I was probably wrong in my initial assessment of "agribusiness" as an inherently loaded term...I'm sure opponents of large corporations in agriculture say it with vile, supporters use it as a term of endearment, analysts use it in a clinical way, and so on.

As to whether this article should present one POV or two or more...well, if there's an article that outlines how some people think "large corporations in agriculture" is a bad idea, there should be another article that explains why other people think it's a wonderful idea. (Because both sides are amply represented, at least here in the U.S.)

The Wikipedia is not a dictionary policy means that it's not necessary, and indeed it's discouraged, to have articles solely for the purpose of explaining certain terms. It also means that related terms can, and sometimes should, be explained in a single, longer article, with appropriate inbound redirects.

Personally, I think it makes much more sense to discuss the "pro" and "con" views in the same article, because a point-by-point "compare and contrast" seems appropriate. There's also a lot of common background material that it would be annoying to repeat.

The question is what the article should be called. Agriculture links to "Commercial agriculture", which is actually the term I like the best. It's "commercial" as in "for sale", and as opposed to "subsistence". I think the scope should include "agriculture" and not just "farming" (if there's a difference), and of course we talk about "family" farms, too, not just "corporate" ones. We also have agribusiness and cash crop, which cover the same material. The latter links to "industrial agriculture", which does not exist, and which seems off the mark. If the three extant articles are merged into "commercial agriculture", the terms "cash crop", "agribusiness", and "corporate farming" can redirect there, and the terminology can be explained in the destination article.

If this article is to stay as it is, it still in most places acts as a mouthpiece for a particular POV, instead of presenting it as a third-party viewpoint. So I've re-added the NPOV tag until things get straightened out. -- Beland 04:18, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Response to response

I do think you're missing the point. One of us is, because we're not in disagreement about the general subject here, just on how it should best be covered in Wikipedia. As I mentioned previously in this discussion, corporate farming is a way of looking at something, NOT simply a description and discussion of the business practices of big companies in agriculture. The overall issue -- agriculture, food industry (interesting that there isn't even a food industry article...) -- is so broad and fundamental to...society, life, that I can't see how it is best served to try to create one article that not only summarizes how the food industry operates today, AND within that, explain the extreme opposition to it held by a significant number of people around the world. With hypertext at our fingertips, why try to shoehorn everything into some convenient title (that here it seems necessary to even invent: "commercial agriculture"? as opposed to...non-commercial agriculture?).

Specifically to your last points:

• This is obviously more than a Wiktinary term, whatever the title, by virtue of the amount of material, POV or not.
• Commercial agriculture is simply a term, it is synonymous with the neutral/ag industry usage of agribusiness, so it can't be a new topic as well.
• Covering this with pros and cons is like arguing that the anti-war article should have a pro-war viewpoint as well. This is describing a viewpoint, not a business approach.

Again:

• corporate farming may not be at present as everyday a phrase as, say, junk food, but that's only so because it is very much of the present, a live, emerging, developing issue.
• A corporate farming article can and probably should have a summary of why the current conventional way of agriculture is justified or accepted, but as one section, that serves as a cross-reference point, not as a running rebuttal.
• This article is not POV in the NPOV sense, because the article is ABOUT a POV (just like...anti-war, pro-life, etc)
• There ABSOLUTELY SHOULD BE objective coverage of how "big companies do agriculture", and that should start in food industry and agriculture, and lead to many other specific articles, many of which already exist here. This article is just one piece of the big picture.

There does need to be a section explaining the more formal use of the term, particularly (specifically?) in the US, with regard to corporate farming/anti-corporate farming legislation. Tsavage 06:45, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC) (edited Tsavage 03:01, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC))

[edit] Futher comments

Well, if you want this to be a single-viewpoint article, I would recommend "Criticisms of corporate agriculture" or "Criticisms of agribusiness" or "Criticisms of large-scale commercial agriculture" as more self-evident titles. I don't think it matters all that much which term is used, since the article is mainly about substantive criticisms, not terminology. It's prefectly fine with me to do that - to zoom on in the cricitisms in this article, as long as the opposite viewpoint (since in this case there is one, and it's worth reporting) is accessible to readers, as well.

Well, it's not that I "want" this to be anything, the fundamental questions are: 1. Is corporate farming a distinct term, or not? 2. If it is a distinct term, then, what does it mean? (My understanding is that it is distinct and that it's meaning is a negative reference to the general practices of very large scale, vertically integrated food production business, as it intersects agriculture...)

I don't entirely not see your point. But if there is a Criticisms of corporate farming article, then what goes in the corporate farming article?

If not viewed in the light of its (negative) meaning (synonymous with the negative definition of agribusiness), then corporate farming becomes hard to make sense of. On the surface, a very big farming corporation is totally legal, and simply doing what big businesses try to do: maximize revenue/share value by whatever means seem effective and doable. The actual methods, like large-scale mechanization, irrigation, processing, etc, etc, aren't "corporate farming" per se, they're just modern large-scale agriculture. They are equally used by large "independent" (and probably incorporated) family farms as well. What is corporate farming is the practices and effects in a larger, less clear-cut, social context, and murky legal and ethical context: ownership, intent, corporate interconnections, monopolistic practices, hidden costs, and so forth.

Which is why the phrase exists, and the article begins: Corporate farming is a critical, negative term that describes the business of agriculture, specifically, what is seen by some as the practices of would-be megacorporations involved in food production on a very large scale. What could be more neutral, descriptive and clear a preface/intro than that?

It's not trying to coopt a "good" or "neutral" phrase and make it bad, as would be trying to convince people "family farm" is a bad thing. Not that family farming is necessarily "good" or "bad", but current popular usage is clearly not "bad", whereas with "corporate farming", it IS already. Tsavage 01:33, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Even in a single-viewpoint article, though, instead of something like "Corporate farms are harmful because ___" you have to say "Corporate farms are criticized as being harmful because ___" to maintain neutrality.

The article is hardly complete or polished, still, right now I don't notice any blatant editorializing of that nature. It's more characterized by stuff like:

• The goal of corporate farming (perceived or real, as the case may be)...
• Corporate farming is criticized for its tendency to...
• The debate about large corporations in agriculture...
• The core argument for the methods criticized as corporate farming... Tsavage 01:33, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Your suggested approach of a unified "rebuttal" section cross-referencing external material sounds workable. I'll try to do that and see if I can fix the internal problems with the material we have so far and expand as needed and also push stuff out to external articles (like some GMO stuff, as suggested below).

As far as objective coverage goes, perhaps we need a COTW for commercial agriculture and/or food industry. It would be nice to have an outline of what topics should be covered in these articles, to avoid duplication and whatnot. I'll see if I can't add missing articles to Category:Agriculture and organize it a bit to get a better sense of the existing coverage. -- Beland 04:59, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That outline sounds like fun... Tsavage 01:33, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and a bit of a disclaimer - I don't necessarily endorse the viewpoints I write about. I'm not sure I really come down clearly on one side or the other on this or on most issues...in these sorts of debates, I usually end up filling in a lot of material for the side that I feel is either underrepresented or is not expressing itself clearly, whether or not I agree with it. -- Beland 05:02, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV tag removed: 23 May 2005

I reviewed the article and the Talk discussion after several weeks, and I (still) don't see the reason for the NPOV tag, so I have removed it (once again).

The article certainly focusses on a negative aspect or portrayal, but the topic is clearly defined from the opening sentence as being a term that represents a negative view. Therefore, description of that term will obviously be concerned with negatives.

The underlying dispute seems to be with whether "corporate farming" has a different, more neutral meaning than indicated here (in fact, the neutral one of the two meanings currently assigned to agribusiness). In the discussion, some evidence against that broader meaning was brought forward (e.g. references to consistent usage of corporate farming as a negative term), and nothing to counter that was offered. Also, it was suggested that there are more appropriate topics for a general descriptive coverage of the "food business" (in addition to the existing agriculture article), beginning with the curiously non-existent food industry.

Therefore, and since there has been no activity in resolving this in several weeks, I've removed the NPOV. The article needs lots of work, but it is self-evident as to what it is about and the existing content is quite useful as it is, so I believe it shouldn't be burdened with an NPOV tag (which diminishes credibility), and especially when the purpose of the tag may not be clear to readers ("what is NPOV about an article about a negative term detailing negative things?" one may ask). Tsavage 23:32, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] GMOs, Monsanto

Reading other articles like Genetically modified food and Genetically modified maize, it seems the material on the Monsanto controversies was a little out of date. I rewrote the section that talked about GMOs (actually, I made it its own section now) to be more NPOV. At the same time, I made the discussion more general, but I welcome the reintroduction of specific examples, if someone is more familiar with or can research the current state of affairs. Though readers may find better information about GMO controversies in the aforementioned articles. -- Beland 04:14, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Of course, I see your POV with the original Monsanto example, where it could be perceived as propaganda, as making a case for a particular point of view. In that particular light, your rewrite is explainable. HOWEVER, in practice, it obscures the point of that section, and this particular article, which is to describe the corporate farming perspective. The "balanced", two-sides-to-every-argument approach to NPOV is not always applicable. Here, maybe 80% of the revised GMO section belongs in plant breeders' rights (which could use it), while 80% of the removed Monsanto version eliminates practical applications for the article content (for example, when considering the almost completed acquistion of the world's largest conventional seed company by Monsanto). By eliminating concrete examples that enquiring readers can pursue (Monsanto, tecnology user's agreements, etc), it kind of homogenizes things. It is a fine line, but it's also easy to lose the concept and overall meaning in contextual details. For example, this: "Thus, a company like Monsanto can effectively control farming, from seed through wholesale, through ownership of technology, without directly participating in growing or crop sales." is one powerful undelying concept (locus of control) of the corporate farming POV. In the rewrite, many people would be hard-pressed to arrive at that, from, perhaps: "Critics of GMOs and corporations say that these rights give already powerful corporations an even greater advantage, and in a way which disrupts millenia-old agricultural practices."

I think the crucial thing, at a certain point, is writing style and how exactly a topic is summarized and worded in order to communicate the concept. Simply replacing POV-sound things with this-side-that-side does not always serve the best interests of the reader (which presumably is to be entertainingly, or at least, efficiently informed). This is hard, and the problem exists in lots of areas and topics (in most of the few I've worked on on Wikipedia, in fact). It's something to deal with. Rewriting vs replacing?! Tsavage 19:35, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thus, a company like Monsanto can effectively control farming, from seed through wholesale, through ownership of technology, without directly participating in growing or crop sales.

This sounds like it is arguing that large companies shouldn't be allowed to do what they are allowed to do. It is also arguable that various other factors, such as competition or various consumer activities make this sort of control ineffective. I think people on opposite ends of the political spectrum could call the current amount of power anything from "effective stranglehold" to "loose influence". When the encyclopedia starts reporting one viewpoint as fact, that's not even one-sided NPOV anymore. That said, this power and control issue is very present in the public debate and should be explored. It's just that opinions one way or the other need to be attributed to external entities, not appear to come from the wiki's authors. -- Beland 03:47, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Resepctfully, you should reread this whole recent discussion. The Monsanto stuff is in the context of a "corporate farming" article, which you're already arguing against as NPOV. Of course, if you find the whole thing NPOV, then you will find the individual points NPOV as well. I'm saying, corporate farming is a social concept, like civil rights or back to the land, or pro-choice or right to life. It is a contrary outlook towards a prevailing, predominant reality. In that context (which you apparently don't agree with), your editing out of the Monsanto example into something generic contributes to obscuring the social concept/phenomenon/movement that the article is about. If someone is trying to understand, by referring to an encyclopedia entry, why some people are so critical of the way agriculture is run, describing the type of controls, business/economic pressures, etc, is germane to the description. (continued under NOPV debate...) Tsavage 06:02, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] economics of family farms

I think that this topic could be argued effectively from both sides. Certainly large wheat or corn farms aren't very productive in terms of $ per acre. (maybe $200-300?, of which a large fraction is government subsidies). A small family-run vegetable farm could gross probably $10,000 an acre (with little or no govt subsidies), depending on how they market their produce (sell in directly via a farmer's market, organic certification, or sell to a high-end restaurant). I'd like to see this kinds of issues incorporated into the article. Matthias5 16:21, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree that small-scale farming can be viable, and there are thousands of small, family farms today that do make their reasonably independent decisions on a day-to-day basis, and are profitable. The trick is conveying the difference between a few thousand, or tens of thousands (talking US/Canada for now), versus the millions of small farms that existed a few decades ago. The difference in numbers is an indication of the massive, rapid shift in the agricultural infrastructure: at this point, the "way back" or whatever would seem to require a very sudden and wrenching change, which is in contrast to how we (the society at large, all of us, farmer to food buyer) got here. The rapid decline of "family farm" actually seems to be millions of little, mostly enthusiastic and eyes-wide-open personal decisions. It's the farmer who traded in his horses for a tractor. The consumer who started buying fresh frozen peas instead of just...fresh. We have all subscribed to technology, and the system reconfigured accordingly.

Of course, the "return to the family farm" is possible. See local food, community supported agriculture, market gardening, peak oil,... If oil prices permanently rise as predicted, maybe doubling in the next year, the food supply will immediately be impacted. Price spikes and shortages within days and weeks. Conventional, large-scale farmers will have a hard time buying fertilizer (which basically matches oil and natural gas price hikes) and filling up their tractors. Consumers will start to think twice about hopping into the car and heading for the supermarket all the time. Mainly, the massive diesel truck-based long-distance distributon network will be hit quickly and sharply. This type of pressure will make being able to have locally grown food a lot more attractive. And the CSA-type model scales well, as in, many small farms serving many people. Also, the tried and true farmers' market.

On a small scale, $5,000-100,000/acre revenue is a completely doable range. This only really seems to work, though, when acreage is kept low, say, MAX 50-100 acres for mixed veggies, but more realistcally <1-20 acres. The bigger you get, the more you produce, and even at a lower unit cost, BUT, the more you also rely on DISTRIBUTION to actually sell your product, and distribution today is a function of cheap energy.

Distribution is where the "romantic" idea of the family farm and the local community/local economy is really located. Probably (I don't know the stats on this), there was never a time when the majority of those millions of farms were living the almost idyllic life of the successful small-scale market gardener of today, most of them likely went from near subsistence to some form of wholesaling. I doubt they were ever all selling directly to their local communities, getting full retail dollar. BUT, the constraints "wholesale" (growing in quantity for remote markets) have changed and become very onerous. Scale has what seem to have been ignored consequences. "Economies of scale" are not what they popularly seem. This is the core corporate farming aspect of the family farm. The local food-growing "new family farm" might actually realize the romantic notion of the family farm that probably never quite was... IMHO... :-) Tsavage 18:05, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Some NPOV suggestions

This article brings up good points, and illustrates many of the downsides to corporate farming and "agribusiness", but it does suffer from some messiness. First off, a lot of sentences just need to be written in a different voice, tense and person. Secondly, this chapter is factually inaccurate, or at least misleading.

_________________ In a pattern common to all industry, companies tend to grow, and as they grow, their economic power and capacity to continue growing increases. Competition usually becomes easier and easier to overcome, through outpricing, outmarketing, buying out, and the use of economic influence to create favorable conditions. Eventually, this pattern tends towards monopolistic conditions, where one or a very few entities "control it all", something that is seen by society as a potentially harmful situation (as in, for example, antitrust laws).

In agriculture, extreme corporate growth naturally has its specific effects, ones that subscribers to the corporate farming outlook find fundamentally harmful to society at large. _________________________________

The tendancy of companies to grow is not a "pattern common to all industry", this is an over-generalization, though it happens to most industry. Also, the statement "competition usually becomes easier and easier to overcome through outpricing, outmarketing, buying out... etc" uses unscientific terminology and concepts. A more accurate rendition of your statements would be something like this:

"Agriculture is an industry which provides significant economies of scale to large producers. As is the trend in such industries, agricultural production in most free-market economies has been increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small number of large firms. If this trend towards increasing concentration continues, it may lead towards monopolistic or oligarchical markets for food in the future, which are generally considered to be undesireable outcomes."

Hope that helps!--Darklaundry 15:38, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I like that! Sold (to me, at least, I popped it in the article). What a difference an education makes, huh? - Tsavage 23:18, 15 May 2005 (UTC)