Family farm

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Family farm, Wisconsin, United States

A family farm is a farm owned and operated by a family, and passed down from generation to generation. It is the basic unit of the mostly-agricultural economy of much of human history and continues to be so in developing nations. Alternatives to family farms include those run by agribusiness or by collective farming.

In developed nations the family farm is viewed sentimentally, as a lifestyle to be preserved for tradition's sake, or as a birthright. It is in these nations very often a political rallying cry, against change in agricultural policy, most commonly in France, Japan, and the United States, where rural lifestyles are often regarded as desirable. In these countries, "strange bedfellows" can often be found arguing for similar measures despite otherwise vast differences in political ideology. For example, Patrick Buchanan and Ralph Nader, both candidates for the office of President of the United States, held rural rallies together and spoke for measures to preserve the so-called family farm. On other economic matters they were seen as generally opposed, but found common ground on this one.

Bolder promoters argue that as agriculture has become more efficient with the application of modern management and new technologies in each generation, the idealized classic family farm is now simply "obsolete", or more often, unable to compete without the economies of scale available to larger and more modern farms.

Advocates argue that family farms in all nations need to be protected, as the basis of rural society and social stability.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, ninety-eight percent of all farms in the United States are "family farms". Two percent of farms are not family farms, and those two percent make up fourteen percent of total agricultural output in the United States, although half of them have total sales of less than $50,000 per year. Overall, ninety-one percent of farms in the United States are considered "small family farms" (with sales of less than $250,000 per year), and those farms produce twenty-seven percent of US agricultural output.^[1]

1 Viability of the family farm
2 References
3 External links
4 Further Reading
5 See also

[edit] Viability of the family farm

Depending on the type and size of independently-owned operation, some limiting factors are:

Economies of scale: Larger farms are able to bargain more competitively, purchase more competetively, profit from economic highs, and weather lows more readily through monetary inertia than smaller farms.
Cost of inputs: fertilizer and other agrichemicals can fluctuate dramatically from season to season, partially based on oil prices, a range of 25% to 200% is common over a few year period.
oil prices: Directly (for farm machinery) and somewhat less directly (long distance transport; production cost of agrichemicals), the cost of oil significantly impacts the year-to-year viability of all mechanized conventional farms.
commodity futures: the predicted price of commodity crops, hogs, grain, etc, can determine ahead of a season what seems economically viable to grow.
technology user agreements: a less publicly-known factor, patented GE seed that is widely used for many crops, like cotton and soy, comes with restrictions on use, which can even include who the crop can be sold to.
wholesale infrastructure: A farmer growing larger quantities of a crop than can be sold directly to consumers has to meet a range of criteria for sale into the wholesale market, which include harvest timing and graded quality, and may also include variety, therefore, the market channel really determines most aspects of the farm decisionmaking.
availability of financing: Larger farms today often rely on lines of credit, typically from banks, to purchase the agrichemicals, and other supplies needed for each growing year. These lines are heavily affected by almost all of the other constraining factors.
government economic intervention: In some countries, notably the US, government subsidies to farmers, intended to mitigate the impact on domestic farmers of economic and political activities in other areas of the economy, can be a significant source of farm income. Bailouts, when crises such as drought or the "mad cow disease" problems hit agricultural sectors, are also relied on. To some large degree, this situation is a result of the large-scale global markets farms have no alternative but to participate in.
government and industry regulation: A wide range of quotas, marketing boards and legislation governing agriculture impose complicated limits, and often require significant resources to navigate. For example, on the small farming end, in many jurisdictions, there are severe limits or prohibitions on the sale of livestock, dairy and eggs. These have arisen from pressures from all sides: food safety, environmental, industry marketing.
real estate prices: The growth of urban centers around the world, and the resulting urban sprawl have caused the price of centrally located farmland to skyrocket, while reducing the local infrastructure necessary to support farming, putting effectively intense pressure on many farmers to sell out.

Over the last century, the people of developed nations have collectively taken most of the steps down the path to this situation. Individual farmers opted for successive waves of new technology, happily "trading in their horses for a tractor", increasing their debt and their production capacity. This in turn required larger, more distant markets, and heavier and more complex financing. The public willingly purchased increasingly commodified, processed, shipped and relatively inexpensive food. And so forth.

It is arguable whether any sort of "idyllic" life existed for most of the millions of family farms that have disappeared in recent decades. At the beginning of 20th century, an average farm in North America produced much less food per acre than it does nowadays. A likely conclusion is that for a time in the middle decades of the last century, a large number of farms achieved a temporarily comfortable position by capitalizing on rapidly emerging new technologies, markets, and growth-oriented philosophies. As growth and "production efficiency" kept increasing, this position began to reverse noticeably, at least by the 1970s. In the current situation, for the independent "family farmer" to regain any sort of practical economic independence, it would seem necessary that the entire food industry be restructured. Furthermore, given the extreme number of defunct family farms, it is not so much a matter of saving or preserving the family farm (whatever it was, it is effectively already gone), but of using the remaining knowledge, expertise and farms as the framework for the "new family farm."

In the last few decades however there has been a resurgence of interest in organic and free range foods. A percentage of consumers have begun to question the viability of industrial agriculture practices (such as feeding grains instead of grasses to cattle) and have turned to organic groceries that sell products produced on family farms including not only meat and produce but also such things as wheat germ breads and natural lye soaps (as opposed to bleached white breads and petroleum based detergent bars). Others buy these products direct from family farms. The "new family farm" provides an important alternative market with a whole array of traditionally and naturally produced products. Most recently, larger agribusiness entities have begun to enter the 'sustainable ag' market as well, noting increased profitability and consumer demand.