Puzzles about the family farm
On his blog Applied Mythology, Steve Savage has a nice post on farmers in the US and Canada, with graphs showing how their numbers have dwindled and how efficient they are. Then he continues:
Whether the farmer I visited took care of several hundred or even several thousand acres of land, the “office” in which I met them for an interview was either at the kitchen table or sometimes a desk tucked in the back corner of the machine shed. These farmers reflect the objective reality that 96% of American and 97% of Canadian farms are still family owned and operated. If they are incorporated it is only for the purposes of estate planning. I’ve also always found farmers to be extremely pleasant people with the same basic values as the rest of society, particularly when it comes to stewardship of the environment. What they do for a living entails far more economic uncertainty than most of us could handle and a workload well beyond the norm. However, almost inexplicably, these farmers tend to have a high level of job satisfaction and remain in the business more based on life-style values than economic returns. It is a sort of cruel irony that the tremendous efficiency of the tiny, remaining farming population leads to the believability of false narrative like “big Ag.”
via Applied Mythology: Feeling Detached From The Production Of Your Food? Blame Jethro Tull.
This leaves me with two questions.
1) Why is it that farming, which as Savage shows is innovative, modern, and forward-looking, is still overwhelmingly a family business? Is there any other highly efficient sector of the modern economy of which this is true?
2) Why is it so important to so many that farming be a family business? Leaving aside those who distrust all corporations, most people today are happy to have their smart phones, their cars, their clothing, their entertainment, and their groceries produced by corporations. Why not their farm produce?
Is it a lingering Jeffersonian belief that a republic is best made up of yeoman farmers? That was perhaps a plausible political program in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when yeoman farmers made up much of the population. It hardly makes such sense today.
BTW, I am not arguing against family farms. I was raised on one and have great affection for them. But I am genuinely puzzled.
- Tiny Bubbles: Where Food Met Science, Medicine, and Religion
- Farming, Risk, and the Long Run of History
Great blog post and thought provoking questions.
Here are my ideas:
1) Often times, as you talk with farmers and ranchers they speak of their history on the land they care for and use. Many can boast of their great great great grandparents who homesteaded the very same land they still work or of previous generations who were smart enough to buy up others homesteaded land. The farming and ranching families of the homesteading era entered into a business arrangement with no road map or guidance which required a lot of hard work and support from their loved ones. Many failed, but the ones who survived have passed on their work ethic and dedication to the land as well as the families who share their mutual passion. Farming and ranching may be more modern and innovative now but with hard work comes a certain sense of pride which is a tradition amongst these families.
2) Food is a very personal topic because it provides for one of our most basic needs to survive. We don’t eat our smart phone, cars, or clothes and these things are not required for survival. Another basic human need is human interaction which for most people equates, in the positive form, to affection or love. When you combine the two, you get your answer. People want to know their food is grown with affection or love because you treat things you love with the utmost care and respect, thus giving them the best product. Within the ideal family, one finds copious amounts of love, honesty, and dedication. It makes a person feel good when they know their food is produced by a family, who one believes to more likely possess the same morals they see as a priority.
Due to discounts for lack of control and marketability, it might be that family members just can’t unload their shares in the family farm. See this as an example: http://www.dtnprogressivefarmer.com/dtnag/common/link.do?symbolicName=/free/news/template1&product=/ag/news/bestofdtnpf&vendorReference=cdc37f49-a12b-4710-8d92-f41326abfc58__1381751994743&paneContentId=88&paneParentId=0&pagination_num=1
Oh yes, Lori, oh yes. Inheritance is a nightmare on family farms. Speaking from personal experience.
“Is there any other highly efficient sector of the modern economy of which this is true?”
Not that I know of. Most companies have rules against nepotism. Employees who are related to owners tend to be overpaid, even though they’re not necessarily the best person for the job, and they’re not likely to be fired. Knowing this, joining a family business isn’t an attractive option for people outside the family: they won’t be in line to run the business, they’ll have to pick up the slack for underachieving family members, and they’ll be the first to be laid off in hard times. (Remember WKRP in Cincinnati? Andy ran the station while Arthur fiddled around and squirmed under Mama’s thumb.)
The only successful family-run company outside farming that I know of is Coors. But how often do breweries go out of business?
Lori, In Mexico where I lived for many years lots of family businesses survive. In fact much of the brea in the US is made by Bimbo which is a Mexican family business.I once read a fascinating article on why political conditions in Mexico favor family businesses. I will try to dig it up.
Can you tell I think family is ridiculously overrated? ;)
Sounds as if you’ve been around the block on this. Certainly my personal experience is that inheritance in family-run farms is difficult (aka a nightmare).
Rachel, thanks for the quote here. I think that one reason that farming has not become more of a corporate activity is that it entails such and extraordinary economic risk profile. You make a big investment at planting and throughout the season but you have all sorts of weather and pest-related risks that could seriously hurt your outcome. You don’t know how much the crop will be worth at the end of the season and you are a “pure price taker” in economist lingo – usually with no leverage at all in the market. The Economist just had an article saying that some companies are jumping into ag, but we will see how many have the patience and fortitude to stay in. That is why the lifestyle aspect is so important to keeping people in farming. Anyway, just my guesses
Steve Savage
Thanks for responding, Steve. I am a big fan of your blog. In England in the 50s and 60s when I was growing up, this was mitigated to some extent by the mixed dairy and arable farming common there. The dairy paid a monthly check, the arable was the speculative part. Of course the Milk Marketing Board only paid for liquid milk and the cheese and butter industries died. Then the EU made dairy farming unprofitable and now it looks more like the US.
Anyway the high risk/uncertain profit looks as if it is the answer.
My guess is it has something to do with the contamination/risk issue of a literally consumable good, food. People don’t just eat food, they eat symbols too, right? (Claude Fischler?) And with the increasing mistrust of seemingly faceless, uncaring, rapacious corporations, no one wants that particular symbol in their food, and ostensibly becoming part of themselves. Anwyay, that is my weird guess.
Michelle, I don’t think it’s a weird guess at all, and you are one of the few people who have addressed the second question. And then of course the issue is, for most people, why don’t they mind that General Mills, ConAgra and lots of others intervene between farmer and eater. But perhaps the answer is that for all the rejection of processed food, many don’t realize the long food chains and the huge amount of cleaning/processing that go on before food ends up on their tables. Equally a stab in the dark.
Michelle,
I get that what we consume is highly emotional, but the concept that all corporations are “faceless, uncaring and rapacious” needs some pushback as much as we need pushback on the idea that farms are “industrial.” I’ve spent a 35 year career knowing the people on both farms and in the corporations that provide farmers with technology. Honestly I’ve never me real people in either group that would fit the negative image that many people imagine. I always just wish that you or many others could meet the people I have known.
I agree, Steve. I don’t necessarily endorse that characterization myself, it’s just the one that seems predominant among the people I interact with.
Great discussion here — as always! This topic is both personal and professional to me. I’m a farmer’s wife — and there are many days I wonder why my husband does what he does! I have also spent my professional career in ag and food communications. My daughter is working on her speech copy for the state FFA public speaking contest where she reflects on her own agricultural roots and her excitement for the future as a farmer! She talks about how farming is the most rewarding and challenging profession there is…it is a profession of hope. As she looks to the future, she says the most important tools will be collaboration, innovation and curiosity. Not only does she see the big picture of feeding the world — providing all people with healthy, affordable and sustainable food, but she recognizes the additional issue of helping people understand and involving people with how farmers (and others) will do this. Food is personal. As a mom, it is so rewarding to see your child share the same passion that brought their great-grandparents to this country to cultivate the earth and feed others. Thanks for the content which I definitely plan to pass along!
Donna, so glad to have input from someone so involved. And someone who does not see this as trying to take down family farms but simply to understand why they persist seemingly in the face of all modern trends. Good luck to your daughter.
Farming is a risky business and farming commodities tends to be low margin. Both are aspects that push corporations away and obviously make niche small market farming attractive to real farmers.
The corporate thinking is that production, unless its highly technical and high margin, is better left to the actual farmer, who knows what he is doing, has a vested interest in making it work and is prepared to put in the hours and hard work for the small margins in the hope that next year is the bonanza year.
On the other hand, the “barrier” points (seed/genetics, fertilizer/pesticides and market access) are managed by the more technical corporations, where margins and return on investment are high.
Finally a degree of geographical diversity is required to minimize risk. All your eggs should ideally not be in a single basket….
It is interesting to see that there is increasing demand for agriculture based market portfolios. How that filters down to individually owned businesses remains to be seen but it would appear that financial markets, increasingly aware of the importance of non-commodity farming business are more accepting of the risk associated with those operations. There may be hope for the hard working farmers?
I think the combination of being unattractive to capital due to risk and poor profitability and being totally necessary to human survival pretty much guarantees some sort of odd economic arrangement. Child care is probably comparable in some ways.
Thanks for this David. The other suggestion I’ve had for a comparable enterprise is deep sea commercial fishing. Strange bedfellows, these three at first sight.
What an interesting post. I just spent over an hour looking at the farm blogs mentioned on the Applied Mythology site. It’s wonderful to know about these farmers and their passion for what they do. The U.S. is certainly an interesting country, with so many diverse ways for people to lead fulfilling lives.
Elizabeth, I love the farm blogs too. It’s such a good way to get an idea of what farming is actually like as opposed to the cliched characterizations in the press.
Very interesting stuff, as usual.
I wonder if the high percentage of family-run farms doesn’t have more to do with producer-oriented concerns. Inheritance being one of them, and others perhaps having to do with a tendency for those running the farm to live and work close together, often in more rural areas–not an easy proposition even for family! The riskiness of farming is also a huge concern and given that American-style investment capitalism depends on consistent short-term economic gains to satisfy shareholders, it’s possible that large corporations don’t have any desire to run farms themselves.
As for your second question, if you’re separating out “groceries” from “farm produce,” you’re getting at categories that mean different things for consumers. People buy groceries and produce at grocery stores for convenience, price, selection, and reliability. People buy “farm produce” from CSAs or at farmers’ markets and the like because they see added value in food whose provenance they can identify. They may see it as more trustworthy / safer, more nutritious, more ethical (supporting “local” farmers), and even intrinsically “better.” Of course, the same broccoli could end up in both places and categories, which makes process, presentation, and perception hugely important.
Hi Greg, I think (know) inheritance is a huge concern, which is partly why many family farms are technically corporations. Getting on together is also an enormous problem and not one that I am sure is better handled in families than in more impersonal relationships.
On the second point, I was clumsily trying to get at the fact that most people are quite happy to buy butter, sugar, flour etc produced by large corporations but tend to think that fruits and vegetables are better bought at farmers’ markets for the reasons you refer to. It’s interesting that this perception has arisen.