Agriculture and Community Change in the U.S.

The Congressional Research Reports

Louis E. Swanson

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367164065
• eBook ISBN: 9780429712975
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política agrícola pública

This book contains the Office of Technology Assessment commissioned papers analyzing the Northeast, South, Midwest, the Great Plains and the West of the U.S. The papers indicate that the relationship between the structure of agriculture and characteristics of rural communities vary in the U.S..

1
Farm and Community Change: A Brief Introduction to the Regional Studies

Louis E. Swanson

The prevailing hypothesis in the farm and community change literature has been that a rural community's well-being is a function of its farming hinterland. The converse of this assumption, that nonfarm socioeconomic factors associated with community rural well-being might influence farm well-being, has only recently received wide-spread attention. The traditional unicausal assumption that farm structure shapes rural community well-being is grounded in times past when most areas of rural America were characterized by a majority of owner-operators, whether family farmers or small town entrepreneurs. It was this class of rural people, and their agrarian and individualist value system that shaped America's populist ideology. This political tradition asserts various forms of agrarian fundamentalism, including the primacy of the family farm over rural communities, as the economic, social, and moral backbone of not only rural areas, but of the nation.

Before World War II there is considerable evidence that this unicausal assumption was not far from reality. Merrington (1978:151) argues that the preindustrial "agrarian economy established the historical limits of town development," for all types of preindustrial modes of production. Braudel (1973) adds that while agricultural trade centers were the focus of economic activities and social functions, nonetheless they were dependent upon local trade often based upon the barter of goods and services. Consequently, rural communities nestled in regions characterized by preindustrial production tended to be self-contained production-consumption units, with the primary unit being the farm family. Their persistence depended upon material conditions created locally. The quality of these material conditions rested upon the local human and natural resources.

In the Northeast, Midwest, and South the shift from a yeoman family farm structure toward a commercial family farm structure involved several significant social structural transformations. Rather than producing for their own use and limited local consumption, commercial family farms were socially and technically organized for specialized commodity production. This reorganization contributed to a realignment in the relationship among people in farming, especially among family members. The relationship between farmers and the local trade center also changed. Farmers found that new local financial and trade institutions such as the bank and granary had greater leverage over their livelihood. Those farmers who were unable to finance their debts for whatever reason moved from a family farm status toward tenancy or hired labor—whether in the farm or nonfarm sector (Mooney, 1983).

The transformation to a dependency upon commercial agricultural trade introduced in some cases new and in all cases greater class divisions than had characterized the noncommercial period. An ancillary phenomenon of importance to the future relationship between the farming hinterland and the rural trade center was a steady subordination of farm and community relations to expanding nonfarm employment.

This latter phenomenon represents the gradual decoupling of the well-being of rural communities from the fortunes of the farming hinterland. Certainly in those regions of the nation where farming is the primary economic base for the rural economy the characteristics of the farming hinterland will be the principal influence upon community well-being. But, the tendency nationally is for rural economies to shed this type of economic dependency for another type, one in which manufacturing, government, and service employment structures are dominant.

These fundamental shifts in the economic structure of most rural economies, as emphasized above, did not occur by accident but were closely associated with the development of regional and national market infrastructures. As the industrial and agricultural output increased so too did the expansion of roads, canals, and railroads. As underdeveloped, and in some cases nonexistent, internal home markets developed, there simultaneously emerged a spatial and market hierarchy of trade centers within regions. This spatial reorganization of rural areas greatly influenced the abilities of trade centers to survive the modernization process. Position within the emerging trade network as well as the size of the trade center have proven to be critical factors in determining community survivability— factors that for the most part are outside the control of a trade center's inhabitants.

Of course, many areas of the South, Southwest, and West historically have been dominated by very large agricultural operations, including the old slave plantations, haciendas, and capitalist (industrial) farms. In these areas rural communities were also highly influenced by the relations of production of their agricultural hinterland, and as Goldschmidt's and MacCannell's work confirm, with highly adverse consequences.

Today, it is not possible to describe an archetypical American rural community, or even a typical rural region, given the economic diversification experienced by most rural communities during the past century. As Warren (1973) has described, horizontal linkages within local society have given way to vertical linkages with the larger society. Most rural communities have experienced a sharp decline in their dependence upon farming. It now is evident that the viability of the rural community's nonfarm economy may account for the persistence of smaller commercial family farms, as these farm families increasingly rely upon off-farm employment. Indeed, the great majority of rural people are not principally employed in farming. In 1984, national rural employment was distributed as follows: manufacturing, 39.5 percent; service and trade, 16.5 percent; government, 13 percent; farming (including hired labor), 9.1 percent; and mining, 5.7 percent (Henry, Drabenstott, and Gibson, 1986). At the beginning of this great change in rural community organization it would have been hard to comprehend an employment structure where more people would be employed by various levels of government, primarily public school employees, than in farming.

The Farm and Community Literature

There are numerous studies that examine the supposed impact of farm change on trade centers. Most of these studies propose that as farm structure becomes more concentrated rural communities will experience a decline in their economic and social well-being. Goss (1978:II.39) has succinctly summarized these assumptions:

The root cause of the decline in smaller places has been with technological change and farm size expansion and their immediate consequences of labor displacement, farm outmigration and a decrease in the density of people on the land ... A decrease in the number of farms and density of farm people reduces the aggregate demand for [economic and social] functions, and consequently the need for nonfarm persons responsible for supplying such goods and services.

However, there are few empirical studies that examine how declining farm numbers and people and the changing farm workplace influence trade center change within the context of other regional economic and social change. While Goss implicitly seems to be assuming that agricultural technological change is responsible for these adverse effects for community well-being-the notion that the mechanization of agriculture has caused farm concentration—in another paper with Rodefeld (Goss and Rodefeld, 1978), he proposes that technological changes, at best, have only an indirect influence upon community change. Instead, Goss and Rodefeld believe that the influence of technological change is mediated through particular types of farm structure. Another viewpoint would be that technology, rather than an antecedent and autonomous cause of farm concentration, reflects farmers' efforts to adopt the powers of technology in order to improve their position, or, at worst, not lose ground, in a highly competitive farm market. [The influence of technology is developed with some detail in Chapter 6 by Skees and Swanson.]

Ecological studies of the impact of farm change on nonmetropolitan counties report that counties with a preponderance of small-scale family farms have usually experienced population loss as farms have become more concentrated (Frisbie and Poston, 1977). Between 1960 and 1970, these predominantly agricultural counties were more likely to have outmigration. Similar ecological analyses of community population change also identify an inverse relationship with increased farm concentration. Munoz and Flinn (1977) examined both incorporated and unincorporated places in Ohio for the period 1930 to 1970, using county-level agricultural data. They found that increases in average farm size and value of farm land, and decline in farm residents were associated with community population decline. They also noted that increased part-time farming was positively associated with place population change, indicating that as part-time farming becomes more prevalent in a county, smaller places are less likely to decline in population. Their findings also suggest that during this period, in those counties where farming coexists with other economic activities, the farm population is more likely to be stable.

Very few studies of the relationship between the farm sector and the community focus upon direct indicators of the economic viability and quality of life of the community. Instead, most studies use change in population size as a surrogate for community well-being. These studies assume that those places experiencing an increase in population size are more viable than those places losing population. This assumption, may not always hold true, and as the nonmetropolitan turn-around of the 1970s demonstrated, may be quite misleading. Among the few studies that do focus on economic viability and social well-being, Goldschmidt's (1978) 1944 case study of two California farming communities is the acclaimed centerpiece.

Goldschmidt selected Arvin and Dinuba according to what he believed were similar ecological characteristics. He pointed out that both towns were satellites of large metropolitan centers, relied upon agricultural production, and were dependent upon irrigation systems. Arvin's hinterland tended to produce row crops like cotton, while Dinuba's grew tree crops and vegetables. The major difference between these two farming centers were the structure of the farms in their hinterlands. Arvin was dominated by a few large, industrial-type farms characterized by absentee ownership and a dependence upon hired labor. Dinuba primarily consisted of family farms and larger-than-family farms (though Goldschmidt referred to all of these as "family" farms). Goldschmidt's dependent variables were economic indicators of retail vitality and social indicators of quality of life. He reported an astonishing array of differences between Arvin and Dinuba, and attributed these variations to the different farm structures in their hinterlands. Goldschmidt concluded that because Dinuba, with its relative dependence upon a family farm hinterland, had demonstrated more economic and social vitality than Arvin, with its industrial farm hinterland, that the differences were due to farm structure. By implication, Goldschmidt proposed that as farms become more concentrated and assume an industrial workplace structure, the quality of economic and social well-being within the community will decline.

The Goldschmidt study has been loosely replicated in recent years. Petterson (1977), reports that the major differences between Arvin and Dinuba continue to persist. Fujimoto (1977) expanded Goldschmidt's study to an ecological analysis of 130 places in eight counties within the San Joaquin Valley. Again, Goldschmidt's findings were confirmed. Places dominated by large-scale agriculture had fewer economic and social amenities.

Rodefeld (1974) examined how increased farm scale and workplace differentiation influenced the character of Wisconsin farm people and the ways they participate in local society. He found some support for Goldschmidt's general hypothesis that the rationalization of the farm labor process eventually leads to undesirable community characteristics. Rodefeld's findings included significant differences among three status groups: owner-managers, hired managers, and hired laborers. Owner-managers (i.e., traditional family farmers) were more likely to have high rates of participation in community organizations, whereas hired laborers generally did not participate in community organizations.

Flora, Brown, and Conboy (1977) also attempted to roughly test Goldschmidt's basic theses. However, their results provide evidence that the Goldschmidt hypothesis is not generalizable to all regions. They report two general findings. First, while counties with a higher concentration of industrial-type farms were positively related to overall county wealth, there was a negative association between the amount of wealth created and the equity of income distribution. Therefore, the more a county's farm structure had an industrial character, the higher the proportion of hired farm laborers as a proportion of all persons employed in agriculture. These results suggest that a large number of low-wage hired laborers were dependent upon a small number of large farming operations. However, their second finding was less consistent. They report that as the ratio of hired farm labor increased relative to the number of owner-operators, county and per capita income also rose. While there may be numerous methodological problems such as ecological fallacy that might account for this finding, it is doubtful that the general relationship would be changed. This study clearly presents an anomalous case for the Goldschmidt theses.

Another study of farm and population change which is not totally consistent with the Goldschmidt thesis is Swanson's (1982) study of Pennsylvania for the period 1930-1960. Swanson identified 520 rural trade centers and their farming hinterlands in the thirty counties having the largest proportion of their labor force employed in agriculture in 1930. The empirical results suggest that declining farm numbers was not significantly associated with trade center population change during the thirty year period. However, as the average farm scale, measured in total acres harvested, increased, trade center population increased. Swanson attributed this apparently contradictory finding to the small average increase in acres harvested per farm of about 16 acres. Family farms could have mechanized their operations, thus extending their labor, which would mean that increased farm scale was not necessarily associated with changes in farm structure. In other words, while the total number of farms declined and farm scale increased slightly, the hinterlands of these trade centers continued to be dominated by family farms.

The most Interesting finding of Swanson's study was that regional economic changes were the primary factors influencing trade center population change and farm change. His study suggested that changes in trade center population and farm structure were influenced by changes in regional nonfarm economy. This observation offers some support for the hypothesis that as a regional economy becomes more developed, its economic and social institutions will have a greater influence on community change than will changes in the farming hinterland. Furthermore, because the introduction of these nonfarm economic activities provide off-farm employment opportunities for the farm population, smaller farms that might otherwise go out of production can continue to operate if one or more members of these farms works off the farm. The availability of part-time farming as an option to leaving farming provides a means for family farm persistence even during a period of rapid farm concentration nationally. This does not mean that the decision to enter part-time farming is a happy one, but it might be seen as a better option than going out of production.

Similarly, Harris and Gilbert (1982) also report findings inconsistent with the Goldschmidt hypothesis. These researchers attempted to test whether this assumption held for nonmetropolitan Michigan counties, utilizing rural income as the dependent variable. Indeed, they found that the converse of the hypothesis was the case. That is, they found that the total effect of large scale farming and rural income were positively associated, thus indicating that has farm scale of a county increased so too did the measure of rural income.

Green's (1985) study of Missouri nonmetropolitan counties between 1934 and 1978 also presents important exceptions to the general Goldschmidt study. This research supports the Goldschmidt hypothesis to the extent that the size of the population in rural Missouri is influenced by changes in farm numbers, but change in farm scale is not of importance. Green (1985) suggests that Goldschmidt's hypothesis, at least for Missouri, can be amended such that farm numbers, rather than farm size, is the primary intervening variable. Green (1985:272) concludes that "the relationship [between farming and community well-being] tends to be different among various farm production systems."

Reif (1986) examined nonmetropohtan counties in the United States. Her findings did offer limited support for the Goldschmidt hypothesis. Reif reports that counties with larger family farm agriculture were more likely to have better employment levels and higher income levels. This is consistent with Goldschmidt to the degree that the farms surrounding Dinuba, California were better characterized ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• About the Editor and Contributors
• Foreword
• 1 Farm and Community Change: A Brief Introduction to the Regional Studies
• 2 Industrial Agriculture and Rural Community Degredation
• 3 Public Policy, Farm Size, and Community Well-Being in Farming-Dependent Counties of the Plains
• 4 Agricultural Technologies, Farm Structure and Rural Communities in the Corn Belt Policies and Implications for 2000
• 5 Farm Structure and Rural Communities in the Northeast
• 6 Farm Structure and Rural Well-Being in the South
• California, Arizona, Texas, and Florida (CATF) Appendixes