Food and the Mid-Level Farm: Renewing an Agriculture of the Middle

by Thomas A. Lyson (Contributor), G. W. Stevenson (Editor), Rick Welsh (Editor)

Practitioners and scholars from a range of disciplines discuss how midsize farms can better connect with consumers, organize collectively to develop markets for their products, and promote public policies that address agriculture-of-the-middle issues. Agriculture in the United States today increasingly operates in two separate large, corporate-connected commodity production and distribution systems and small-scale farms that market directly to consumers. As a result, midsize family-operated farms find it increasingly difficult to find and reach markets for their products. They are too big to use the direct marketing techniques of small farms but too small to take advantage of corporate marketing and distribution systems. This crisis of the midsize farm results in a rural America with weakened municipal tax bases, job loss, and population flight. Food and the Mid-Level Farm discusses strategies for reviving an "agriculture of the middle" and creating a food system that works for midsize farms and ranches. Activists, practitioners, and scholars from a variety of disciplines, including sociology, political science, and economics, consider ways midsize farms can regain vitality by scaling up aspects of small farms' operations to connect with consumers, organizing together to develop markets for their products, developing food supply chains that preserve farmer identity and are based on fair business agreements, and promoting public policies (at international, federal, state, and community levels) that address agriculture-of-the-middle issues. Food and the Mid-Level Farm makes it clear that the demise of midsize farms and ranches is not a foregone conclusion and that the renewal of an agriculture of the middle will benefit all participants in the food system--from growers to consumers.

296 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2008

Reviews

[Tabitha · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book, the authors describe the changing landscape of agriculture in the United States. Accordingly, they suggest that large agribusinesses are surviving and growing because they have the funds to advertise, subsidize, and reach their markets. Conversely, small farms are sustaining themselves by direct marketing and connecting producers with consumers. The authors explain that the middle farms, much like the middle class, are struggling and disappearing.

Throughout the book proposals are offered to secure the future of these farms as they are farms where the owners make their own livelihood. They are members of the community and encourage the investment of funds locally. As suggested in the first chapter: “[w:]e know from past experience that large industrial complexes, owned by absentee landlords and managed by a highly centralized managerial class, do not exhibit a commitment to the care of the environment in which they exist (11).”

The book provides a few practical recommendations, access to legislative decisions that have impacted agriculture, and case studies of mid-level farms that are succeeded. The authors suggest that these farms can succeed if they pool their production and concentrate on specialty markets that are too small for agribusiness and too small for the smaller farms.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

The disappearance of mid-sized farms is a serious economic and social concern on many levels. Concentration of economic power in a small number of firms leads to monopsonistic and monopolistic practices. Corporate controlled agriculture pushes down prices to farmers and use their market power to capture the savings, rather than pass them on to consumers. Loss of economically viable owner-operator farms has led to a decline of the rural populations and rural communities. This collection of articles seeks to make the case for agriculture in the middle. The book is already several years old and the articles were already out of date when it was published. While the articles are long on identifying the problems, they are short on solutions that are both practical and creative. The epilogue was anti-climactic--a combination of vague nostrums, fuzzy wishes and failed policies. The root cause of concentration and corporate control needs to be addressed. A strategy to take on these corporate giants and deal with the structural issues will take more than wishful thinking and marginal changes.