Civic Agriculture: Reconnecting Farm, Food, and Community

by Thomas A. Lyson

While the American agricultural and food systems follow a decades-old path of industrialization and globalization, a counter trend has appeared toward localizing some agricultural and food production. Thomas A. Lyson, a scholar-practitioner in the field of community-based food systems, calls this rebirth of locally based agriculture and food production civic agriculture because these activities are tightly linked to a community’s social and economic development. Civic agriculture embraces innovative ways to produce, process, and distribute food, and it represents a sustainable alternative to the socially, economically, and environmentally destructive practices associated with conventional large-scale agriculture. Farmers’ markets, community gardens, and community-supported agriculture are all forms of civic agriculture. Lyson describes how, in the course of a hundred years, a small-scale, diversified system of farming became an industrialized system of production and also how this industrialized system has gone global. He argues that farming in the United States was modernized by employing the same techniques and strategies that transformed the manufacturing sector from a system of craft production to one of mass production. Viewing agriculture as just another industrial sector led to transformations in both the production and the processing of food. As small farmers and food processors were forced to expand, merge with larger operations, or go out of business, they became increasingly disconnected from the surrounding communities. Lyson enumerates the shortcomings of the current agriculture and food systems as they relate to social, economic, and environmental sustainability. He then introduces the concept of community problem solving and offers empirical evidence and concrete examples to show that a re-localization of the food production system is underway.

Genres: Nonfiction, Food, Agriculture, Sustainability

160 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2003

Reviews

[Dina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Allow me to summarize this book for you: Farming used to be concentrated on small family owned farms that served their immediate community and it's needs. Today, agri-business has taken over resulting in a concentration of most of the nation's food supply to a few huge farms that have a large amount of say in what farming regulations should be. Because of this, food quality is greatly reduced, all the while doing harm to the environment and distancing people from their food sources; food production becomes mass produced, adapting to the ideals of global economics and marketing. We need to return to civic agriculture, particularly in the form of farmers markets, CSA's, community gardens and the like, in order to restore our control over what we eat, strengthen our communities and support local business.

There. I have saved you from reading 107 pages of monotony.

This book could have been really interesting. Instead, it reads like a college term paper, with the above statements repeated at length and ad nauseam, largely fluffed with statistics and a few unnecessary charts to take up space. Sure, I agree with the premise of the book, but it could not have been written in a more uninteresting fashion. Maybe a good starting place to read about civic agriculture if you need the term 'road side stand' defined to you - that is, if you can stay awake for it.

[Zharfan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book start with a thorough explanation of farming history and industrial farming in America. The built up is quite good and I enjoy the pace of reading this.

But, the main idea of why civic agriculture should be used is not deeply contested and the author repeatedly cited the same reference and argument.

I think the author should include a blog or any other social media to track and update the impact and practitioners of civic agriculture so the reader can compare directly which system can be used in today's condition.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this for my Food and Society class and I was shocked by how much I enjoyed myself and learning about this topic.

My only grievance, and why I'm assuming the rating is around 3.5, is all of the repetition. A lot of the information cycles itself with only a new kind of wording. For me this was helpful, giving I have to write an essay, but I can understand how it would be frustrating.

[nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for thesis and yes I will be counting it towards my goodreads annual reading challenge

[Tabitha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish that I had read this book before I read a few hundred texts on community food access and local food economies. Since I read it later, after seeing it cited in numerous articles, I was already very familiar with all of the arguments. As such, I had some difficulty focusing.

Assuming that you haven’t read a variety of articles on these topics, this book offers a good foundation for beginning research. Parts are a bit too simplified, but I think that this is the point. The book makes this topic really accessible to anyone that wants to become involved in or learn more about community food access and local food economies.

In brief, Lyson describes how most communities are no longer able to produce enough volume and/or variety of food to support residents. Following the neoclassical model, agricultural communities and small scale family farms began to “modernize” into nearly industrial complexes know as factory farms.

Since it is difficult to create a division of labor in agricultural arenas, the focus shifted to mass production techniques. While this may have been done in part to increase food production and ensure food security, there is also an overarching tendency for profit development and consolidation.

Given these changes, farms began to use mechanized processes which reduced labor, chemical processes which increased production, and biotechnology which changed everything. Farmers had the choice to adapt to these processes or fall behind. Many collapsed.

As such, the number of family farms decreased, the size of remaining farms increased, and the variety that each farm produced decreased. Food became regionally and then globally produced. As production consolidated, agribusinesses and corporations retained a major percentage of production and this model was applied internationally. Soon, inexpensive fuel made it possible to ship products all over the world.

Since then, markets have seen an increase of foods from all over the world, but a decrease in variety of foods in a given area. Soon corporations had the ability to decide what foods would be available.
As Lyson suggests:

“A small set of individuals control and empire that accounts for most of the products that we see on supermarket shelves. The social, economic, and political cost of corporately managed and controlled agriculture and food systems are seldom tallied. In the United States today, food has become simply a commodity that generates profits for large corporations (60).”

Over time, an increasing number of farms were owned by corporations and not farmers. Lyson suggests that “over the short term we are likely to see more and more farm-land move out of the hands of the people who work it. Absentee landlords are becoming a permanent fixture on the American Agricultural landscape (41).”

Farmers also have the choice of participating in contracts with these corporations. Essentially they are contracted to produce specified food that use specified processes and meets uniform standards. Either way, conventional agriculture continues to pull money out of the local community and into large corporations.

Lyson argues that civic agriculture, although it cannot overturn the entire system, has the potential to inform new ways of embedding agricultural processes in community life. He dubbed the term “civic agriculture” which I have noticed repeatedly in literature on the topic. Civic agriculture puts the power back into the hands of communities. Though a system of local food production—CSA, Farmer’s Markets, U-Pick operations, and farm stands—people are able to develop sustainable practices that benefit the social, economic, environmental, and cultural processes of a given community.

While I didn’t learn much new information from this book, I would have if I had not already read so much on the subject. If you haven’t, you should read this book. Lyson provides a brief overview that is often referred to in later literature. Don’t be like me. Begin here.

[Rogue Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Seems to set up an antagonistic and mutually exclusive relationship between conventional (eg production) and civic (small scale) farming but I believe the two interests can co-exist to feed the world and to further community. In fact, both should exist and should prosper.

[Sara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Had to read for work. It was OK except writers do not understand basic economics.

[Michael Sterle · Rating 2 out of 5]

A little bit better than crap. Though I learned a few things, it's attempts to sway me fell short by a long shot.