GENDER AND OFF-FARM EMPLOYMENT IN TWO FARMING SYSTEMS: Responses to Farm Crisis in the Cornbelt and the Mississippi Delta

An important farm household survival strategy in the 1980s agricultural crisis was off-farm employment. Recent research shows that gender role expectations structure off-farm employment's effects on farm operations. However, this research does not evaluate off-farm employment's effects within different socioeconomic and cultural settings. This article explores case studies of two localities with different farming systems: family farming in the Cornbelt and capitalist (or wage labor) farming in the Mississippi Delta. Farmers in two counties representative of each system responded to mail questionnaires covering various topics including farm and household changes made during the 1980s financial crisis. Loglinear modèls estimating the relationship between changes in off-farm employment and selected changes in farm operations derive results for the Cornbelt that confirm previous studies. Women's off-farm employment, in particular, relates to a variety of changes in the farm enterprise and improves its capital position. As expected, given its historic separation of household and enterprise, the Mississippi Delta evinces no such pattern of change. These results indicate the need for additional research on this topic, comparing different agrarian class structures.     

Some Outstanding Issues in the Debate on External Promotion of Land Privatisation

Since the early 1990s, the dominant consensus in the debate on land rights reform in sub‐Saharan Africa has been that external interventions to privatise land rights are usually inappropriate and likely to remain so. This article suggests that two elements in the debate – the scope for varying adjudication criteria, procedures and support systems in order to enhance equity, and the influence of a region's agro‐ecological and socioeconomic characteristics on the impacts of tenure change – merit further attention. The article urges a shift towards a more pragmatic approach, sensitive to the diversity of both physical and socio‐economic conditions within which tenure systems operate. Illustrative evidence is drawn from a relatively low‐potential farming region in eastern Kenya.     

Transition pathways towards a robust ecologization of agriculture and the need for system redesign. Cases from organic farming and IPM

The growing criticism of intensive agricultural practices that lead to a deterioration of natural resources and a decrease of biodiversity has progressively led to more environmental constraints being put on agricultural activities through an “ecologization” of agricultural policies. The aims of these policies have been to protect environmentally sensitive areas, to improve groundwater quality and, more recently, to develop organic farming and/or reduce pesticide use. However, these efforts are still a far cry from a robust ecologization of agricultural practices. In order to identify the conditions for the implementation of such an ecologization, the changes in practices from conventional agriculture towards organic farming and integrated pest management (IPM) are investigated using a sociological study of farmers’ trajectories, coupled with the ESR (Efficiency-Substitution-Redesign) framework developed by biological and agricultural scientists. This combined approach reveals that a robust ecologization of agricultural practices requires us to take into account the specific and variable tempo of farmers’ trajectories and to redesign not only technical agricultural systems but also interactions within larger agrifood systems.     

Finding Farms: Comparing Indicators of Farming Dependence and Agricultural Importance in the United States

Abstract Many scholars have commented on the changing significance of farming for understanding the dynamics of social and economic change in contemporary rural America. Quantitative analyses of relationships between farming, local socioeconomic conditions, demographic trends, and policy have often relied on an indicator of “farm‐dependent” (FD) counties developed by the USDA Economic Research Service. In this article, we argue that measures of economic dependency imperfectly identify the places in the United States where farming is significant, and can paint an incomplete picture of the contemporary geographic distribution and structure of agriculture in the United States. We propose an alternative categorical indicator—agricultural importance (AI)—that provides a better direct measure of the relative size and intensity of farming across diverse U.S. counties. We compare the characteristics of FD and AI counties along a set of dimensions and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each typology.     

The Socioeconomic Basis of Farm Enterprise Diversification Decisions1

Abstract In contrast to earlier studies, recent research on socioeconomic and ecological factors affecting farm decision making suggests that, at the microlevel, farm size is inversely related to specialization and directly related to diversification decisions but empirical tests have been limited. Using a social behavioral, farming systems perspective, we examine factors affecting diversification and specialization decisions, including land tenure, off-farm work, and education (which are crucial to successful management) and environmental variation (which affects the decision to select appropriate enterprises). Data from a random sample of Kentucky farmers were used to test the model. Diversification, whether defined according to crops or commodities, is significantly related to farm size, human capital, and regional variation in land and soil types. The study clarifies the relationship between diversification and farm size issues and broadens understanding of farm diversification decisions. The findings indicate that increased farm size and better farm management reduce the rate of increase in farm specialization.     

Agricultural Paradigms and the Practice of Agriculture1

Abstract This research examines the relationship between endorsement of agricultural paradigms and reported farming practices. An agricultural behavior index is constructed from measures of pesticide use, source of nitrogen fertilizer, farm diversity, and whether or not people grow a home garden. This index and the individual measures of farming practices are then analyzed to determine how they relate to an alternative-conventional agricultural paradigm scale and several of its items. As expected, alternative and conventional agriculturalists differ dramatically on the behavior index. And also as expected, the scale is more closely related to the composite agricultural behavior index than to the individual measures of farming practices, while these more specific agricultural behavior measures tend to be more strongly correlated with the scale items that correspond most closely to them. The major implication is that individuals' agricultural paradigms do impact the way they practice agriculture.     

Neither ‘family’ nor ‘corporate’ farming: Australian tomato growers as farm family entrepreneurs

For the past two decades there has been much debate about the future of family farming. The basic question on which this debate has turned is whether current pressures on family farm systems should be understood as symptomatic of a terminal condition, in which farmers are replaced progressively by corporate ownership; or whether family farms will persist as a social formation, albeit increasingly subsumed by off-farm interests. Using evidence from the Australian processing tomato sector, this article documents the changing social and economic formation of ‘family farming’. We argue that in this industry, the appropriate way to describe farmers is through the deployment of that a new category of farming; farm family entrepreneurs. This phrase is coined to describe the situation where family units remain at the social and economic heart of farm ownership and operation, but in the context where they relate to their land-based assets through legal and financial structures characteristic of the wider economy. As this article explores, this formation seems to represent an accommodating modus operandi for farm units within neo-liberal agricultural governance. Nevertheless, however, this duality of family-based structures and capitalist entrepreneurialism inevitably provokes a series of tensions, whose resolution requires a variety of organizational strategies to be put in place.     

Income Inequality across Micro and Meso Geographic Scales in the Midwestern United States, 1979–20091

This article examines the spatial distribution of income inequality and the socioeconomic factors affecting it using spatial analysis techniques across 16,285 block groups, 5,050 tracts, and 618 counties in the western part of the North Central Region of the United States. Different geographic aggregations result in different inequality outcomes, suggesting spatial scale needs to be carefully considered in inequality research. Inequality is spatially clustered in suburban areas of larger metro areas and around Native American reservations in the Dakotas. Higher inequality is associated with better socioeconomic conditions, counter to the social inequality literature but consistent with the inequality growth literature. However, growing inequality is associated with worse socioeconomic outcomes. Results partially support the polarization thesis that declines in industrial sectors and growth in services has caused incomes to diverge. Higher and growing inequality is associated with both low‐skill and high‐skill services jobs. However, employment in agricultural and industrial sectors experiencing large losses over the past three decades is also linked to higher and growing inequality. This suggests a dual process where many former agricultural and industrial workers are now employed in other sectors at lower wages, while the remaining workers in these sectors earn higher and growing wages.     

Envisioning agricultural sustainability from field to plate: Comparing producer and consumer attitudes and practices toward ‘environmentally friendly’ food and farming in Washington State, USA

A substantial body of sociological research has examined the relationship between farmers’ environmental attitudes and their conservation behaviors, but little research has compared the attitudes of producers and consumers toward the environment with their behaviors or practices in support of sustainable agri-food systems. This paper addresses these shortcomings by analyzing the intersection between producer and consumer attitudes toward environmental sustainability with their actual practices, drawing data from focus group interviews and surveys with producers and consumers in Washington State, USA. We compare farmers’ attitudes toward several agricultural and environmental policies with their self-reported practices to examine whether support for environmental policies aligns with sustainable farming practices. For consumers, we investigate the relationship between their attitudes toward the same agricultural and environmental policy issues with their interest in purchasing food produced in an environmentally sustainable manner. Through our analyses, we find that consumers’ and producers’ practices are not always consistently correlated with their environmental attitudes, but that support for agricultural land preservation is one policy area in which the interests of producers and consumers intersect with their interest in sustainable farming and food. Findings from our individual and focus group interviews assist us in understanding the multiple, sometimes competing, factors that consumers and producers must weigh in making decisions about environmentally sustainable food and farming.     

Occupational Status of Rural Outmigrants and Return Migrants1

Abstract This research analyzes the occupational status payoffs to short-term outmigration and return migration for male workers in a developing country. Using an occupational status model that integrates explanations from the status attainment and migration literatures and longitudinal data from the Philippine Migration Survey, the results show that both outmigrants and return migrants have lower occupational prestige scores than nonmigrants. Regression standardization and decomposition analyses reveal that while rural outmigrants are positively selected on socioeconomic characteristics compared with nonmigrants, their lower occupational prestige scores are largely because their prior farming and fishing occupational experiences does not properly prepare them for the urban labor market Return migrants' lower occupational status scores are due to negative selection on socioeconomic characteristics.     

The Dimensions of Agricultural Diversification: A Spatial Analysis of Italian Municipalities

Diversification in agriculture could ensure the survival of farming by broadening the income base of farms and encouraging agricultural sustainability. The diversification of on-farm activities may depend on socioeconomic and environmental characteristics. Although multifunctionality is a hotly debated topic, few papers have focused on the farm characteristics that influence diversification and none have focused on the influence of the spatial pattern. This paper examines the relationship between farm characteristics and the adoption of a specific type of diversification. An econometric model is presented that uses a spatial autoregressive lag model at the municipal scale. The results demonstrate that the activation of each diversification dimension is influenced by both internal and external factors, encompassing farmers’ characteristics, the farm structure, and territorial features, including regional and spatial patterns. Deepening is mainly influenced by the farmer’s age, education, and the presence of small and labor-intensive farms. The key factors for broadening diversification are the presence of small farms and farms with mixed production (breeding and crop cultivation). Regrounding is most affected by the labor-intensive farms in the area and the farms with mixed production.     

Precision Farming: Environmental Legitimation,Commodification of Information,and Industrial Coordination1

Abstract Precision farming—use of digital geographically referenced data in farming operations—is the leading example of a cluster of emerging information technologies in agriculture. To date, the vast majority of academic and promotional literature addressing precision farming has focused on the field and farm-level economic and environmental benefits of site-specific allocation of crop inputs (fertilizer, pesticides, and seeds). In this paper, we question popular perceptions of the technology and pursue a sociological analysis through identification of consistencies between precision farming and the political and economic requirements of an industrializing agriculture. Through promotion of a public commitment and a technical mechanism to mitigate farm chemical pollution, precision farming legitimates chemically-based agriculture in an era of rising environmentalism. Further, precision farming is based on, and will advance, the commodification of agricultural information—appropriation of field and farm-level decision processes through substitution of capital for local knowledge. By automating farm-level data collection and information management and by reducing agriculturalists' reliance on public sector agricultural research and extension, precision farming supports further integration of on-farm activity into a coordinated system of industrial manufacture.     

Agricultural Trajectories (1961–991), Resulting Agricultural Profiles and Current Sociodemographic Profiles of Rural Communities in Southern Quebec (Canada): A Typological Outline

The transformation of the rural areas in Quebec is a result of the decrease in the agricultural population, the spread of the periurban fringes, and the appropriation of areas by seasonal residents. To what extent have these phenomena evolved according to different spaces, from one municipality to the other? Have they made the territory more homogeneous, or have they rather contributed to produce new spatial patterns? What are the dominant traits of the rural communities’ sociodemographic profiles that are attributed to these trajectories? Considerable work remains to be done in order to characterize the evolving trajectories, induced by these phenomena, and the resulting spatial patterns. Based on the agricultural and sociodemographic indicators available in Canadian censuses, and the possibilities offered by the multivaried analyses; the present research aims to identify typological outlines apt to report on: (1) evolving agricultural trajectories (1961–1991); (2) resulting agricultural profiles; and (3) current sociodemographic profiles. Two observations result from these outlines. First, resulting from the two main agricultural trajectories observed (intensification-regression), the five following agricultural profiles were noticed for 1991: vegetable crop intensive farming, cereal crop intensive farming, moderately intensive farming, extensive cattle farming, and marginalised farming. Second, on the sociodemographic level, the identification of seven rural municipality groups (predominantly agricultural, agricultural in transition, marginalised agricultural, periurban, small mutating industrial centre, traditional and high-class rural amenity municipalities) accounts for the diversity of social recomposition shapes. This paper attempts to contribute to the understanding of spatial and demographic dynamics of contemporary rural communities.     

An Emerging Geography of the Agrarian Question: Spatial Analysis as a Tool for Identifying the New American Agrarianism

Karl Kautsky’s Agrarian Question remains a useful lens for analyzing the relationship between small and large agricultural producers under the conditions of industrial capitalism. The U.S. agricultural census provides an opportunity to identify socioeconomic, demographic, and agricultural factors associated with new and alternative farming at the county level, and then analyze these for spatial patterns within a geographic information system. By associating these county‐level indicators with a crowd‐sourced USDA directory of farmers’ markets as a proxy for local demand, we identified four hot spots of new American agriculture: The West Coast, central Texas and Oklahoma, central Florida, and the Great Lakes region. Furthermore, we show that these areas have been growing since 1997. An additional farmer hot spot in central Appalachia diminished after 1997 and finally disappeared in 2012. We argue that spatial analysis is a tool for defining new agrarian landscapes, observing geographic and social shifts in small, alternative farming, and conducting more focused ethnographic research.     

The Adoption of Integrated Pest Management Practices Among Texas Cotton Growers1

Abstract Agricultural technologies are becoming increasingly complex requiring farmers to bundle selected technologies. Technology bundling results in a variety of different farming systems. Features of diffusion and farming systems theories are combined to define an analytical model, which assesses background, diffusion, and technology belief factors' influence on growers' adoption of integrated pest management (IPM) practices and cotton yields. We selected a proportionate random sample of growers (n = 722) from 14 cotton-producing counties in Texas. A telephone survey was conducted in 1985 resulting in a response rate of 76 percent. Findings demonstrated the importance of different sources of IPM information to particular status groups of growers. Information sources produced positive effects on growers' beliefs about IPM benefits and growers' adoption of three IPM practices. IPM adoption resulted in higher yields of upland and pima cotton per acre.     

Contrasts and Commonalities: Hispanic and Anglo Farming in Conejos County,Colorado

Abstract The San Luis Valley farming systems' project sought to identify improved technologies and better decision-making capabilities for modest-sized and limited-resource farms. Characteristics of limited-resource farms operated by Hispanic and Anglo families, which may or may not be associated with differential rates of social participation and/or institutional discrimination, were examined. To determine characteristics of client farms, data were collected and stratified on farm resources, farm operations, goal hierarchies, and operational management strategies. Hispanic and Anglo farmers differed significantly in several respects. Key among these differences were crop and livestock enterprise mixes and the importance of off-farm income to households. For many farming parameters, farm size, age of farmer, and full-time/part-time characteristics overshadowed ethnicity as a determinant of decision-making. However, an important subset of the farm population is composed of Hispanic farmers who operate below median farm acreage on a part-time basis and for whom few technological developments or assistance programs are specifically designed or delivered.     

Farming Patterns,Rural Restructuring,and Poverty: A Comparative Regional Analysis1

Abstract This study examines the contentions of two recent perspectives on rural economic organization and their implications for poverty. Building from (1) agrarian political economy and (2) the rural restructuring literatures, we present a comparative regional analysis of how farming patterns and other aspects of economic organization differentially affect poverty in rural areas. Data are based on 2,349 nonmetropolitan U.S. counties for the 1970–1980 period. Nonhired labor-dependent, family-operated farming (smaller and larger family farming) has relatively similar cross-regional effects on rural poverty. The effects of industrialized farming are more spatially variant, suggesting that this type of farming is integrated into regional political economies in different ways than are simple commodity units. However, farming patterns have only a small effect on rural poverty relative to other factors, such as the local employment structure, characteristics of the population, and geographic location. The results of this study highlight the need to move beyond the farm sector to understand both the dynamics of this sector and the socioeconomic consequences of rural restructuring. More broadly, the study underscores the importance of testing general sociological relationships under different spatial (e.g., regional) contexts.     

Beyond the Farmgate: Factors Related to Agricultural Performance in Two Dairy Communities1

Abstract This study compares the logic of agricultural production across two dairy farming communities in the Northeast using a measure of agricultural performance as the dependent variable. Both communities have similar farm structural and environmental characteristics, but significantly different levels of agricultural performance. Our analysis indicates that dairy farmers in both communities are following the same basic path toward the optimization of milk production, but achieving quite different results. A comparison of structural factors shows that the high-production community is in a more advantageous position than the low-production community in terms of opportunities for formal education, access to markets, and proximity to an urban center. Acknowledgment of structural differences across agricultural communities is crucial to the development of adequate sociological theory, agricultural policy, and extension programming.