Agricultural Dependence and Changing Population in the Great Plains

Johnson, Kenneth M.; Rathge, Richard W.

doi:10.1007/1-4020-3902-6_9

Cited by 37 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Remoteness and small population size have been linked with persistent population loss and outmigration (Albrecht, 1993;Cromartie, 1998;Partridge, Rickman, Ali, & Olfert, 2008b); an aging population and natural decrease (Johnson, 1993;Johnson & Rathge, 2006); low median earnings, low housing values, and poverty (Partridge & Rickman, 2008;Partridge, Rickman, Ali, & Olfert, 2009b); and loss of retail and wholesale trade (Adamchak, Bloomquist, Bausman, & Qureshi, 1999;Henderson, Kelly, & Taylor, 2000;Wensley & Stabler, 1998). Research findings and policy applications have been limited to some degree, because previous frontier classification schemes lacked sufficient geographic detail (often classifying counties rather than smaller units) to capture the varying impacts of low-population density and remoteness on well-being.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining frontier areas in the United States

et al. 2013

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Demand is growing for a statistically based, nationally consistent definition of frontier territory, one that is adjustable within a reasonable range and applicable in different research and policy contexts. The need arises from Congressional mandates affecting rural health programs and from limitations of previous classification schemes. As used here, the term frontier denotes territory characterized by some combination of relatively low-population density and high geographic remoteness. Two features distinguish the methodology described here from earlier classifications. First, the approach strives for the most accurate measures of distance possible for the smallest units of geography containing population data. Travel time by car to nearby urban areas is calculated for coterminous US territory at the 1 × 1 kilometer grid level. Once frontier territory is delimited at the grid level, frontier populations may be summed to ZIP code areas, as demonstrated on the Main Map, or to census tracts, counties, or other useful geographic entities. Second, travel-time thresholds around urban areas were allowed to vary by urban-area population size. This is desirable because the effect of urban population size on adjacent rural population density is discontinuous. At any given distance from an urban area, population density increases as the size of the nearby urban area increases.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining frontier areas in the United States

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“…Reduced enrollment has forced schools to close or merge with other districts. Farm consolidation and technical advances have reduced the demand for local labor (Cochrane, 1993;Johnson and Rathge, 2006;White, 2008). On the positive side, record-high commodity prices have amplified farm income to new heights.…”

Section: By William Gascoignementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Once dominated by agriculture, this sector's contribution has been declining for decades (Johnson and Rathge, 2006). Farm employment as a percentage of the total workforce has been declining since the 1960s, yet this trend seems to have leveled out in the last five years ( fig.…”

Section: Summary Of Land-use Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Accounting for nearly 20 percent of employment regionwide two generations ago, the farm industry is now responsible for directly employing only 6 percent of the entire labor force within the PPR. Reasons behind the decline are multifaceted, but many point to the technological advances in machinery and crop science that have reduced the need for hired farm hands (USDA-ERS, 1995; Johnson and Rathge, 2006;Irwin and others, 2010).…”

Section: The Role Of the Farm Economy In The Prairie Pothole Regionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2-1 and table 2-2). Additionally, many researchers have concluded that technological innovations in the production process have resulted in lower labor inputs, leading to farm consolidation and continuous outmigration from agriculturally dependent communities (Bender and others, 1985;Albrecht, 1986Albrecht, , 1993Beale, 1998;Johnson and Rathge, 2006;White, 2008). Agriculture in rural America, and in the PPR in particular, remains a very important component to the rural and national economies.…”

Section: Chapter 3: Land Use and Rural Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dynamics of land-use change and conservation in the Prairie Pothole Region of the United States: environmental and economic implications with linkages to rural community well-being

Gascoigne¹,

Hoag²,

Johnson³

et al. 2013

Professional Paper

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Population responses to the 1976 South Dakota drought: Insights for wider drought migration research

McLeman

Fontanella

Greig

et al. 2021

Population Space and Place

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Droughts on the North American Great Plains once led to elevated levels of out‐migration from rural areas. Large‐scale drought migration has not been observed since the 1950s due to changes in land management and agricultural systems that lessened farm‐level vulnerability to drought. Have droughts had less observable population impacts in subsequent decades? Here, we present findings from an investigation of an unusually severe, localised drought that struck eastern South Dakota in 1976 and caused staggering financial losses to farms. County‐level population and net migration rates show an anomalous increase of migration into drought‐affected counties by male migrants in the age group 30–35 years, likely being return migrants coming to help on the family farm. Newspaper archives and interviews with retired farmers suggest that few people moved away during the 1976 drought; most adapted instead by selling off their livestock herds and taking on greater debt. However, a commonly expressed view is that the drought ‘softened up’ area farmers, increasing their vulnerability to interest rates that quadrupled in the three following years. The early 1980s saw high rates of farm failures, unemployment and population decline in counties that experienced the worst impacts of the 1976 drought, suggesting the drought had a lag effect on population patterns. The findings from this case study are consistent with the ‘lessening hypothesis’ that social and technological innovations reduce economic and population impacts of recurrent climatic risks but elevate vulnerability to less frequent, unusually severe events.

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Agricultural Dependence and Changing Population in the Great Plains

Cited by 37 publications

References 6 publications

Defining frontier areas in the United States

Defining frontier areas in the United States

Dynamics of land-use change and conservation in the Prairie Pothole Region of the United States: environmental and economic implications with linkages to rural community well-being

Population responses to the 1976 South Dakota drought: Insights for wider drought migration research

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