Agriculture of the Middle

Stevenson, G. W.; Clancy, Kate; Kirschenmann, Fred; Ruhf, Kathryn

doi:10.1007/978-94-007-0929-4_357

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…These disconnections between farmers and members of the public who see the need for change in agricultural practice but have different experiences and perspectives also interacts with changing social and economic conditions within the farming sector. In particular, systemic factors (markets, policies, corporate consolidation) have put increasing economic and social strain on small-and medium-sized farming operations (Stevenson et al, 2014;Wender, 2011). These broader social and economic conditions all influence farmer perceptions of sustainable management practices and their willingness to engage in a deeper effort to build resilient food systems.…”

Section: Core Ideasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scaling up conservation agriculture: An exploration of challenges and opportunities through a stakeholder engagement process

et al. 2022

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Increasing the resilience of agricultural landscapes requires fundamental changes to the dominant commodity production model, including incorporating practices such as reduced tillage, cover cropping, and extended rotations that reduce soil disturbance while increasing biological diversity. Increasing farmer adoption of these conservation systems offers the potential to transform agriculture to a more vibrant, resilient system that protects soil, air, and water quality. Adoption of these resilience practices is not without significant challenges. This paper presents findings from a participatory effort to better understand these challenges and to develop solutions to help producers overcome them. Through repeated, facilitated discussions with farmers and agricultural and conservation professionals across the U.S. state of Michigan, we confronted the policy, economic, and structural barriers that are inhibiting broader adoption of conservation systems, as well as identified policies, programs, and markets that can support their adoption. What emerged was a complex picture and dynamic set of challenges at multiple spatial scales and across multiple domains. The primary themes emerging from these discussions were barriers and opportunities, including markets, social networks, human capital, and conservation programs. Exacerbating the technical, agronomic, and economic challenges farmers face at the farm level, there are a host of community constraints, market access and availability problems, climatic and environmental changes, and policies (governmental and corporate) that cross-pressure farmers when it comes to making conservation decisions. Understanding these constraints is critical to developing programs, policies, and state and national investments that can drive adoption of conservation agriculture.

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Section: Core Ideasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scaling up conservation agriculture: An exploration of challenges and opportunities through a stakeholder engagement process

et al. 2022

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“…Kirschenmann et al (2008) argue that the decrease in midsize farms is due to market structure: small farms using direct markets and large farms using established supply chains, leaving midsize farms without well‐specified markets. The term “disappearing middle”, referring to the declining number of midsize farms in the US agriculture, was first defined in 1980s (Stevenson et al 2014). However, its relevance is controversial.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How economic conditions changed the number of U.S. Farms, 1960–1988: A replication and extension of Gale (1990) to midsize farms in the United States and abroad

Sant’Anna

Katchova

2022

Applied Eco Perspectives Pol

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We replicate and extend the analysis of Gale (1990) to provide insight into the role of economic conditions on farm distributions in the United States and abroad. Our underlying hypothesis is that the effects of the economic factors on the change in farm numbers remain the same (direction wise) for different times, farm sizes, and countries/regions. We investigate the role of economic conditions on the disappearing middle farms.We extend the analysis to include the time period 1960-2020 and more economic factors, estimate the models by farm size categories, using seemingly unrelated regression, and apply it to international settings (Brazil and the Eurozone). We find no evidence to support the disappearing middle farm hypothesis, despite a declining trend in the number of US midsize farms. The role of economic factors changes according to farm size and country. Economic factors (e.g., population, financial stress, and infrastructure) are important to explain the increase in small and midsize farm

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Agriculture of the Middle

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Scaling up conservation agriculture: An exploration of challenges and opportunities through a stakeholder engagement process

Scaling up conservation agriculture: An exploration of challenges and opportunities through a stakeholder engagement process

How economic conditions changed the number of U.S. Farms, 1960–1988: A replication and extension of Gale (1990) to midsize farms in the United States and abroad

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