Family as a catalyst in farms' diversifying agricultural products: A mixed methods analysis of diversified and non-diversified farms in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio

Valliant, Julia C. D.; Farmer, James; Dickinson, Stephanie; Bruce, Analena B.; Robinson, Jennifer Meta

doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.08.017

Cited by 19 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 67 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The OLS shows that relying on other farmers for information decreases the number of crops for the average specialty crop operation (P < 0.05). In contrast, Thomas et al [81] and Valliant et al [66] reported that farmer networks can positively influence farm diversification. It is likely that obtaining information from peers allows farmers to avoid trial and error of crop mixes.…”

Section: Results From the Ols Modelmentioning

confidence: 93%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Investigating the Drivers of Farm Diversification Among U.S. Fruit and Vegetable Operations

Lancaster

Torres

2019

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Diversification of an agricultural operation’s crop mix is considered an environmental and financial management strategy. Environmentally, crop diversification can stabilize the ecosystem via the introduction of biodiversity, allowing for more rapid response to physical and social changes. Economically, crop mix diversification can mitigate risk. Though there are environmental and economic benefits of crop diversification, little economic work has been conducted on crop diversification outside of the row crop industry. This study estimated how internal and external factors affect crop diversification among fruit and vegetable (FV) operations. External factors included access to markets and land; internal factors included farmer beliefs and access to information from extension and network sources. An OLS regression was conducted using data from 1532 farmers across 16 states in the United States. Endogeneity was addressed using an instrumental variable approach and a score endogeneity test indicated that endogeneity was not an issue. OLS results indicate that selling locally increases diversification, while reliance on other farmers for information decreases diversification. A conditional quantile analysis was conducted to reveal factors’ effects across different degrees of diversification. Quantile results indicate that selling locally, season extension technologies, and use of organic practices positively influence crop diversification across all levels of diversification. Receiving information from farmers negatively influences diversification for specialized farms, but positively influences diversification for highly diversified operations.

show abstract

Section: Results From the Ols Modelmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…The belief that specialization can help achieve higher technical efficiency can discourage the adoption of crop diversification [33]. Alternatively, farmers may be motivated to diversify the crop mix to balance the family-business interface through the creation of new enterprises [66].…”

Section: Internal Factors Influencing Crop Diversificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating the Drivers of Farm Diversification Among U.S. Fruit and Vegetable Operations

Lancaster

Torres

2019

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Transferring farm management and ownership is a fraught process that asks families to grapple with uncomfortable questions of death, competing visions, and equity (Goeller 2012 ). Nonetheless, many American farmers value keeping their farm in the family and hope to leave an operational farm to younger generations (Lobley and Baker 2012 ; Lobley et al 2010 ; Valliant et al 2017 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The invisible labor and multidimensional impacts of negotiating childcare on farms

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Social science inquiries of American agriculture have long recognized the inextricability of farm households and farm businesses. Efforts to train and support farmers, however, often privilege business realm indicators over social issues. Such framings implicitly position households as disconnected from farm stress or farm success. This article argues that systematically tracing the pathways between farm households and farm operations represents a potentially powerful inroad towards identifying effective support interventions. We argue childcare arrangements are an underrecognized challenge through which farm household dynamics directly influence agricultural production. We draw on interviews and focus group data with farmers in the Northeastern United States to understand how farmer-parents access and negotiate childcare. Farmerparents value raising children on farms, but express reluctance to expect current or future labor from them. Years with young children thus represent an especially vulnerable phase during a farm's trajectory. We identify and analyze social, economic, and cognitive pathways through which childcare impacts farm operations. Social pathways include relationship tensions and gendered on-farm divisions of labor; economic pathways include farm layout and structure; cognitive pathways include how farmers think about and plan for their operations. Explicitly acknowledging such issues can better equip farmer-parents to anticipate and plan for conflicting demands on their time.

show abstract

“…Survey questions (available in the Supplementary Data Sheet 1) were informed by prior qualitative interviews with 18 agricultural stakeholders, including five diversified farmers who maintained a commodity feed grain operation alongside non-commodity enterprises, and 13 service providers representing the Extension system, USDA Natural Resources and Conservation Service, Farm Bureau, agricultural cooperatives, and food hubs. Qualitative findings are published in Valliant et al (2017). Prior to mailing the survey, the questionnaire draft was reviewed by three male farmers from within the target population and revised in response to their recommendations regarding content and clarity of the questions and their response options.…”

Section: Survey Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We give particular attention to the role of farmers' gender and family dynamics-two understudied factors in the agricultural adaptation literature, especially that which focuses on the United States and Midwestern region. Some work points to the importance of family relations in shaping farmers' adaptation decisions and specifically their decisions to diversify their products (de Rooij et al, 2013;Hansson et al, 2013;Suess-Reyes and Fuetsch, 2016;Valliant et al, 2017). For instance, farms' capacity for change appears to reflect family priorities such that farms with greater family involvement, both in the present and what is expected for the future, are more equipped to take on positive adaptations, or the addition of any business activity, including a new product (Inwood and Sharp, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Product Diversification, Adaptive Management, and Climate Change: Farming and Family in the U.S. Corn Belt

et al. 2021

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A variety of factors shape farmers' views as they face the rising effects of climate change and consider a range of adaptation strategies to build the resilience of their farming systems. We examine a set of related questions to explore farmers' perspectives on risks and potential shifts to their operations: (1) Relative to other environmental factors, how salient of a challenge is climate change and climate-related impacts to farmers? (2) Do farmers intend to adapt to climate impacts generally?, and (3) What factors shape their use of a specific and underexplored adaptive response—farm product diversification? The data come from a survey of 179 operators within a 30-county region of Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. The region spans various rural-urban gradients. Respondents generally represent smaller operations [median of 80 acres (32 hectares)]. Because our selection methods aimed to over-sample from food-producing farms, 60% of respondents produced some type of food or value-added product, and 40% produced only commodity feedstocks and biofuels. Although the group as a whole indicated only “somewhat” of a concern about changing weather patterns, and half did not anticipate adapting their farming practices to climate change, farmers' responses to a write-in question denoted regional climate effects as challenges to their farms. Analysis of subgroups among the respondents, according to their views of climate change, adaptation, and further diversifying their agricultural products, distinguished farmers' family considerations, and gender. Methods to elicit subgroups included correlation, regression, cluster analysis, and an examination of the many respondents (29%) who indicated uncertainty about adapting practices. Women, who participated in 29% of responses, indicated more concern with changing weather patterns and more openness to adapting farming practices compared to men. Farmers with the most family relationships to consider, and those with the greatest aspirations to employ descendants, were the most receptive to adapting their farming practices. This was the case even when respondents' concern over climate change was low. Results point to the importance of family relationships as a factor in farmers' openness to implementing adaptive and potentially mitigative actions.

show abstract

Family as a catalyst in farms' diversifying agricultural products: A mixed methods analysis of diversified and non-diversified farms in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio

Cited by 19 publications

References 67 publications

Investigating the Drivers of Farm Diversification Among U.S. Fruit and Vegetable Operations

Investigating the Drivers of Farm Diversification Among U.S. Fruit and Vegetable Operations

The invisible labor and multidimensional impacts of negotiating childcare on farms

Product Diversification, Adaptive Management, and Climate Change: Farming and Family in the U.S. Corn Belt

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About