From farming to food systems: the evolution of US agricultural production and policy into the 21st century

Abstract

Nearly two decades into the 21st century, we revisit the topic of changes in the US agricultural system. We focus on trends in structure, technology and policy, and on the increasing influence of consumer preferences on this system, particularly for organic agriculture and local and regional foods. We examine technological innovations in the 21st century, including biotechnology, precision agriculture and indoor farming. Within overall trends toward consolidation, we identify an increasing number of vegetable farms and greenhouse operations, accompanied by a decrease in average size of those operations. We note the shift away from price support toward greater reliance on risk management in farm policy, and also track the impact of food movement trends on recent farm bills. While farm bill policies continue to focus on conventional field crop agriculture, some trends—expanded crop insurance, conservation program support and spending on federal data collection, research and community-based grants, for example—have begun to incorporate the growing movement toward organic, local and regional food systems into the mainstream of US agricultural production and policy.

Diversification and labor productivity on US permaculture farms

“…The industrialization of agriculture, consisting of the development of large-scale, specialized, input-intensive farms, has generated tremendous gains in labor productivity (income per hour of labor (Dimitri et al, 2005) and attendant profits for agribusiness (Magdoff et al, 2000). These gains have been accompanied by an array of increasingly negative social and ecological consequences (Lobao and Meyer, 2001; Altieri and Nicholls, 2005; McIntyre et al, 2009).…”

“…This trajectory has produced a drastic reduction in the number of farms in the USA, from a peak of 6.8 million in 1935 to 2.1 million in 2014 (USDA-NASS, 2014a). As farms have grown fewer, they have also become less diverse, shifting over the same timeframe from an average five commodities produced per farm to an average of just over one (Dimitri et al, 2005).…”

Development and Evaluation of a System Dynamics Model for Investigating Agriculturally Driven Land Transformation in the North Central United States

“…Due to the expansive spatial scale of the NGP and reliance on agricultural production, rural community dynamics are closely tied to land transformation (Dimitri et al. []). For example, as a community's size decreases, absentee ownership rises, causing availability of rental land to increase.…”

“…The number of agricultural producers was estimated based on the percentages provided in Dimitri et al. []. By constraining the population component to mimic only rural counties, agricultural land use signals arising from producer age and AFS were better accounted for.…”

“…ProdNum was arrived at by multiplying potential agricultural producers (PAP; all individuals in the community greater than 18 years of age [equation 14[) by the percentages reported in Dimitri et al. []. AFS not only impacts FPR (described above) but also the emigration rates of the community.…”