In a recent trip through the small town of Walthill, Nebraska, the phrase "rural revitalization" took on a whole new meaning. In this case, it was the lack of any kind of prosperity that made it obvious to me why rural communities are in need of revitalization. Main Street looked painfully deserted, with two recent arsons adding fresh scars to the once-active storefronts. As we drove around the residential area, most houses looked to be in some state of disrepair -- so much so that it was difficult to really tell which were homes and which had already been abandoned. If ever there was a town that needed some life breathed back into it, this was it.
About the same time, I read an article about the aging farmer population and the simultaneous difficulty of young and beginning farmers breaking into farming. This from John Seewer from the Associated Press:
So many American farmers are working longer than ever before that one in four is at least 65 years old. ... Within the next decade those older farmers will be looking for someone to take over their operations and selling millions of acres of land.
Much of that land will be merged into bigger farms with fewer people working on them. Rural communities will lose even more young people, and a few will struggle for survival. ...
"Some of those communities will survive, but the nature of the community will change," said Lori Garkovich, a rural sociologist at the University of Kentucky. "Studies have shown that industrial farms change communities in many ways."
Todd Stewart, who raises hogs and cattle near Meadow Grove, Neb., and at 47 is among the youngest farmers in the area, said it's hard to find volunteers who will coach ball teams or help out at church anymore.
"Towns are hurting," he said. "The school is usually the first to go, then it's the churches and then the town. There's going to be a lot of towns that will wither up and go away."
Communities need people, of course, but vibrant, sustainable rural communities need people of all ages so that the infrastructure that makes a town strong -- schools, churches, local businesses -- are able to thrive. Farmers are a significant part of this equation, and being able to recruit young people into farming will only help to strengthen the communities in which they live.
In my last post on Rural Populist, I talked about local ownership as a key component if rural communities will see any substantial benefit from the ethanol boom. It is clear, however, that it takes more than money to reinvigorate a community. Another component to this push for revitalization is to renew demand for the institutions that have been weakened as farms consolidated. The aspiring farmers I know are typically energetic folks who choose to come back to the land, and will greatly add to any community if only they can access the things they need to start farming.
Not coincidentally, I think about this as legislators in Washington, DC are writing the next Farm Bill. There is a lot of debate about the future of the commodity title and the need to increase money for nutrition and conservation, but often rural development seems to be thrown in as an afterthought -- as if legislators know that it's a good thing to say but think there isn't enough political will to put their money where there mouths are.
Why aren't rural voices demanding more from their legislators?
There clearly have been some voices, though I would argue not nearly enough. The 2002 Farm Bill included some promising provisions that help rural communities, including the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development and the Value Added Producer Grant Program (VAPG). The former was in the 2002 Farm Bill but did not receive funding from 2002-2007, while the later usually received between $15 million and $20 million dollars annually, or about 1/3 to ½ of the money it was slated to receive.
The draft of the 2007 Farm Bill was just released in the House by Chairman Collin Peterson, and while these two programs are funded at $15 million for Beginning Farmer and Rancher and $20 million for VAPG, legislators will need to hear from their constituents in order for these numbers to remain strong.
A welcome addition to the 2007 draft is the Rural Entrepreneurs and Microenterprise Development program, which would provide technical assistance and loans for starting a rural business. However, unlike the other two programs I mention, a slight technical difference in the language for the Microenterprise program means there's no guarantee it will see a dime.
Rural communities aren't receiving fair treatment in federal legislation, which is slightly ironic considering that it's the Farm Bill, and most farming occurs in rural areas. This bill is a great opportunity to push for the rural revitalization that legislators keep promising -- not with haphazard handouts but with strategic investments that assist new, resourceful, innovative farmers establish new roots and bring young people back to rural communities.
Cross posted at Rural Populist
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Comments
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ChristianHGross Posted 6:09 pm
15 Jul 2007
I put my money where my mouth is by buying organic produce whenever possible, fair trade products whenever possible, and locally whenever possible. Yes it costs more money, as my food bill is about 25% higher than if I bought the cheapest. BUT I also feel good about helping my fellow farmer. I have two close family members that rely on farming.
In fact I wish this blog would focus more on how to help farmers because farmers are the "canaries" in the mine.
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Ron Steenblik Posted 8:00 pm
15 Jul 2007
At a seminar I attended in Washington, D.C. last September, I spoke with the head of one of these organizations (who shall remain anonymous), and expressed surprise that she was against any limits on subsidies per farm or per recipient, and was pushing for the restoration of price supports.
"But those always favor large, low-cost corporate producers," I argued.
"Yes, I know", she said, "but we need their buy-in in order to get more money into agriculture."
$#@&?!
One other observation: in country after country, commodity-linked and area-based subsidies drive up the price of farmland, making it more difficult for young farmers to enter the business. So how do most governments respond? Not by reducing the subsidies that artificially inflate farmland prices, but by offering subsidies and loans (typically in token amounts) to young farmers. One subsidy begets another, and another, and another.
Nothing short of a wholesale reform of agricultural policy is needed.
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Whiskerfish Posted 11:04 pm
15 Jul 2007
Why isn't it better if half these people just moved to the cities?
Whiskerfish
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:46 am
16 Jul 2007
The future may be one of profitable organic farmers in close proximity to major urban centers, if that is what the market creates, and if the government and everyone else would stop trying to prop up a lifestyle that is an echo of our former agrarian economy.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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blueberrysushi Posted 3:02 am
16 Jul 2007
I have heard many propose that the influx of educated, wealthy, often environmentally-oriented people can only bring improved ecological conditions to these communities. There is, in fact, a thesis that as nations develop, we become more and more environmentally friendly. This thesis, in my mind, completely overlooks our consumption: where are all of these preservationists getting their goods? As long as we can treat other countries as our storehouses, then rural America will continue to wither. It will be pretty places, nice scenery, detached from our definition of work and our buying habits. In my view, there is not a less sustainable way to treat our rural lands.
Indeed, while ranchers and loggers have borne the brunt of many environmentalists' ire, their use of the land for commodity purposes has, at least, kept many rural areas rural. The development of the rural landscape, termed "aspenization," has ensured that many areas that once depended on natural resources now depend on a service industry that perpetuates social stratification, with low-income service jobs (often taken up by migrant workers) providing a support system for the wealthy who want to play cowboy now and then. That may be an unfair generalization, but it is not altogether untrue. Developments have popped up across the country, but notably in the West, catering to second- and third-home buyers or just people looking for a vacation. These people bring their money and their jobs that do not depend on the landscapes around them, fundamentally changing what it means to be "rural." What was once a livelihood dependent on the land is now just scenery, a theme park.
I know that change is the only constant, but I cannot help but be saddened by this loss of our links to the world around us. As commodification of our resources continues, and as we lose all sense of where products came from (this desk I'm typing on, fake wood - probably raw products from Canada, processed in China), and nature becomes just another backdrop. The seasons change for our amusement, and the trees exist for pictures.
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Steph Larsen Posted 7:17 am
18 Jul 2007
There is one argument, however, that I think we can all relate to, if you can bear with me for a moment. I want you to picture the place you consider home. Perhaps you are in that place now, and can look around, and feel how good it is to be there. Then, imagine what you would feel or do if someone told you that you couldn't, or shouldn't, live there anymore. Approximately 20% of Americans live in small towns and rural areas, and many of them are passionate about protecting their homes and communities. I think it's unfair for folks to suggest that rural residents leave the places in which they want to live.
Many of us, whether we realize it or not, have rural roots or depend on rural areas. I think the idea of allowing rural communities to go to waste would have unintended and unforeseen consequences. I admire that our country still allows for equal opportunity to all our residents, and I hope that these opportunities would not be denied due to geography.
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Tom Philpott Posted 7:39 am
18 Jul 2007
Victual Reality
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Rune Posted 10:13 am
18 Jul 2007
Low impact farming, the type that conserves and grows soil, requires a large and highly educated farm management labor force. Intensive industrial farming thrives on replacing wise farm managers and workers familiar with the land, weather, and a variety of nutritious crops, with massive machinery and fossil fuel used to push maximum yields out of mind bogglingly large tracts of land, usually planted with a single crop. Every year, the soil is further thinned and exhausted as a result. An enlarging region of the U.S. touched by drought, which is forecast to become the norm according to most global warming models, is most heavily impacted by the trend, as are the farmers that once dotted the landscape.
The immediate effects of this shift are shared worldwide in terms of releases of carbon that was once held by the soil into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming, and regionally in terms of silt and eutrophying fertilizers that are washed and blown from the soil to rivers, lakes, and oceans where it chokes and kills much of the biodiversity once found there.
Eventually, however, there will come a time when the loss of U.S. soil quality and the worsening effects climate destabilization cannot be overcome by the brute force approach of industrial agriculture to farm productivity needs. We will be in serious need of well educated farmers who have studied their land and crops and prepared for changes that lie ahead for it. Where will they be found after we have driven them from the land and exterminated the culture and values that would have promoted the brain trust we will need?
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gmunger Posted 12:03 pm
18 Jul 2007
Maybe Tom will weigh in later and include some of Wendell's profound and inspiring words on this topic. I shall search for some relevant ideas to share as well.
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John Crabtree Posted 4:25 am
19 Jul 2007
there is one thing that i agree with biodiversivist on, namely that the government should stop their "propping up" behavior. Of course, he makes an assumption about what is being "propped up" that follows the common myth that so many swallow.
What we're propping up out here with virtually unlimited government subsidies is the consolidated, corporate, high-tech production systems that you deem so valuable and invulnerable.
What's happening to small farmers, ranchers and rural communities is not the product of some invisible economic hand, some unchangeable natural phenomenon. The consolidation, concentration and corporatization of agricultural assets in rural America is the product of public policy choices that were made by people and that can be changed by people.
Explain to me why urbanites like you seem to think rural people owe you something and that everyone that lives out here secretly dreams of living in your neighborhood?
A fair shake, that's all we need, no more than we deserve but no less either. And if we cannot agree to create public policies that accomplish that, perhaps we should just go our separate ways, lol. We'd have about 60 million people and 80% of the property in America, 98% of the food production, 98% of the energy production, and all the really nice places to look at.
Oh, and we'd have most of the nuclear weapons too, so be nice :-)
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usandthem Posted 4:49 am
19 Jul 2007
The farmlands of the WORLD are at the limit of production and still we keep thinking that everything is alright.Well,think about this!Why do you suppose that genetically engineered food is even being thought of? We at at the limits of what fertilizer and hybridized plants and insecticides and herbicides can do,so we are trying to make plants do what they should not do.All for the almighty buck.These plants have not even been throughly tested,but they are being grown out in the open like there is no danger of polluting our food supply PERMANENTLY.Enough for now,but read and learn a little more before you think that it is simple to grow safe and healthy food,when the science of food production is being surpressed by our current ,not so benevolent emperor.dubya
Why not ask why!?
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