Food, Farming, and

Sustainability
Readings in Agricultural Law
second edition

Susan A. Schneider
Professor of Law
University of Arkansas School of Law

Carolina Academic Press

Durham, North Carolina

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We have now lands enough to employ an infinite number of people in their cultiva-
tion. Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most
vigorous, the most independant, the most virtuous, & they are tied to their country &
wedded to it’s liberty & interests by the most lasting bonds.

Excerpt from Letter from Thomas Jefferson To John Jay, Paris, Aug. 23, 1785,
through The Avalon Project at Yale Law School.

A. The Agrarian Ideal or the Agrarian Myth?

Richard S. Kirkendall
Up to Now: A History of American Agriculture from
Jefferson to Revolution to Crisis
Agriculture and Human Values 4, 4–5 (Winter 1987)
American Agrarianism
Farming and farm people have always occupied special positions in the American mind.
The belief that they deserve high status and that the nation should be based upon
them was part of the American heritage from Europe, running back to Ancient Rome, the
Renaissance, English writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the French
physiocrats and other continental writers of the eighteenth century. This heritage maintained
that farming was the best way of life and the most important economic activ-ity, that it
conferred psychological as well as economic benefits, and that it produced the best citizens and
soldiers. These ideas encouraged people to believe that America was a superior place for it
supplied more and better opportunities to farm than Europe did.
Americans both accepted and reshaped these ideas. In this development Thomas Jef-ferson
was especially important. The greatest “agrarianizer” he tried to construct a nation with an
agrarian base. He took ideas that had not been identified with democracy, at least not
exclusively, and democratized them, arguing that to be democratic a nation must have a farm
foundation. Although a planter himself, Jefferson emphasized the political value of the family
farm, a farm owned and worked by members of one family and large enough to supply their
needs. In his view, such a farm conferred independence, since the people on it worked for
themselves, not others, and it required self-reliance and hard work. Its most important product
was the personality type required for a democracy, rather than the debased type that appeared
to grow out of European urban conditions.

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With family farms as democracy’s essential foundation, farming’s importance tran-

scended the economic goods produced by farmers.
Jefferson did not advocate fully self-sufficient non-commercial farms. He saw value for the
United States in Europe’s need for food. It meant that there would be many good opportunities
to farm in America. To prosper, American farmers should produce a sur-plus; they should
grow more than farm families needed and more than the nation needed. Thus the agrarian
politician opposed obstacles to American trade with Europe, including protective tariffs and
French control of the mouth of the Mississippi River.
Jefferson and other American agrarianizers saw western lands as even more
valuable than the European market. More perhaps than any other feature, they
distinguished the United States from Europe. They must be available to farmers, free
of control by Indians and Europeans, and sold at a low price or given away. Their
importance justified the pur-chase of Louisiana, for, by greatly enlarging the land
possessed by the United States, the purchase guaranteed the success of American
democracy and the continuation of Amer-ican superiority. . . .
Jefferson’s democratic agrarianism achieved its most spectacular victory in 1862
with the passage of the Homestead Act. Giving 160 acres to those who would make
farms out of them, this land policy seemed to be a way of making the lands truly
valuable and the nation healthy and strong. And giving lands away seemed beneficial
to urban workers as well as farmers, for it offered those workers a “safety valve.”
Giving them a way of escap-ing or avoiding oppression, it enabled them to develop a
personality that differed from that of the European proletariat and was compatible
with democracy. Or so it seemed to American agrarians. . . .
———————
Kirkendall’s article is based on three concepts — agrarianism, as excerpted above; the
technological revolution in agriculture, which he refers to as the “Great American Agri-
cultural Revolution;” and the farm crisis of the 1980s. Kirkendall argues that Jeffersonian
agrarianism “gets in the way of realistic thinking about farming and rural life.” His article
presents an effective analysis of the historical development of U.S. agriculture as less and less
farmers were needed to produce increasing amounts of food. In his conclusion, Kirk-endall
asks, “[n]ow that the number of farms and the size of the farm population have become so
small, what difference does it make to the nation whether our farms are plan-tations,
corporations, or family units? Certainly no one can longer argue convincingly
that the survival of democracy depends upon the survival of the family farm.”
Nevertheless, the image of an independent and self sufficient land owner, in direct
contact with nature, perseveres. In the introduction to his 1969 book Agrarianism in
American Literature, M. Thomas Inge defines agrarianism according to three basic
tenets.
• Cultivation of the soil provides direct contact with nature; through the contact
with nature the agrarian is blessed with a closer relationship to God. Farming
has within it a positive spiritual good; the farmer acquires the virtues of “honor,
manliness, self-reliance, courage, moral integrity, and hospitality” and follows
the example of God when creating order out of chaos.
• The farmer “has a sense of identity, a sense of historical and religious tradition, a
feeling of belonging to a concrete family, place, and region, which are psychologi-

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cally and culturally beneficial.” The harmony of this life checks the encroachments of a
fragmented, alienated modern society which has grown to inhuman scale.
• In contrast, farming offers total independence and self-sufficiency. It has a solid, stable
position in the world order. But urban life, capitalism, and technology de-stroy our inde-
pendence and dignity while fostering vice and weakness within us. The agricultural
community can provide checks and balances against the imbal-
ances of modern society by its fellowship of labor and cooperation with other
agrar-ians, while obeying the rhythms of nature. The agrarian community is the
model society for mankind.
Consider the history of U.S. Farm Policy in this context as described by
Agricultural Economist, Anne Effland.

Anne B. W. Effland
U.S. Farm Policy: The First 200 Years
USDA, Economic Research Service, Agricultural Outlook Special Article
March 2000
Reviews of the past as a backdrop for present and future policy often stop at the 1920s in
their look backward. Although the last 70 years undoubtedly are critical for compre-hending
the rationale of current and recent policies, they mark a period when a single approach, one
characterized by programs of farm income support, dominated farm pol-icy. Since the
founding of the national government more than 200 years ago, farmers have been supported
by a series of markedly diferent approaches, which roughly coin-cide with four periods, all of
which overlap through decades of debate and transition.
In the first period, roughly 1785–1890, the focus of “farm” policy was land distribu-tion
and expansion of settlement through numerous private farm operations. The second period,
from about 1830 to 1914, focused on improving the productivity of farm opera-tions, through
support of research and education. The third period, approximately 1870– 1933, ushered in
limited regulation of markets, infrastructure improvements, and provision of economic
information to help farmers compete. The fourth period, since 1924, focused on direct
government intervention to provide farm income support.
Whether we are currently in a time of transition toward a new type of policy remains to be
seen, but over the last 15 years or so, debate about farm income support policies has
accelerated. Movements toward more open global trade, an increasing emphasis on market--
driven production decisions, and attention to environmental costs of agricultural production
have all influenced current policy discussions.
Within each of these periods, public policy that addresses the needs of agriculture has faced
conflicting interests, often grounded in the consequences of policies and develop-ments of
earlier periods. Although resolution of these conflicts has been diferent in each period,
throughout the years a remarkably consistent public consensus has remained: that the
problems inherent in farming warrant public support.

“. . . any person who is the head of a family . . . shall . . . be entitled to enter one
quarter section or a less quantity of unappropriated public lands . . . for the
purpose of actual settlement and cultivation.” The Homestead Act, 1862

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Promoting Agriculture in the New Nation

For the first five or six decades after the U.S. became a nation, the focus of
national government was expansion and development. As land transfers, purchases,
and treaties added territory to the U.S., policies were formulated to encourage the
movement of pop-ulation and industry to fill the space. Policy developments in this
period that led to wide-spread access to land for farming, in a sense laid the
foundation for public policy toward the agricultural sector.
Early Federal land policy favored sale of large amounts of land at relatively high prices, to
bring revenues to the new government and to transfer public lands into private hands as
rapidly as possible. Slow sales, however, and pressure from interests that favored transfer of
public lands to small, independent farmers led to progressively more liberal laws governing
sale of public lands. Minimum prices per acre were reduced and credit terms eased by
legislation in 1790 and 1800. Later laws in 1820, 1841, and 1854 reduced prices further,
forgave outstanding debts for land, provided means for illegal settlers — “squatters” — to
gain title to land they occupied, and eventually, through the Homestead Act of 1862, provided
for free distribution of land to anyone who would settle and farm it. Land distribution on these
terms continued in unsettled areas into the 20th century, but the bulk of American farmland
had been claimed and the traditional American fron-tier declared closed by 1890.

Debate over these land distribution issues reflected the conflict between two
political- economic philosophies. Those in favor of selling large parcels at high prices
believed public lands were an asset that should be sold to bring the greatest revenues
to the gov-ernment, reducing the need for taxes and assuring that the landowners could
afford to develop it constructively.
Those who favored lower prices and smaller minimum parcels believed the best use of
public land was to foster as much settlement as possible by small, independent farmers.
Widespread settlement would support further development by increasing population in new
areas, fueling economic growth, and in the earliest years, securing the territorial claims of the
new nation. It would also assure the development in the new territories of a reliable indepen-
dent citizenry not beholden to the politically or economically powerful. These citizens would
own their own land and depend only on the labor of their own families for their wellbeing,
exemplifying the agrarian ideal.
Debate between the two points of view was also embedded in the regional politics
of the day. In the first decades of the 19th century, older states along the eastern
seaboard resisted relatively open access to land for farming in the West. Settlement
in the new areas threatened their political dominance and threatened the national
treasury through loss of potential revenues from land sales and increasing demands
for transportation developments to link the old and new regions.
In the decades preceding the Civil War, proponents of the southern plantation system of
agriculture began to oppose the increasingly open access to public land. They viewed it as
public promotion of an agricultural system based on an agrarian ideal that was at odds with
their own system. With secession of the southern states in 1860, southern political leaders left
the U.S. Congress, leaving proponents offree distribution of public land and other forms of
assistance to small farmers virtually unopposed. Success in embedding this agrarian ideal in
land policy, symbolized by passage of the Homestead Act, laid the

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basis for continued influence of that ideal in farm policy debates into the future. The national
government had used its resources — in this case land — to encourage and sup-
port expansion of an agricultural structure of independent family farms. Thus Federal land
policy created a precedent of Federal support for an independent family farm sys-tem, which
has continued to be a prominent public goal of farm policy.

Moving Agriculture Toward Efficiency

As land policy continued encouraging increasing numbers of independent farmers
across the U.S., improving American farmers’ productivity and quality of life became
a goal among progressive farmers, journalists, educators, and producers of
commercial farm inputs. In the 1820s, farmers began to organize into state and
county agricultural societies and to promote the need for specialized training and
scientific research to advance the productivity and professionalism of the industry.
Much of the support for these ideas came from older farming regions of the South and
East, which had begun to suffer from competition with newly opened lands in the West. The
availability of extensive, fertile lands on which staples like wheat, cotton, and live-stock could
be produced more cheaply forced farmers in older, settled regions to evaluate their production
methods. Years of cultivation without attention to preserving fertility of the soil had led to
falling yields and even abandonment of land, particularly in areas growing cotton and tobacco.
Some of these farmers saw potential for greater competi-tiveness through, for example,
improved fertilizers and better methods of preparing soil for planting. Agricultural education
and scientific research would be the source of these potential improvements.

Agricultural leaders looked to government for support of education and research pro-
grams. To a certain extent, the call for Federal support for improved productivity in farm-ing
grew out of the consequences of earlier land policy — Federal distribution of public lands in
the West increased competition for farmers in the older regions of the nation, making the
Federal government partially responsible for helping farmers in the older regions improve
their productivity. But arguments for public support of agricultural edu-cation and scientific
research rested largely on the belief that to be effective, advancements in agricultural
productivity needed to be broadly accessible to the large population of independent farmers on
whom the nation depended for food and fiber.
The U.S. was maturing as a nation and experiencing rapid urban and industrial growth in
cities along the eastern seaboard. As manufacturing developed, employing increasing numbers
of people, agriculture became a distinct economic sector, working in tandem with other
industries to help the nation grow. Improving the productivity of this sector
would support the development of other industries, by releasing labor for emerging
fac-tories, and by providing food and fiber for the increasing urban population, as
well as inputs for these new industries — textile mills, for example.

“. . . in order to aid in diffusing among the people of the United States useful and
practical information on subjects relating to agriculture and home economics, and
to encourage the application of the same . . . there may be inaugurated . . .
agricultural extension work . . . in cooperation with the United States Depart-ment
of Agriculture.” The Smith Lever Act, 1914

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Federally supported agricultural education and scientific research eventually took four
major forms: establishment of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, authorization of a national
system of agricultural colleges, appropriation of Federal funds to support agri-cultural science
research at state agricultural experiment stations, and organization of an adult education
system, USDA’s Cooperative Extension Service. The first two of these took place in 1862, the
year the Homestead Act was passed. Federal support for agricul-tural research at state
experiment stations began about a decade later in the 1870s, while the Cooperative Extension
Service was established in 1914.

Agrarianism Clashes with Industrialism

As agriculture, manufacturing, and other industries continued to expand, the
increas-ing consolidation and wealth of urban-based industries began to contrast with
the rela-tive poverty and unconsolidated nature of agriculture. Beginning in the 1870s
and lasting through the 1890s, chronic national surpluses of farm products depressed
prices, while on a regional level repeated droughts, grasshopper infestations, and
other natural disas-ters compounded problems for farmers in the recently settled
lands of the Great Plains and Far West. Repeated national financial panics throughout
the period made credit scarce and expensive. Meanwhile, as farmers saw their
incomes falter, they watched the rising revenues and increasing political influence of
railroads, processors, and urban financial interests, apparently the beneficiaries of
regional monopolies, high interest rates, and high tariffs that protected manufacturing
and other industries at the expense of farmers.
Demands from farm interests for Federal action drew on the same ideology that had
supported free distribution of public lands. Free land turned out to be insufficient, par-ticularly
as farmers moved beyond self-sufficient frontier farming and became increas-ingly dependent
on markets. Having settled western lands with Federal government support, farmers on these
lands looked to the Federal government for new kinds of sup-port when they began to face
decades of harsh conditions. Farmers, primarily in the West and South, organized to demand
assistance in the form of Federal government regula-tion. Eventually forming the Populist
Party in the 1890s, they advocated national govern-ment control of an expanded money supply,
government ownership of transportation (railroads) and communication (telegraph) systems, an
income tax to replace high tariffs as a source of Federal revenue, and continued government
support for distribution of land to small, independent farmers.

The Populist assumption that fostering agriculture was a proper concern of govern-ment
remained essentially unquestioned, although not all participants in the debate believed
government regulation of markets was the proper form of assistance. As Popu-list ideas
spread, particularly in the Plains, other farm organizations proposed expanding education and
research programs to help individual farmers compete in free markets. During the 1910s and
1920s, these programs were administered particularly through the Cooperative Extension
Service and USDA’s new Bureau of Agricultural Economics, established in 1924. During the
same period, legislation exempting agricultural coopera-tives from antitrust regulation left
farmersfree to join together for the purpose of purchas-ing inputs or marketing their products.
Market information services and infrastructure development, especially farm-to-market roads,
through Department of Agriculture pro-grams equipped small rural producers with market
access and economic information that larger commercial interests acquired privately.

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“. . . it is hereby declared to be the policy of Congress to promote the effective

merchandising of agricultural commodities in interstate and foreign commerce,
so that the industry of agriculture will be placed on a basis of economic equality
with other industries, and to that end to protect, control, and stabilize the cur-
rents of interstate and foreign commerce in the marketing of agricultural com-
modities and their food products.” Federal Farm Board Act of 1929

Tackling Economic Depression and Chronic Overproduction

During the years 1910–14, the rise in population migration from rural areas to
cities and the end of what had been a continual expansion of acreage in agricultural
produc-tion led to slower growth in food production. With increased demand for
food from growing U.S. urban populations and, during the second half of the
decade, from a world embroiled in war, food prices reached levels at which farmers
seemed to have achieved incomes on a par with other sectors of the economy. The
U.S. farm population peaked around 1910 at about 32 million and the number of
farms in the U.S. peaked around 1920 at about 6 1/2 million.
Soon after the war ended, however, international food demand plummeted as Euro pean
production started to recover, and U.S. farm prices fell sharply. In response, farm leaders
began laying out a proposal for a national program to support farm prices by con-trolling
domestic supplies and using exports to absorb surpluses. Although Presidential vetoes held off
the program during the 1920s, Congress twice passed measures providing for direct
government intervention to lift farm prices by controlling supplies. The Federal government
did implement some programs to regulate markets and to improve farm credit, but the limited
intervention had little effect in improving the farm economy.

“It is hereby declared to be the policy of Congress . . . To establish and main-

tain such balance between the production and consumption of agricultural
commodities . . . as will reestablish prices to farmers at a level that will give agri-
cultural commodities a purchasing power . . . equivalent to the purchasing power
of agricultural commodities in . . . the prewar period, August 1909–July 1914.”
The First Agricultural Adjustment Act, 1933

It took a Depression to get the price supports farmers wanted. The demands of agri-culture
for an equal share of prosperity were swept up in a much broader package of direct Federal
interventions as the economy at large faltered at the end of the 1920s. Beginning with Franklin
Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1933, the solution to rapidly falling farm incomes was primarily
price supports, achieved through dramatic reductions in supply. Supply controls for staple
commodities included payments for reduced planting and government storage of market--
depressing surpluses when prices fell below a prede-termined level. For perishable
commodities such as milk and some specialty crops, sup-
ply control worked through a system of marketing orders that provided negative
incentives for producing beyond specified levels.
The combination of price supports and supply management functioned as the essen-tial
outline of Federal farm policy from 1933 until 1996, and continues to figure in current

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debate, although the mechanisms and relative weights of the policies’ components were
modified by successive farm legislation. In some years, notably during World War II and
postwar reconstruction, and again during the early 1970s and mid-1990s, global supplies
tightened sharply, sending demand and prices soaring above farm price supports and rendering
acreage reduction programs unnecessary. But for most of the period, repeated cycles of
above-average production and/or reduced global demand put downward pres-sure on prices,
keeping the programs popular and well funded.
Deepening distress in the agricultural economy in the 1920s and economic depression in
the 1930s had fueled political support for a new direction in farm policy. Limited mar-ket
regulation and programs to help farmers compete had not been enough to keep farm incomes
from falling; the call for more direct intervention had gained support. Contin-ued public
support for direct intervention after World War II arose for diferent reasons.
Low prices and consequent low farm incomes of the 1920s and early 1930s had been the
result of surpluses created by sharply reduced global and domestic demand, begin-ning with
Europe’s return to normal production after World War I and followed by the international
economic depression of the 1930s. Surpluses in years following World War II resulted from
rapidly increasing productivity, exacerbated by continuing high price sup-ports that kept
production above demand. The apparent success of production controls and price supports in
raising and maintaining farm incomes by the mid-1930s, however,
made a continuation of these policies publicly acceptable.
Nonetheless, intense debate between proponents of high price supports and those
who believed farm prices should be allowed to fluctuate according to market demand
continued from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. The debate was set in the context of
large surpluses, low prices, and efforts led by the Eisenhower administration to return
the U.S. economy and government bureaucracy to pre-New Deal, pre-World War II
structures. Out of the debate — between advocates of very high price supports and man-datory
production controls and those who wished to end direct government market intervention —
came a compromise for farm policy. The Food and Agriculture Act of 1965 made most
production controls voluntary and set price supports in relation to world market prices,
abandoning the “parity” levels intended to support farm income at levels comparable to the
high levels achieved during the 1910s. A system of direct income support (“deficiency”)
payments compensated farmers for lower support prices.
The debate over price supports and supply control recurred with enough intensity to divert
the direction of policy in the mid-1980s. The new setting was the farm financial crisis and its
aftermath, along with efforts by the Reagan presidency to end “big govern-ment” and place the
American farm economy on a free-market footing. This time, with steadily increasing
government stocks of program commodities and Federal budget defi-cits at record levels, the
argument against continuing expensive government support of the farm economy gained
support. At the same time, the farm crisis began to undermine some of the farm sector’s
confidence that domestic price supports and production con-trols were a very effective way to
secure U.S. farm income in a global economy. Sup-ported U.S. prices reduced international
marketing opportunities and increasing global supplies undercut domestic production control
efforts. Farm legislation passed in 1985 and 1990 maintained the traditional combination of
price supports, supply controls, and income support payments, but introduced changes that
moved farmers toward greater market orientation — .e.,i lower price supports, greater planting
flexibility, and more attention to developing export opportunities for farm products.

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By the time of the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996, which
legislated a dramatic shift in the character of Federal assistance to farmers, farm policy seemed
to be again passing into a new period, pressed by the rising costs of farm income support
programs and by the requirements of global agreements that farm income sup-port programs
keep production decisions tied to market signals. The new policy consen-
sus behind the 1996 legislation held that farmers would be better equipped to compete in
global markets under a system that allowed nearly complete planting flexibility and that
promised continued government efforts to enhance access to international markets. To ease the
transition from previous policy, the 1996 act offered a program of decreasing fixed income
support payments no longer tied to production decisions.
Another Transition at Hand?
During the period of short supplies and high prices immediately following passage of the
1996 Farm Act, the consensus favoring the new policy direction held. With the return of low
prices in 1998 — the result of good weather and global financial crises — the debate
has resumed about whether traditional policies of direct income support tied to price
fluctuations are the most effective solution to farm income variability. But a host of
post- World War II developments in agriculture has led to a markedly changed
context for farm policy in the last decade and a half, and that new context has
produced some new challenges.
Increasing productivity has reduced the number of people needed to work on farms and
decreased profitability has reduced the number who can be supported by income
from a single family farm. While many farm residents have left rural areas for
employ-ment in cities, others have stayed and found employment or developed
businesses to supplement their household income. Sources of income to farm -
households have greatly diversified, complicating questions of how the appropriate
level of farm income support should be calculated and how it should be delivered.
Also since World War II, the business of farming and food production has become
increasingly consolidated and industrialized. Average farm size continues to grow.
Con-tract production in poultry, hogs, and other commodities has become common.
Con-solidation is evident in the food processing, transportation, and trading sectors
of the agricultural economy. Consumer preferences in diet and food preparation have
changed dramatically. These and other developments have led to production
processes and busi-ness relationships resembling other industries more than the
traditional agrarian model of small independent producers — the model on which
earlier periods of farm policy have been based.
International trade issues have grown in importance over the last 50 years, as soaring
productivity of U.S. farms has created a need for additional outlets for U.S. goods, prefer-ably
in export markets. But these issues have gained increased significance in delibera-tions over
domestic farm policy in the last 15 years as new global and regional agreements have been
negotiated that require reduction in trade-distorting farm policies. Income support policies that
have been traditionally used since the 1930s are limited in this trade
environment because they can affect individual production decisions which in turn
can affect global commodity markets.
Equally challenging will be integrating the increasingly complex and changing goals of
environmental policy with agricultural policy. Conservation programs for agricul-ture began
primarily as efforts to combat soil erosion, an objective driven largely by

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concern for improving productivity. More recently, efforts have focused on a broader
array of issues — water and air quality, wildlife habitat, and open space and
landscape preservation — not driven by concern for agricultural production, although
they may offer such benefits. The goal, rather, has become controlling environmental
impacts beyond the farm.
These postwar developments seem likely to produce some marked changes in the
approach to farm policy, although they do not yet seem to have weakened public
support for some kind of direct assistance to farmers. The tradition of public support
for farmers has persisted through a long history of changing contexts and policy
responses — from access to land to access to education and research and from
marketing and information programs to income support programs.
All of these policies have been rooted in attempts to ensure opportunities for
individ-uals and families to make a living at farming, beginning with Federal land
policy. With its promise of virtually open access to land, the policy offered nearly
anyone the chance to become a farmer with a minimal investment. Each period since
has ushered in a new policy approach intended to help farmers improve their incomes
in the face of ever- increasing production. Current challenges facing farm
policymakers may test the strength of public support for the direct income support
programs typical of the last 70 years, and will surely require creativity in crafting
policies that function well in the new context of advanced structural change, global
trade constraints, and new environ-mental goals.
———————
Neither the United States nor its agricultural sector can be described in the terms espoused
by Jefferson. The number of commercially viable farms has decreased signifi-cantly over the
years. The number of U.S. farms peaked in 1935 at 6.8 million. The USDA estimates that -
there are now just over 2 million farms, even using a very broad definition of farm. A farm is
defined as “any place from which $1,000 of more of agricultural prod-ucts were sold or would
normally have been sold” during the year, including government payments. See, Robert A.
Hoppe, Structure and Finances of U.S. Farms: Family Farm Report 1, 7 USDA, ERS, Econ.
Inform. Bull. 132 (Dec. 2014).
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that employment from “agriculture, forestry,
fishing, and hunting” provided only 1.5 percent of U.S. jobs in 2012. The U.S. CIA world
employment statistics are even lower, estimating that the combined categories of “farm-ing
forestry and fishing” employ .7% of the U.S. population, one of the smallest percent-ages for
any country in the world. Moreover connections with agriculture have similarly
faded. The U.S. 2010 Census reported that 80.7 percent of the population lives in
urban areas.
Is there any role for agrarianism in defining U.S. agriculture today? Do
Jeffersonian ideals have any relevance to farm and food policy in a modern world?
Consider the fol-lowing thought-provoking excerpt discussing agrarianism in the
context of a model for citizenship.

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William P. Browne, Jerry R. Skees, Louis E. Swanson, Paul B.

Thompson, and Laurian J. Unnevehr, Sacred Cows and Hot
Potatoes: Agrarian Myths in Agricultural Policy
8–11 (1992)
Jefferson and Citizenship Ideals
It is useful to think of citizenship as a role that we prepare for, as an actor studies a script.
The founding fathers clearly believed that some people would be far better equipped than -
others for the part. A person’s ability to play the role of citizen hangs on having sympathy
with the part, on being able to motivate oneself to faithfully carry out the citizen’s
responsibilities. Performing as a citizen thus requires a certain kind of char-acter. Jefferson
argued that, in America, freeholding yeoman farmers would have that
character because their farming would make it obvious that the state’s ability to
protect their lands served personal interests. Because they could not remove
themselves (or their farms), they had to accept the need for resolving political
differences in ways that did not endanger the stability of the state. . . .
Jefferson notes that it is not the aristocrat but the common farmer who occupies
the land in America. His remarks start from the idea that landowners, unlike other
people, make a stronger identification between self-interest and the common good
and hence are more virtuous as citizens. A landed population is therefore less apt to
be tempted by short-term, unsustainable government policies. In America, however,
the land was owned by small yeoman farmers. Jefferson’s argument is a rationale for
aligning political power with a previously existing pattern of land holdings. In the
American context of the age, the argument favored democracy and undercut key
premises of the antidemocratic themes of the Federalists.
Jefferson’s statements about farms must be ready as part of his strategy to place
gov-ernment power in pursuit of the common good. Small farms were important to
Jefferso-nian democracy because they promised temporary relief from the threat of
mob rule. Jefferson knew that the structure of society would eventually change. But,
he hoped that, if it could be established on a democratic basis, new traditions would
emerge to serve the public good.
For Jefferson, farmers were valuable as citizens because they would be well placed to see
the convergence of personal interest and the public good. The idea of “public good” at work
here is the stability and fiscal responsibility of the society. The ability to understand the link
between public and private interest is a mark of citizenship.
....
Untold number of politicians and political commentators have quoted [Jefferson’s]
passages to bring forward the idea of a political duty to preserve and protect farms.
But Jefferson’s words are open to other interpretations. While they have a political
message of preserving the farm basis of the American economy, they also and more
aptly reconcile self-interest with the public good.
....

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B. Agrarianism and the Development of

U.S. Agricultural Law
Following up on the theme in Sacred Cows and Hot Potatoes, does agricultural
law represent a “convergence of personal interest and the public good”?
Professor Grace Skogstad from the University of Toronto explained that the idea of
agricultural exceptionalism in both the U.S. and the European Union was based on both
the specific interests and needs of farmers and upon the broader national interest in a
secure food supply.1 In this sense, the dual rationales, the interests of farmers and the
national interest, are reconciled by a support system of agricultural laws.
It seems that the “duty to preserve and protect farms” has been easier to translate
into specific farm policy goals than the “reconciliation of self interest and the public
good.” Over the years, the agrarian ideal, in the form of support for the family farm
has been used to justify a wide range of political support. As agricultural economist
Don Paarlberg wrote, “[f]armers were considered uniquely worthy.”
Since farmers were unique, the country set up a group of unique institutions
to serve them: a Department of Agriculture, a Homestead Act, a land grant
col-lege system, a network of Agricultural Experiment Stations, an
Agricultural Extension Service, a Rural Electrification Administration, and a
Bureau of Rec-lamation. Farmers were given preferred access to land and -
water. We voted price and income supports for farmers, but not for
automobile manufacturers or hard-ware merchants.2
The notion that farmers are diferent and that family farms are worthy of special
treat-ment permeates the law.
“Agricultural exceptionalism,” i.e., the use of legal exceptions to protect the agri-
cultural industry, is pervasive. This term is often used to reference its American
origins in labor law, where agricultural laborers are excluded from many of the
protections afforded to other workers.3 However the concept is evident through-out
the law, with farmers protected from involuntary bankruptcy, 4 exempted from many
environmental regulations,5 and excepted from anti-trust restric-

1. See, Grace Skogstad, Ideas, Paradigms and Institutions: Agricultural Exceptionalism in the
Euro pean Union and the United States, 11 Governance 463, 468 (1998).
2. Don Paarlberg, Farm and Food Policies: Issues of the 1980s, 6 (1980).
3. The most notable current exceptions are that “agricultural laborers” are excluded the defini-
tion of “employee” for purposes of protection under the federal National Labor Relations Act, 29
U.S.C. § 152(3) (2006); and “any employee employed in agriculture” is exempt from the over-
time pay requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(12) (2006) . A limited
exclusion for minimum wage protection still exists under the Fair Labor Standards Act; previously
agricultural workers were completely excepted. 29 U.S.C. § 213(a)(6) (2006). See, Farm Workers
and the Fair Labor Standards Act: Racial Discrimination in the New Deal, 65 Tex. L. Rev. 1335
(1987).
4. 11 U.S.C. § 303(a) (2006).
5. See, J.B. Ruhl, Farms, Their Environmental Harms, and Environmental Law, 27 Ecology L.
Q. 263, 293–327 (2000) (describing the “active and passive safe harbors farms enjoy” under
environ-mental law).

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tions.6 The first use of the term is often credited to international trade
scholar-ship, where special exceptions also are evident in other countries.7
Other laws, most notably the federal farm programs provide unique benefits for
farmers, paying billions of dollars to farmers who produce certain favored
crops.8 Additional specialized laws include the federally subsidized system of
crop insurance,9 the special use valuation afforded to farmers for estate planning
purposes,10 the farm loan programs provided to farmers who cannot obtain
credit elsewhere,11 and Chapter 12 of the Bankruptcy Code, a powerful tool
available only to “family farmers.”12 Of all industries, only agriculture has its
own cabinet department, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).13
Admittedly, there are justifications beyond agrarianism that support the unique
treat-ment of agriculture under the law. However, support for the family farm is often
the political attraction. The authors of Sacred Cows and Hot Potatoes express concern
about the misuse of agrarianism in public policy development.
It is far from obvious how mythic values ought to be accommodated in policy. The
farms of the agrarian ideal form a part of their cultural heritage for many Americans.
The agrarian myths may be vitally important to our feeling of com-munity and
common purpose, and a failure to address them seriously could haunt society’s
attempts to address agricultural policy. As it stands, they are con-
tested symbols, vague images of how agriculture ought to be, or once was.
Their lack of specificity means that competing political interests can easily
appropriate them.
When farm policy advocates say that farming is a way of life worthy of
public support, they draw upon an image of farming from times past. But
how mis-leading is their claim?14
Does an agrarian ideal advocate for a certain model of behavior or simply elevate one
occupation over others, rendering it worthy of special treatment? For a particularly critical

6. 7 U.S.C. § 291 (2006).

7. Grace Skogstad, Ideas, Paradigms and Institutions: Agricultural Exceptionalism in the
European Union and the United States, 11 Governance 463, 468 (1998) (explaining that
agricultural excep-tionalism is based both on the specific interests and needs of farmers and upon
the broader national interest in a secure food supply).
8. 7U.S.C. ch.113 — Agricultural Commodity Support Programs, §§ 8701–8793; See,
Environ-mental Working Group Farm Subsidy Database Update,
http://farm.ewg.org/farm/summary.php/. For a review of the history of the federal farm programs,
see Allen H. Olson, Federal Farm Pro-grams — Past, Present And Future — Will We Learn From
Our Mistakes?, 6 Great Plains Nat. Re-sources J. 1 (2001).
9. 7 U.S.C. ch. 36, subch. I, The Federal Crop Insurance Act, §§ 1501–1524 (2006).
10. 26 U.S.C. § 2032A (2006).
11. 7U.S.C. ch.50, Agricultural Credit, §§ 1921–1949 (2006).
12. 11 U.S.C. § 109(f) (2006).
13. SusanA. Schneider, A Reconsideration of Agricultural Law: A Call for the Law of Food,
Farm-ing, and Sustainability, 34 Wm & Mary Envt. L. Rev. 935 (2010).
14. William P. Browne, Jerry R. Skees, Louis E. Swanson, Paul B. Thompson, and Laurian J.
Unnevehr, Agrarianism, Myth, and Public Policy, in Sacred Cows and Hot Potatoes: Agrarian
Myths in Agricultural Policy 13–15 (1992).

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look at agrarianism and its historical impact on farm policy, consider law professor
and scholar Jim Chen’s analysis.
Industrial conquest of production agriculture cannot come soon enough. The entire
body of agrarian rhetoric touting the unproven virtues of the farming class exhibits
nearly no sense of irony about the profoundly antidemocratic and antimeritocratic
elements of the American agricultural tradition. American ag-ricultural law, fully
and properly defined, began with the 1787 Constitution’s acquiescence in the
peculiar agrarian institution called slavery. Today, virtually
every law regulating the terms by which farmland may be owned and restricting
the types of business entities that may engage in farming may be distilled into
the spirit of family farm preservation. What the Midwestern states’ corporate
farming statutes merely imply, the related battery of statutes banning alien
ownership of farmland blatantly articulates: No newcomers, domestic or for-
eign, need apply. New capital, new farmers, new ideas-nothing alien to the
farming tradition as incumbent landowners know it need apply for entry into
American agricultural markets. Early Supreme Court decisions upholding state-
law restrictions on alien involvement in farming all involved Japanese immi-
grants on the West Coast. In every case, the Japanese immigrant sought merely
to farm as a tenant, not to acquire strategically valuable farmland. These statutes
and decisions reflected the racial consciousness of the day, which was embodied
in race-based limitations on eligibility for America citizenship and which would
eventually subject the Isei and Nisei to a sort of legal mistreatment that tran-
scended the initial denial of freedom to farm-involuntary wartime internment.
Against this backdrop, agrarian arrogance reaches its apogee when farm
advocates speak of their preferred lifestyles as though they were inalienable
entitlements, undeniably worthy of positive legal protection and transcendently
shielded by the moral imperatives of natural law.15
A far more sympathetic discussion of the special treatment of agriculture under the law is
provided by Professor Don Pedersen in his introductory article to an agricultural law
symposium issue published by U.C. Davis Law Review in 1990. In addition to the impact
of “the agrarian tradition, viewed as myth or reality,” three other factors support the
sepa-rate legal treatment of agriculture.
First there is the land. No other industry in the United States makes as
extensive use of the land resource as agriculture does. . . .
Second, biological cycles govern production agriculture. Thus, programs and laws
suited to other industries often cannot adequately facilitate or regulate pro-duction
agriculture. Seasonal patterns, rather than supply and demand dictates of the
marketplace, govern many decisions and transactions. . . . .
Third, even in the contemporary era of fewer and larger farms and advancing vertical
integration, agricultural production is still largely atomistic. Many pro-ducers, few of
whom have any real control over prices paid for inputs or prices received for
commodities characterize production agriculture. Add to this the periodic boom and
bust cycles, and we begin to see the impetus for federal farm

15. Jim Chen, The American Ideology, 48 Vand. L. Rev. 809, 827–28 (1995).

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programs, marketing orders, special trade practices regulation, unique credit

in-stitutions, and favorable treatment of agricultural cooperatives.16
Another factor that is implicit, but sometimes forgotten in the discussion of legal
sup-port for agriculture, is the production of food.
What justifies any special treatment for an industry that is increasingly an
industrialized and financially powerful sector of the business economy? One
word sets the stage for the future of agricultural law as a mature legal
discipline — food.
The need for food is the most rational basis for agricultural law as a unique dis-
cipline. Food, as the most basic of human needs provides a compelling justifica-
tion for a legal system that nurtures and guides its agricultural sector. A primary
role of government is the assurance that its people have sufficient food. Agricul-
tural law scholar Neil Hamilton referred to this as, “the fundamental nature of the
production of food to human existence” and identified it as one of the pri-mary
reasons for the origins of agricultural law as a special discipline.17
This food-based agricultural law, however, cannot be driven solely by protec-tionism
or exceptionalism, and it cannot be focused solely on assuring the eco-nomic vitality
of the agricultural industry. A return to the agrarianism that reconciles the self
interest of farmers with the public good of society should be the hallmark of the new
food-based agriculture. Three unique attributes involved in agricultural production
are themselves areas of significant public interest. These unique attributes, reflecting
the public’s interest in agricultural production should frame the outline of the new
food-focused agricultural law.
First, agricultural production is the primary way that we obtain food — a
prod-uct that is essential to human health and survival. Both farmers and the
public at large have a fundamental interest in the production of healthy
foods, in policies that assure the safety of those foods, and in the ready
availability of healthy foods to all segments of society.
Second, agricultural production involves the production of living things, evok-ing
ecological and moral issues that are completely diferent than the produc-
tion of inanimate products. That these products are the food we eat
accentuates this imperative.
Third, agricultural production is heavily dependent upon the natural world and
its resources — in particular, land and water, and it has been both a
significant consumer of natural resources and a significant source of
environmental degra-dation. Moreover, it remains heavily dependent on
human resources, resources that in the past have often not been adequately
respected. Each of these attri-butes makes agriculture a unique industry, and
each reflects an important soci-etal concern.
These fundamental attributes provide policymakers with a new framework for
analysis. The new agricultural law should be a system of agricultural laws and

16. DonaldB. Pedersen, Introduction, 23 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 401, 405–409 (1990).
17. NeilD. Hamilton, The Study of Agricultural Law in the United States: Education, Organiza-
tion and Practice, 43 Ark. L. Rev. 503, 504 (1990).

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policies that promote an agricultural sector that produces healthy food in a

sus-tainable manner. This requires a balancing of the needs of farmers with
the needs of consumers, all within the context of protecting both the social
fabric of society and the environment.18
The development of agricultural laws and overall farm policy have traditionally
been left tothose involved in the industry. Farm commodity groups have lobbied for
farm bill provisions that favored their specific producers, advocacy groups such as
the Farm Bureau or the Farmers Union have represented their membership on issues
of agricul-tural policy at the state and federal levels. Agricultural economists at land
grant institu-tions and at USDA have analyzed policy through an economic lens with
a clear mission of increasing production, lowering the cost of production and
improving the farm bal-ance sheet.
In recent years, however, a variety of voices outside of the agricultural industry
have increasingly sought a place at the table in agricultural policy debates. These
voices have often been highly critical of not only agricultural policies but food
policies as well. Con-sider the call for a “National Food Policy” that was authored by
several prominent fig-ures, and published as an editorial in the Washington Post.
How we produce and consume food has a bigger impact on Americans’
well- being than any other human activity. The food industry is the largest
sector of our economy; food touches everything from our health to the
environment, cli-mate change, economic inequality and the federal budget.
Yet we have no food policy — no plan or agreed-upon principles — for
managing American agricul-ture or the food system as a whole.
That must change.
The food system and the diet it’s created have caused incalculable damage to the
health of our people and our land, water and air. If a foreign power were to do such
harm, we’d regard it as a threat to national security, if not an act of war, and the
government would formulate a comprehensive plan and marshal resources to combat
it. (The administration even named an Ebola czar to respond to a disease that
threatens few Americans.) So when hundreds of thousands of an-nual deaths are
preventable — as the deaths from the chronic diseases linked to
the modern American way of eating surely are — preventing those needless
deaths is a national priority.
The editorial makes a passionate plea for policies that will address the following goals:
• All Americans have access to healthful food;
• Farm policies are designed to support our public health and environmental
objectives;
• Our food supply is free of toxic bacteria, chemicals and drugs;
• Production and marketing of our food are done transparently;
• The food industry pays a fair wage to those it employs;
• Food marketing sets children up for healthful lives by instilling in them a habit
of eating real food;

18. SusanA. Schneider, A Reconsideration of Agricultural Law: A Call for the Law of Food,
Farm-ing, and Sustainability, 34 Wm & Mary Envt. L. Rev. 935, 947 (2010).

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• Animals are treated with compassion and attention to their well-being;

• The food system’s carbon footprint is reduced, and the amount of carbon
seques-tered on farmland is increased;
• The food system is sufficiently resilient to withstand the effects of climate change 19.
Agricultural law under these goals would be focused on the public good, indeed, rec-
onciling the private interests of those in the industry with the public good of society. The
agrarian myth and any “special treatment” for farmers is conspicuously absent. But, is it
assumed? The goals seek to ensure that “[a]ll Americans have access to healthful food”
but little is said about the welfare of those who will produce it. How can these goals
be realized? What type of “agricultural law” is envisioned?
Those who support the change that the authors call for are likely to find support for farmers
to be an inherent part of the proposal, with support incentivizing the type of farming that
meets the stated environmental and social goals. Those who do not support such change are
likely to argue that economic realities are missing from the analysis. The
cost of production will be far too high. But, how do we factor environmental harms
and human health problems into an economic analysis of our food system?

C. Industrialization of Agricultural Production

The most recent U.S. Census of Agriculture reports that most agricultural
production occurs on large commercial farms that employ an industrialized model of
production. This model focuses on both economies of scale and upon the application
of an industrial manufacturing model to an agricultural setting. Industrialized farming
seeks to capture increased profitability through the standard incidents of the industrial
model: reliance upon technology, the large scale production of a specialized product,
and vertical inte-gration, i.e., the control of the product from beginning to end
through ownership and/or through contract.
Agricultural Economists Michael Boehlje and Otto Doering from Purdue
described industrialization as follows:
Industrialization of agriculture means the movement to larger scale production
units that use standardized technology/management and are linked to the pro
cessor by either formal or informal arrangements. Size and standardization are
important characteristics in lowering production costs and in producing prod-
ucts that fit processor specifications and meet consumers’ needs for specific
product attributes, as well as food safety concerns. Smaller operations not asso-
ciated with an industrialized system will have increasing difficulty gaining the
economies of size and the access to technology required to be competitive, ex-
cept perhaps in niche markets. Access to input and product markets will be es-
pecially critical. . . . Technological advances, combined with continued pressures
to control assets and improve quality, are expected to provide incentives for fur-
ther industrialization of the industry.20

19. Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan, Ricardo Salvador and Olivier De Schutter, How A National
Food Policy Could Save Millions Of American Lives, Wash. Post. (Nov. 7, 2014).
20. Michael Boehlje and Otto Doering, Farm Policy in an Industrialized Agriculture, 18
Journal of Agribusiness, 53 (Special Issue March 2000).

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The main goal of industrialized agriculture is increased productivity at reduced cost per
unit produced. In this regard, American agriculture has been unparalleled in its success.
Gains in productivity have been a driving force for growth in U.S.
agriculture. The effects of these changes over the second half of the 20th
century were dra-matic: between 1950 and 2000, the average amount of milk
produced per cow increased from 5,314 pounds to 18,201 pounds per year,
the average yield of corn rose from 39 bushels to 153 bushels per acre, and
each farmer in 2000 produced on average 12 times as much farm output per
hour worked as a farmer did in 1950. . . .
There are many reasons for the impressive improvements in U.S. agriculture in the
late 20th century. The greater use of agricultural inputs, such as more fertil-izer and
more machinery per acre of land, was one reason. But yield was also increased
through the development of new technology, which made inputs more effective or
allowed inputs to be combined in new and better ways. . . .
Although the use of some inputs like fertilizer and machinery increased, these
increases were more than offset by reductions in cropland and especially the amount
of labor employed in agriculture. Overall, the amount of crop and ani-mal output
produced per unit of (aggregate) input . . . increased 2.70 times. . . .
Productivity growth in agriculture allows farm commodities to be grown and
harvested more cheaply. This benefits not only farmers but also food and textile
manufacturers and consumers. Most of these cost reductions are passed on to the
nonfarm economy as lower commodity prices. . . . From 1948 to 2004, the prices paid
for farm inputs rose at roughly the same rate as general producer price inflation.
Prices of farm commodities, on the other hand, doubled in the 1970s but hardly
changed at all afterward. . . . Productivity growth allowed more output to be produced
from the same amount of inputs, reducing the average cost of production. The gains
in productivity largely benefited agricultural pro cessors and consumers in the form
of lower real prices. Productivity growth in agriculture is a key reason why, on
average, the American consumer spends a small and declining share of family income
on food.
Agriculture is more dependent on improvements in technology as a source of
growth than the rest of the economy. . . . Although the long run rate of growth in
agricultural output was fairly steady from 1948 through 2004, the nature of that
growth has shifted in important ways. In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, labor was
exiting agriculture very quickly (falling by almost 4 percent per year), and the
increased use of non-labor inputs, such as new machinery and improved
chemicals, helped to substitute for the loss of farm labor. This substitution was
reflected in rising amounts of cropland, machinery, and other inputs employed
per farmworker. The rising cost of labor relative to other inputs encouraged
farmers to adopt technologies and farming methods that saved on labor and used
more non-labor inputs instead. In more recent decades, however, there was a shift
to new technologies that saved non-labor inputs as well as labor, even as output
continued to expand.21

21. Keith O. Fuglie, James M. MacDonald, and Eldon Ball, Productivity Growth in U.S.
Agricul-ture, 1-2, USDA, ERS, Econ. Brief No. 9 (Sept. 2007).

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1. The Large Scale Production of a Specialized Product

The most obvious component of an industrialized model of agriculture is the large
scale production of a specialized product, a direct analogy to an industrialized
manufac-turing system.
Fifty years ago, most farms, in particular those in the Midwest, were diversified in terms of
their production. They were likely to produce several diferent types of livestock and grow a
variety of diferent crops. The crops that were grown on each tract were rotated each year, often
with a 4-year rotation that included pasture rotation. In contrast, an industrialized farm focuses
on the economies of scale and the efficiencies of special-izing in one or two related products,
producing those products on a very large scale.
Industrialization in this context may mean that a farmer may only grow one or two
crops, such as raising strictly corn and soybeans. Such a system allows for the
efficient distribution of the costs of specialized technology, such as advanced
equipment designed specifically for that type of production. The larger the acreage
farmed, the greater effi-ciency, at least in terms of the use of that equipment. A farm
focused on specialized row crop production may not have any livestock at all.
Specialized livestock farms are likely to raise only one species of animal, or perhaps only
one life cycle of that species, and to raise a very large number of them in specialized
confinement structures. See subsection 4, Industrialized Animal Production, infra.

2. Improved Agricultural Production Through Technology

Technology, defined as the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes
includes both information and inventions. In agricultural production, it includes tech-
niques derived from scientific study such as integrated pest management or soil building
techniques to promote resilience. In this way, a “[t]echnological advancement [can be]
broadly defined as any positive change in the way goods and services are produced.”22
Thus, all agricultural production depends on technology of various types, and
most farmers are anxious to discover new ways to improve their production. The use
of tech-nology is thus not limited in applicability to the industrial model of
agriculture. Indeed, many who criticize industrialized agriculture support a
“technologically progressive” model of diversified family farming.23
However, the rapid adoption of new technologies, particularly new inventions is one of the
hallmarks of industrialization. Capital, spent on technology, replaces labor and allows for
greater expansion. In this context, agricultural technology includes chemical pesticides and
fertilizers; genetic manipulation through both traditional breeding and genetic engineering;
drugs to stimulate livestock growth, control disease, or alter physical characteristics;
information technology and the use of the data produced; as well as the full range of advanced
machinery and equipment. These types of technology offer the opportunity to increase
production and to reduce per unit production costs.

22. Agricultural Productivity: An Engine of Development, 6 in 21st Century Agriculture: A

Critical Role for Science and Technology, USDA, Foreign Agric. Serv. (2003).
23. See, Marty Strange, Family Farming: A New Economic Vision, 32–35 (1988).

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The lowering of the cost of production for large industrialized farms and the increased
product on the market puts pressure on all farms to adopt the new technology. Farms expand
in size to spread the cost over increased acreage. The connection between tech-nology, the
reduced cost of production, and an increase in farm size has been termed the “technology
treadmill,” and it was first described in 1958 by Professor Willard Cochrane.
[F]armers constantly strive to improve their incomes by adopting new
technol-ogies. ‘Early adopters’ make profits for a short while because of
their lower unit production costs. As more farmers adopt the technology,
however, production goes up, prices go down, and profits are no longer
possible even with the lower production costs. Average farmers are
nonetheless forced by lower product prices to adopt the technology and
lower their production costs if they are to survive at all. The ‘laggard”
farmers who do not adopt new technologies are lost in the price squeeze and
leave room for their more successful neighbors to expand.24
New technology is dependent upon research and development funding. Who pro-vides this
funding and how it is directed influences what new technologies are developed and who they
are designed to benefit. In the past, publicly funded land grant institutions
were responsible for much of this development. However, multinational corporations
now lead the effort. This not only affects the technology developed for U.S. markets,
it has worldwide significance.
With public investment lagging, multi-national corporations — Monsanto, Pio-
neer, and Dow Chemical, to name a few — have lured many of the most talented
scientists to their private laboratories, which are better equipped and better
funded than national and international research stations, particularly those in
international countries. . . . The research now primarily pays off for large com-
mercial farms. Public research tends to cast its benefits more widely, including to
many traditional farmers, which it allows to make small but significant im-
provements such as adding nutrients to the soil or replacing draft animals with
mechanical tillage. Together, diminished investments in agricultural research and
the shift of the research from the public sector to the private sector have
redirected the benefits to large, already successful commercial farmers. 25

24. Richard A. Levins and Willard W. Cochrane, The Treadmill Revisited, 72 Land Econ. 550
(1996). The Treadmill Revisited article updates the original technology treadmill theory and applies it to
land ownership patterns, demonstrating increased land consolidation and increased ownership by
those who do not farm the land.
The treadmill as presented here shows how cost-reducing technology, government pay-ments
to support farmers, and a free market for a fixed amount of farmland work to keep farmers
chasing an unattainable goal of higher lasting profits. Early adopters of technology
may gain for a short while, but the long-term benefits go to landowners. There
landowners need not be farmers; in fact, we have shown how the treadmill creates
incentives for people to leave farming and become landowners.
Richard A. Levins and Willard W. Cochrane, The Treadmill Revisited, 72 Land Econ. 550 (1996).
Government payments to landowners under the federal farm programs have also been associated
with the consolidation of farmland ownership and with absentee landowners. These programs are
presented infra, in Chapter II, Economic Support to Agriculture.
25. Carlisle Ford Runge and Carlisle Piehl Runge, Against the Grain: Why Failing to Complete the
Green Revolution Could Bring the Next Famine, 89 Foreign Affairs 8, 12 (Jan./Feb. 2010).

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Thus, in a circular fashion, the commercial developers of technology are most inclined to
seek to serve the large industrial farm market as their most profitable clientele, increas-ing
their economic advantage over smaller, more diversified operations.

3. Vertical Integration
The third attribute associated with industrialized agriculture is vertical integration,
i.e., the control of the stages of production by a single entity. While some use the
term “industrialized agriculture” to refer generically to large farms that focus on
specialized production of one or two products, vertical integration is an important
part of the techni-cal definition of industrialization. It reflects the economic
advantages presented by estab-lishing as much control as possible over all stages of
production, including the supply of raw materials.
Vertical integration would accurately describe a farm that adopted a valued-added strategy
to process the goods produced on the farm and sell them at retail level, retaining control and
profits throughout. It is more often associated, however, with the industrial-ized model of
production and the ability of a large corporate food processor and/or retailer (an integrator) to
control the production process back to the farm level.
Processor control of production can be completely maintained by a processor that
grows its own crops or livestock directly. This is not usually the case— and it is an
inter esting observation that processors do not often take this approach.
Processors most often contract for production with farmers (producers). Control
over production can be maintained through “marketing contracts.” For example, a
processor can contract with a producer for the delivery of a set amount of specifically
proscribed goods, e.g., peas to Green Giant, seed corn to Pioneer Seed Co., hogs to
Smithfield, and the like.
“Production contracts” provide additional control as the processor contracts not only for
the delivery of a specified product but also dictates how the product will be produced.
Under a typical production contract, the contract will control all aspects of
production, and the integrator may well own the product throughout the process
This is most easily illustrated by the complete vertical integration of much of the
poul-try industry. The company that processes and sells chicken and chicken products
on the retail market most often owns the chickens on the farm where they are raised,
with the “farmer” responsible only for providing care according to industry and
contract standards.
The range of integration is illustrated in this review of livestock production.
Vertical integration in the meat industry exists in two forms. In “pure” vertical
integration, the integrator owns its animals and grows them itself. More com-monly,
integrators enter into contracts with growers who raise the animals for
them. There are two forms of such contracts: production contracts and market-ing
contracts. Under production contracts, growers raise animals owned by the
integrators. The growers are paid based on how efficiently they use feed (which the
integrator provides) to raise the animals. Production contracts usually con-tain
detailed conditions to which the growers must adhere. Integrators using such
contracts often require that facilities be constructed to their specifications. The
contracts tell growers how to feed, house, and medicate the animals, how to

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handle manure, and how to dispose of carcasses.26 Under marketing

contracts, growers agree in advance to sell their animals to integrators under
an agreed price system.27 Both production and marketing contracts
commonly contain language purporting to shield the integrator from liability
for the grower’s ac-tions.28 Contracts are sometimes form contracts in which
the only negotiable term is price.29
Vertical integration allows a manufacturer a variety of economic advantages that
allow for greater profitability — greater control over the supply of the initial product,
greater control over the characteristics of the product, enhanced market control over
the price paid for the product, protection for intellectual property and trade secrets
associated with production, and in some cases, a contractual shield for liability for
environmental damage. On the producer’s side, they have expert production advice
and at least a contract-to-contract market guarantee. Note, however that there may be
risks for the producer who has little control over either the contracting relationship or
the production process. For producers of livestock under contract, they will also have
the risk associated with a significant financial investment in specialized facilities. See
Chapter VII, infra, Livestock Production & Marketing.

4. Industrialization in Animal Agriculture

The industrialized model is most pronounced and most controversial in the animal
agriculture sector. The USDA Economic Research Service analyzed the changes in
this sector in its report, The Transformation of U.S. Livestock Agriculture.
Livestock agriculture has undergone a series of striking transformations. Pro-
duction is more specialized — farms usually confine and feed a single species of
animal, often with feed that has been purchased rather than grown onsite, and they
typically specialize in specific stages of animal production. Today’s livestock farms
tend to be tightly linked to other stages of production and processing through formal
contracts. While the farms are usually owned and operated by a family, they rely
increasingly on hired labor. And the farms that account for most production are
much larger than they were in the past.

26. See Neil D. Hamilton, A Farmer’s Legal Guide to Production Contracts (1995). See
also Farmers’ Legal Action Group, Inc., Assessing the Impact of Integrator Practices on Contract
Poultry Growers, Sept. 2001, 3-3 to 3-18 (description and analysis of terms in two sample contracts).
27. See Tom Harkin, Economic Concentration and Structural Change in the Food and
Agriculture Sector: Trends, Consequences and Policy Options 12 (2004). Production contracts are
more common in the poultry sector, while marketing contracts are more common for
cattle and hogs.
28. For example, a clause in Farmland marketing contract that has been used in Iowa provides
that: “[I]t is understood and agreed by the parties that this Agreement does not create a fiduciary re-
lationship between them, that the producer is an independent contractor, and that nothing in this
Agreement is intended to constitute either party an agent, legal representative, subsidiary, joint ven-
turer, partner, employee, employer, joint employer, enterprise or servant of the other for any
purpose whatsoever . . . nor shall Farmland be deemed liable by reason of any act or omission of
producer in the conduct of its business pursuant to this Agreement, or for any claim or judgment
arising there from.”
29. Paul Stokstad, Enforcing Environmental Law in an Unequal Market: The Case of Concentrated
Animal Feeding Operations, 15 Mo. Envtl. L. & Pol’y Rev. 229, 234–36 (Spring 2008).

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Strong financial pressures have driven the industrialization of U.S. livestock

farms. Larger operations are able to realize lower costs and higher returns, while
tighter coordination among farms at diferent processing stages can reduce fi-
nancial risks. But growing to a more efficient scale also concentrates livestock in
a limited area, and excess concentrations of manure-based nutrients can lead to
increased air and water pollution. Large operations are also more prone to use
antibiotics intensively in order to preempt the spread of animal disease and to
accelerate animal growth. Extensive antibiotic use in livestock raises concerns
about increased pathogen resistance and related risks to human health. . . . 30
Poultry production provides the clearest example of vertical integration in an indus-
trialized model, with all aspects of production controlled by the ultimate processor.
Firms called integrators own hatcheries, processing plants, and feed mills. Integra-
tors then contract with farmers to “grow out” broiler chicks to market weight, and to
produce replacement breeder hens for hatcheries. Under a production con-tract, the
integrator provides the farmer/grower with chicks, feed, and veterinary and
transportation services, while the farmer provides labor, capital in the form of
housing and equipment, and utilities. The birds are sent to slaughter after 5–9 weeks
on the farm, and the farmer is paid for the growing services provided.
The organizational innovations developed in broiler production have been adopted in
other commodities, but the methods of grower compensation re-main distinctive.
Growers receive a base payment for each flock of birds and an incentive. The
incentive payment depends on the grower’s performance, relative to other growers
delivering birds to the integrator during the same period.
Those growers who can convert feed to meat more efficiently, while having
fewer birds die, realize higher payments.
While contracts in other commodities may specify incentive payments, they are set
against fixed standards and not relative performance. The industry’s current form
developed during the 1950s and 1960s as integrators devised grow-out contracts,
built production complexes, and developed breeding flocks. Early grow-out farms
weren’t very large, but that changed. In 1959, farms producing
at least 100,000 broilers in a year accounted for 28.5 percent of production.
That share doubled by 1969 and continued to grow rapidly until the 1990s.
Today, hardly any commercial growers produce fewer than 100,000 broilers
in a year. The industry’s basic organization remains unchanged, but
production continues to shift to larger operations, from a production locus of
300,000 broilers in 1987 to 520,000 in 2002 and 600,000 by 2006.
Id., at 6–7. Under this and other vertically integrated models, “[p]roducers are increas-ingly
paid for the services that they provide, and not for the products that they sell.” Id. at
1. Poultry contracting will be specifically addressed in Chapter VII, Livestock
Production & Marketing.
Changes in the hog industry as described below illustrate the adoption of the industri-
alized model in pork production. Note that the dairy industry shows similar patterns of
consolidation and the industrialization, although vertical integration is not as common.

30. James M. MacDonald & William D. McBride, The Transformation of U.S. Livestock
Agricul-ture: Scale, Efficiency, and Risks, iii, USDA, ERS, EIB No. 43 (Jan. 2009).

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Nigel Key and William D. McBride

Technology, Larger Farm Size Increased
Productivity on U.S. Hog Farms
USDA, Economic Research Service, Amber Waves (April 2008)
Today’s hog sector bears little resemblance to the one that existed 15 years ago.
There are fewer hog farms, and the average number of hogs per farm has increased
substan-tially. Most production occurs under contracts with processors.

Technological innovation and shifts to larger, more specialized hog

operations have led to increases in productivity, reduced production costs,
and lower hog prices.

Under those arrangements, processors supply feed, feeder pigs, and veterinary ser
vices to growers who receive a fee for providing the capital, utilities, and labor used
to grow the hogs to market weight. Production contracts encourage individual
producers to specialize in a single phase of production rather than combining all
phases on one hog farm, as in the traditional farrow-to-finish approach. The past 15
years have also seen substantial geographical movement of production into States
outside of the Corn Belt, especially North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Utah.
The structural transformation of the hog sector has been driven in part by technologi-cal
advances in livestock genetics, nutrition, housing and handling equipment, veteri-nary and
medical services, and management. These changes have contributed to large increases in hog--
farm productivity, which have exerted downward pressure on hog and pork prices. As the
industry has changed, hog producers have adjusted the size, orga nizational structure, and
technological base of their operations to remain competitive. Recent ERS research combines
information from surveys of hog producers at three points in time to document how the hog
sector changed between 1992 and 2004 and to measure the level and sources of the hog-farm
productivity gains.

Industry Scale and Specialization Increasing

Although the number of farms with hogs dropped over 70 percent from more than
240,000 in 1992 to fewer than 70,000 in 2004, the U.S. hog inventory remained
stable at about 60 million head. Thus, hog production consolidated considerably
during this period as fewer and larger farms accounted for an increasing share of total
output. Although this is not unusual for U.S. livestock production, consolidation in
hog produc-tion was among the most rapid of all livestock types.
The average size of U.S. hog operations grew from 945 head in 1992 to 4,646 head in
2004. The share of the hog inventory on operations with 2,000 or more head increased from
less than 30 percent to nearly 80 percent, with operations having 5,000 or more
head accounting for more than 50 percent of the hog inventory by 2004.
Traditionally, individual hog farms, known as farrow-to-finish operations, managed all
phases of hog production from breeding to slaughter. Today, farrow-to-finish opera-tions have
given way to large operations that specialize in one of the three major life- cycle phases of
production: farrow-to-wean, wean-to-feeder pig, or feeder pig-to-finish.

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In 1992, 65 percent of hogs came from farrow-to-finish operations, while only 22 percent
came from specialized hog-finishing operations. By 2004, only 18 percent came from farrow--
to-finish operations, while 77 percent came from specialized hog finishers.
Changes in scale and specialization have been made possible, in part, by substantial growth
in the use of production contracts. Hog operations with production contracts
grew from 5 percent of operations in 1992 to 67 percent in 2004. Production contracts gov-ern
the relationship between hog growers and owners (“integrators” or “contractors”), specifying
the inputs provided by each party and their compensation. Because contrac-tors typically
provide feeder pigs and feed to growers and handle the marketing, such an arrangement
facilitates growers’ specialization in one phase of production.
The increasing use of production contracts has also promoted farmers’
specialization in the hog enterprise. Because contractors supply feed from off-farm
sources to their growers, individual growers can use their time and financial
resources to increase the scale of hog operations rather than expand crop acreage to
produce feed. Between 1992 and 2004, hog production as a share of the total
production value on hog farms increased from 46 to 71 percent. At the same time,
hog farms grew a smaller share of their hog feed: the share of grain produced on their
farms for hog feed fell from about half to below 20percent.

Farm Productivity Gains Mean Lower Production Costs

Hog farms, particularly the specialized feeder pig-to-finish operations that are more likely
to use production contracts, showed large increases in productivity between 1992 and 2004.
The average quantity of feed required per hundredweight gain declined
44 percent for feeder pig-to-finish operations, and the average quantity of labor used
fell 83percent.
Farrow-to-finish operations exhibited smaller productivity gains than feeder pig-to- finish
operations. For farrow-to-finish operations, the average quantity of feed required
per hundredweight of gain declined by only 15 percent over the period, while the average
quantity of labor used per hundredweight declined by 52 percent. The stronger produc-tivity
growth of feeder pig-to-finish operations, compared with farrow-to-finish opera-tions, helps
account for the growth in their share of finished hog output.
Productivity gains contributed to a decline in production costs between 1992 and
2004. For all farrow-to-finish hog producers, average production costs (in 2004 dol-
lars) per hundredweight of gain were 28 percent lower in 2004 than in 1992. This
change amounts to a 2.7-percent average annual rate of decline. Real costs declined
faster for feeder pig-to-finish hog producers, falling 44 percent between 1992 and
2004, or 4.7 percent annually.
Structural change in the U.S. hog industry is the outcome of economic competition to
increase farm productivity and lower production costs. If larger operations are more profitable
than smaller ones, competitive pressures may be expected to result in a larger average farm size
in the long run. Similarly, operations that are first to adopt a cost- saving technology, are in
regions with lower input costs, or are closer to markets have a competitive advantage that
makes them more likely to survive and grow. Business rela-tionships between growers and
processors also evolve to reflect productivity gains from increased specialization of the various
phases of hog production on separate operations.
———————

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Data from the 2012 Agricultural Census confirms the continued concentration of hog
production on large industrialized farms. Hog and pig sales in 2012 totaled $4.4 billion,
up 24.6 percent from the last census in 2007. However, “[e]ven as the value of sales went up,
the number of farms with hog and pig sales declined by 25 percent. . . . Farms special-
izing in hog production (that is, farms with more than 50 percent of their income coming from
hog and pig farming) declined even more.” The number of these farms decreased by 29 -
percent. In 2007, there were 74,789 U.S. farms that reported hog sales. In 2012, there
were 55,882 such farms. The bottom line — more hogs on fewer, larger, specialized farms.
Increasingly, these hog farms were part of a vertically integrated industry. Forty-four
percent of farms raising hogs did so under contract with an integrated corporation;
con-tractor owned farms accounted for 10 percent of hog farms.31

5. Unanticipated Costs
While the increased productivity associated with industrialized agricultural
produc-tion is well established, many question whether the cost of this method of
production is accurately assessed.32
The most obvious omission from the per unit economic calculation is environmental
degradation. Externalities such as pollution impose costs on others without being fac-tored
into the economic model or the decision making of the industry. These costs are eventually
borne by others, primarily the taxpayer. Industrialized animal operations and the tremendous
amount of concentrated waste produced have been associated with water pollution and air
pollution, with costs spread throughout the community and not fac-tored into the cost of
production. See, e.g., infra, Chapter III, Section C.2, The Regulation of Concentrated Animal
Feeding Operations (discussing the environmental problems associ-ated with industrialized
animal production).
In addition to pollution concerns associated with the generation of waste, industrial-ized
agriculture’s heavy reliance on fossil fuel-based inputs for its successful increase in
production has been sharply criticized. From Michael Pollan’s Farmer-in-Chief editorial:
[T]he 20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of
greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemi-cal
fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm
machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have to-gether
transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every
calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel
energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food. Put another way,
when we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil

31. USDA, NASS, 2012 Census of Agric., 2012 Census Highlights: Hog and Pig Farming.
32. See, e.g., Doug Gurian-Sherman, CAFO’s Uncovered: The Untold Costs of Confined
Animal Feeding Operations, Union of Concerned Scientists (April 2008) (examining the hidden
cost of con-centrated animal feeding operations as well as the government policies that favor this
production method and advocating for alternative production methods). See also, Putting Meat on
the Table: In-dustrial Farm Animal Production, A Report of the Pew Commission on Industrial
Farm Animal Pro-duction in America (A Project of The Pew Charitable Trusts and Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health) (2008) (citing environmental problems, public health
problems, and the social and economic decline of rural areas as all unanticipated costs associated
with large scale industrialized animal production).

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and spewing greenhouse gases. This state of affairs appears all the more absurd when
you recall that every calorie we eat is ultimately the product of photosyn-thesis — a
process based on making food energy from sunshine. There is hope
and possibility in that simple fact.33
The debate over the hidden costs of industrialized agriculture is not limited to the
United States.
The proclaimed economic and societal benefits of a worldwide industrial agri-
culture system wouldn’t measure up when compared to a sustainable system if an
evaluation honestly measured all of the “external costs” against claimed ben-efits.
That is the primary point driven home by Jules Pretty, professor and direc-tor of the
Centre for Environment and Society at the University of Essex in England. Pretty,
who also is editor of the Journal of Sustainability, contends that “those who support
industrialized agriculture measure its success in narrow economic terms of food
price and availability and tend to ignore its costly unin-tended consequences to
society and the environment.” He adds, “They are not being seriously challenged to
give a full accounting. We are trying at the center to change that by scientifically
measuring or estimating in Britain what we call the ‘externalities’ of industrialized
agriculture and also the full benefits of a sus-tainable ag system.” In his study, some
of the industrial ag externalities evaluated were: water pollution from farm waste,
soil nutrients, erosion and pesticides; loss of landscape and biodiversity; food- borne
diseases; air pollution from gas-eous emissions; unnecessary transportation costs of
food; human dislocation from rural to urban areas; rural community decline; poor
human diets and obe-sity; and the cost of direct government subsidies.

The study found that annual costs of these externalities during the 1990s
totaled 1.54 billion pounds (approximately U.S. $2.6 billion). “Britain had to
spend this to deal with the effects of industrial ag, so this cost is a hidden
subsidy from the public to polluters,” Pretty asserted.34
Concerns regarding the human and economic costs of industrialization on rural
America are similarly raised. These concerns are for the farmer and the overall rural
community. With respect to the farmer, over a decade ago, problems related to
bargain-ing power and access to market were recognized as at risk:
The essential problem with consolidation and vertical integration, when
taken too far, is that such trends reduce choice in the marketplace. Problems
arise when one player has choices and the other player does not. This lack of
choice can lead to unequal bargaining power in business relationships. With
unequal bargaining power, the more dominant firm will almost always take
advantage of the more vulnerable party by squeezing price, shifting
liabilities, demanding certain things without paying an associated price.
Consolidation and vertical integration provide this type of setting.35

33. Michael Pollan, Farmer-in-Chief, NY Times Sunday Magazine (October 9, 2008).

34. Thayne Cozart, Industrial vs. Sustainable Agriculture, 33 Acres (December 2003).
35. Doug O’Brien, Policy Approaches to Address Problems Associated with Consolidation and
Ver-tical Integration in Agriculture, 9 Drake J. Agric. L. 33, 34 (Spring 2004).

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See infra, Chapter VII, Livestock Production and Marketing, for a discussion of the
gov-ernment’s attempts to address this issue pursuant to its authority under the
Packers and Stockyards Act.
The impact of agricultural consolidation and industrialization on American rural com-
munities has included depopulation and the associated decline of economic activity. 36
It must be recognized that while industrialized production is based on promised eco-nomic
efficiencies, U.S. government policies have tipped the scales infavor of industrial-ized
production, making it more cost effective than it might otherwise be. The rationale is that
increased production is good for all. These policies and their potential adverse effects will be
debated in subsequent chapters, but are highlighted as follows.
• Although industrialized agriculture may model itself after manufacturing, its
envi-ronmental effects are far less regulated than other industries. And, farm
programs provide government funds for cost-share and remedial clean up
activities. See infra Chapter III, Agriculture and Environmental Law.
• The high cost, limited use, and risk associated with the production contracts for
large confinement facilities makes traditional financing unavailable in most
cases. Many such facilities are built under the USDA Guaranteed Loan
program, with gov-ernment guaranty promised to banks as an incentive to make
the loan. See infra, Chapter IV, Financing the Farming Operation.
• Farm subsidies are paid to produce corn, the majority of which is used for
livestock feed. Arguably, this benefits feedlot operations more than operations
that rely on pasture.37 See infra Chapter II, Economic Support to Agriculture.
• The federal Animal Welfare Act categorically excludes farm animals from its
pro-tection, as do many state anti-cruelty statutes. Industrialized animal
operations are criticized for practices that would be illegal in other settings. See
infra in Chapter VIII, Animal Welfare.
• An industrialized and globalized food system may have food safety and public health
consequences that we are just beginning to understand. For example, the extensive use
of antibiotics in livestock production, often viewed as a necessary disease prevention
practice when animals are closely confined, has been linked to an increase in antibiotic
resistance. Animal agriculture has enjoyed permissive pol-icies regarding the regulation
of drugs used; many are sold over-the-counter. See, infra, Chapter XI, Food &
Agriculture: A Changing Climate.
Professor Neil Hamilton, in a thoughtful and forward-looking article written in
1997, addressed the industrialization issue as follows.
A central question is whether the forces stimulating industrialization can be
harnessed for the improvement of all parties affected by the food and agricultural
sector — consumers, farmers, and businesses alike — or whether it will simply be
another means to increase the profits and market shares of the companies pro-

36. See, e.g., Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production, Pew Commission on
Industrial Farm Animal Production in America (2008) (citing industrialized agriculture as one of the
factors that has led to the economic decline of rural America).
37. See Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, 65–84
(2006) (tracing the subsidized corn in Iowa to the feedlots of Kansas).

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moting it, further eroding the role of farmers and compromising the interests
of consumers.38
Notes
1. Concerns about the increasing world population and continued hunger throughout
the world have fueled calls for additional technologies to further expand production.
The success of industrialized methods in producing more product at a lower cost per
unit produced is often touted as the only way to meet increasing demand.
Others argue that industrialized practices are not environmentally sustainable and are
too dependent on fossil fuels for long term use. These debates reflect the inherent
inter-disciplinary nature of agricultural policy discussions.
Some argue that both are needed.
Unfortunately the debate over how to address the global food challenge has become
polarized, pitting conventional agriculture and global commerce against local food
systems and organic farms. The arguments can be fierce, and like our politics, we
seem to be getting more divided rather than finding common ground.
Those who favor conventional agriculture talk about how modern mechaniza-tion,
irrigation, fertilizers, and improved genetics can increase yields to help meet
demand. And they’re right. Meanwhile proponents of local and organic farms
counter that the world’s small farmers could increase yields plenty — and
help themselves out of poverty — by adopting techniques that improve
fertility with-out synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. They’re right too.
But it needn’t be an either-or proposition. Both approaches offer badly
needed solutions; neither one alone gets us there. We would be wise to
explore all of the good ideas, whether from organic and local farms or high--
tech and conven-tional farms, and blend the best of both.
Jonathan Foley, A Five-step Plan to Feed the World, Nat’l Geographic Magazine
(May 2014)
Whether the U.S. should have farm policies that support a “feed the world” mission is another
area of controversy. This issue was is discussed in the podcast, American Farmers Say They
Feed The World, But Do They? (Sept. 13, 2013) available on the National Public Radio bog
and podcast, The Salt at http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/09/17/22137 6803/american-
farmers-say-they-feed-the-world-but-do-they.
Connections between agricultural policy and food policy are discussed in Chapter XI,
Food and Agriculture: A Changing Climate, infra.
2. The diferent treatment of agriculture under the law is supported in part by a recogni-tion
that agricultural production is somehow diferent than other industries. Is it? How does the
industrial model apply in this context? Consider the following analysis.
Agriculture, however, is not simply manufacturing the proverbial widget. It is a
unique industry in that it relies on the production of living things through use

38. NeilD. Hamilton, Reaping What We Have Sown: Public Policy Consequences of Agricultural
Industrialization and the Legal Implications of a Changing Production System, 45 Drake L. Rev.
289 (1997).

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of natural processes and the consumption of natural resources. Being in the business
of creating living things through an intertwined relationship with na-ture gives
agricultural producers a special responsibility to confront ecological
and ethical issues that arise. In contrast, under an industrialized model, the
pri-mary responsibility is mass production of a uniform product at the lowest
price. Natural processes of life are not respected, but are to be controlled and
modified for improved efficiency. The intense specialization that is key to the
industrial model — making a lot of one product very cheaply — runs counter
to the forces of nature which reward, perhaps demand, such non-industrial
attributes as ge netic diversity and crop rotation.
Susan A. Schneider, Reconnecting Consumers and Producers: On the Path Toward a
Sus-tainable Food and Agriculture Policy, 14 Drake J. Agric. L. 75, 78–79 (2009)
(citing Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture 43 (1977)
(stating “food is a cultural product; it cannot be produced by technology alone.”).
Can agriculture essentially have it both ways, enjoying special treatment under the
law while employing industrial practices modeled after the manufacturing industry?
What ethical considerations may be involved and should they be incorporated into
public policy? If so, how?
3. National Public Radio, All Things Considered, broadcast a poignant story about
large-scale Midwestern agriculture, farm consolidation, and the impact on rural com-
munities in, The Making of Megafarms: A Mixture of Pride and Pain (June 16,
2014). The story focuses on a family farm in Kansas made up of 16,000 acres of
land, spread throughout 3 areas in Kansas, hundreds of miles apart. The farmer--
owners actually live in the suburbs of Manhatten, Kansas, with management
conducted largely by com-puter. Where once the land was owned and operated by
dozens of smaller family farms, the entire high-tech operation now is run by the
farmer, his father-in-law, and seven employees.
4. Buoyed by financial success and concerned about increased regulation, agribusi-ness
corporations, most notably Smithfield Farms, have are expanded industrialized animal
operations worldwide. Eastern European countries are struggling with the im-pact of
Smithfield Farms’ expansion of its industrialized hog operations into Poland and Romania. As
was reported in the New York Times, “[i]n less than five years, Smithfield enlisted politicians
in Poland and Romania, tapped into hefty European Union farm subsidies and fended off local
opposition groups to create a conglomerate of feed mills, slaughterhouses, and climate--
controlled barns housing thousands of hogs.” Smithfield’s chairman is quoted as describing its
global approach as moving in a “very, very big way, very, very fast.” Serious environmental
problems, a devastating swine fever outbreak, and a dismantling of the traditional rural
economy has resulted.
In Romania, the number of hog farmers declined 90 percent between 2003 to 2007
(from 477,030 in 2003 to 52,100 in 2007). “In Poland, there were 1.1 million hog
farmers in 1996. That number fell by 56 percent by 2008.” Reduced pork prices benefit
consumers but put farmers in local and in export markets out of business. Doreen Carvajal and
Stephen Castle, A U.S. Hog Giant Transforms Eastern Europe , New York Times (May 6,
2009). As an example of the hostility generated, see the recently re-leased anti-industrial hog
farming European documentary, Pig Business, http://www
.pigbusiness.co.uk.

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5. From a consumer’s perspective, Michael Pollan refers to “industrial eating,” incorpo-

rating both the agricultural industrial model and ultimate retail sale of processed prod-ucts by
the food industry. He observes that it deliberately obscures the relationships and connections
between people and the natural world. He references the “increasingly high walls of our
industrial agriculture,” noting that if we could see what lies on the other side of that wall, “we
would surely change the way we eat.” Michael Pollan, The Omni-vore’s Dilemma: A Natural
History of Four Meals, 10 (2006).
6. In 2006, Time Magazine wrote about what it termed the “Grass Fed Revolution,”
and characterized the growth in the number of grass-fed beef operations as “part of a
growing revolt against industrial agriculture.” The article noted that between 2001–
2006, more than 1,000 ranchers switched herds to an all-grass diet. “Pure-pasture
raised beef still represents less than 1% of the nation’s supply, but sales reached
some $120 million last year and are expected to increase 20% a year over the next
decade.” The Grass Fed Revolu-tion, Time Magazine (June 11, 2006).
Since that time, grass-fed and related alternative production practices have increased
dramatically. Although they still constitute a small segment of the U.S. beef market, esti-
mated 3 percent in 2013, the trend is growing. For a report on the diferent production systems
and the impact on the market, see Kenneth H. Mathews, Jr. & Rachel J. Johnson, Alternative
Beef Production Systems: Issues and Implications, USDA, Economic Research Service, No.
LDPM-218-01 (Apr. 2013), available on the USDA ERS website.
Will Harris, founder of White Oak Pastures in Georgia has used the conversion of his
traditional cattle ranch into a grass-fed, drug-free, animal welfare approved operation as a
major marketing initiative. See, http://www.whiteoakpastures.com. For a short docu-mentary
on Mr. Harris, see Cudd (Southern Foodways Alliance 2009).

D. Sustainability
Wendell Berry refers to farming, or at least “good farming” as “the proper use and
care of an immeasurable gift.” He describes “true agrarianism” as:
Agrarian farmers see, accept, and live within their limits. They understand and
agree to the proposition that there is ‘this much and no more.’ Everything that
happens on an agrarian farm is determined or conditioned by the understand-ing
that there is only so much land, so much water in the cistern, so much hay in the
barn, so much corn in the crib, so much firewood in the barn, so much food in
the cellar or freezer, so much strength in the back and arms — and no more.39
Does sustainable agriculture embody the “true agrarian”? Should sustainable
production be the goal of U.S. agricultural policy? What does sustainability mean?
The term sustainability, now commonly used in many diferent contexts, is most
often defined according to the 1987 United Nations World Commission on
Environment and Development (WCED) publication, Our Common Future, also
known as the Brundtland Report. The UN focus was on development, but the
concept is applicable with respect to any activity that involves the use of resources.

39. Wendell Berry, The Agrarian Standard, The Essential Agrarian Reader, The Future of
Culture, Community, and the Land, 24 (Norman Wirbzba, ed., 2003).

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The original WCED definition of sustainable development was, “development that

meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs.” Some argue that American agriculture today is
unsustainable and that we are on the verge of a dramatic realization of the extent to
which our production practices fail the test of sustainability.
The rise of the “sustainable agriculture” movement, however, predates Our
Common Future by decades. One of the earliest proponents of sustainable
agriculture, at least in North America, was the Canadian organization The Land
Fellowship, established in the early 1950s.40
In 1978, Wendell Berry published his book The Unsettling of America, question-
ing the American tradition of expanding and exploiting while being “unconscious of
the effects of one’s life or livelihood.” He contrasts the “exploiter” with the
“nurturer,” using as his examples a strip-miner and “the ideal of a farmer.”
The exploiter is a specialist, an expert; the nurturer is not. The standard of the
exploiter is efficiency; the standard of the nurturer is care. The exploiter’s goal is
money, profit; the nurturer’s goal is health — his land’s health, his own, his
family’s, his community’s, his country’s. Whereas the exploiter asks of a piece
of land only how much and how quickly it can be made to produce, the nurturer
asks a question that is much more complex and difficult; What is its carrying
capacity? (That is — How much can be taken from it without diminishing it?
What can it produce dependably for an indefinite time?) . . .41
Berry views the industrialization of agriculture as the movement of the farmer from nur-turer
to exploiter. And, he warns not only agriculture but society as a whole of the dan-gers of
specialization and the loss of “any idea of personal wholeness.” Id. at 19.
Soon thereafter, Wes Jackson published New Roots for Agriculture, arguing that
the production of monocultural annual crops in reliance on chemical inputs was
unsus-tainable and predicting the “failure of success.”
The plowshare may well have destroyed more options for future generations
than the sword. Tillage has hastened the erosion of irreplaceable topsoil every-
where and a technology based on fossil fuels has increased yields for short-term
profits, leaving crops ever more vulnerable to diseases, pests, and droughts.42
In 1987, Miguel Altierri coined the term “agroecology” in his book, Agroecology:
The Science Of Sustainable Agriculture. And in 1988, the National Academy of
Sciences published Alternative Agriculture, describing profitable, ecologically- based
alternatives to conventional, chemical input-based agricultural practices.
U.S. lawmakers responded by funding research initiatives, slowly at first, but with
increasing emphasis. The 1985 Food Security Act authorized sustainable agriculture
research. In 1989, the USDA Low-Impact Sustainable Agriculture (LISA) program
was created. LISA later became SARE, the Sustainable Agriculture Research and
Education program.

40. See, Stuart B. Hill and Rod J. MacRae, Organic Farming in Canada, Ecological Agriculture
Proj ects, EAP Publication No. 4, available at http://eap.mcgill.ca/publications/eap104a.htm.
41. Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America, 7 (1978).
42. Wes Jackson, New Roots for Agriculture (1980).

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Given the economic success of conventional agriculture, the strength of the industries that
support it, and the low cost of food, sustainable agriculture remained relatively politi cally
insignificant. The 1990 farm bill provided the firstlegal definition.
“Sustainable agriculture” is defined under federal law as
[A]n integrated system of plant and animal production practices having a
site- specific application that will, over the long-term —
(A) satisfy human food and fiber needs;
(B) enhance environmental quality and the natural resource base upon
which the agriculture economy depends;
(C) make the most efficient use of nonrenewable resources and on-farm -
resources and integrate, where appropriate, natural biological cycles and
controls;
(D) sustain the economic viability of farm operations; and
(E) enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole.43
Note that sustainable agriculture is not organic agriculture, although most consider
organic agriculture to be an environmentally sustainable system.
How is sustainable agriculture defined in terms of agricultural practices?

Gail Feenstra, Chuck Ingels, and David Campbell,

with contributions from David Chaney, Melvin R. George,
Eric Bradford, the staff and advisory committees of the
UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program
What Is Sustainable Agriculture?
University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program
Agriculture has changed dramatically, especially since the end of World War II. Food and
fiber productivity soared due to new technologies, mechanization, increased chemi-cal use,
specialization and government policies that favored maximizing production.
These changes allowed fewer farmers with reduced labor demands to produce the
major-ity of the food and fiber in the U.S.
Although these changes have had many positive effects and reduced many risks in farming,
there have also been significant costs. Prominent among these are topsoil deple-tion,
groundwater contamination, the decline of family farms, continued neglect of the living and
working conditions for farm laborers, increasing costs of production, and the disintegration of
economic and social conditions in rural communities.
A growing movement has emerged during the past two decades to question the role of the
agricultural establishment in promoting practices that contribute to these social problems. -
Today this movement for sustainable agriculture is garnering increasing sup-port and accep-
tance within mainstream agriculture. Not only does sustainable agricul-ture address many
environmental and social concerns, but it offers innovative and
economically viable opportunities for growers, laborers, consumers, policymakers
and many others in the entire food system.

43. Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990 (FACTA), Public Law 101–624,
Title XVI, Subtitle A, Section 1603, codified at 7 U.S.C. § 3103.

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....
Sustainable agriculture integrates three main goals — environmental health, economic
profitability, and social and economic equity. A variety of philosophies, policies and practices
have contributed to these goals. People in many diferent capacities, from farm-ers to
consumers, have shared this vision and contributed to it. Despite the diversity of
people and perspectives, the following themes commonly weave through definitions
of sustainable agriculture.
Sustainability rests on the principle that we must meet the needs of the present with-out
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Therefore,
stewardship of both natural and human resources is of prime importance. Stewardship of -
human resources includes consideration of social responsibilities such as working and living
conditions of laborers, the needs of rural communities, and consumer health and safety both in
the present and the future. Stewardship of land and natural resources involves maintaining or
enhancing this vital resource base for the long term.
A systems perspective is essential to understanding sustainability. The system is
envi-sioned in its broadest sense, from the individual farm, to the local ecosystem,
and to communities affected by this farming system both locally and globally. An
emphasis on the system allows a larger and more thorough view of the consequences
of farming practices on both human communities and the environment. A systems
approach gives us the tools to explore the interconnections between farming and
other aspects of our environment.
A systems approach also implies interdisciplinary efforts in research and
education. This requires not only the input of researchers from various disciplines,
but also farmers, farmworkers, consumers, policymakers and others.
Making the transition to sustainable agriculture is a process. For farmers, the transi-tion to
sustainable agriculture normally requires a series of small, realistic steps. Family economics
and personal goals influence how fast or how far participants can go in the transition. It is
important to realize that each small decision can make a difference and contribute to
advancing the entire system further on the “sustainable agriculture contin-uum.” The key to
moving forward is the will to take the next step.
Finally, it is important to point out that reaching toward the goal of sustainable agricul-ture
is the responsibility of all participants in the system, including farmers, laborers, poli-
cymakers, researchers, retailers, and consumers. Each group has its own part to play, its own
unique contribution to make to strengthen the sustainable agriculture community.
....
Water. When the production of food and fiber degrades the natural resource base, the ability
of future generations to produce and flourish decreases. The decline of ancient civilizations in
Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean region, Pre-Columbian southwest U.S. and Central America
is believed to have been strongly influenced by natural resource degradation from non--
sustainable farming and forestry practices. Water is the principal resource that has helped
agriculture and society to prosper, and it has been a major limit-
ing factor when mismanaged.
Water supply and use. In California, an extensive water storage and transfer system has been
established which has allowed crop production to expand to very arid regions. In

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drought years, limited surface water supplies have prompted overdraft of groundwater and
consequent intrusion of salt water, or permanent collapse of aquifers. Periodic droughts, some
lasting up to 50 years, have occurred in California. Several steps should be taken to develop
drought-resistant farming systems even in “normal” years, including both policy and
management actions: 1) improving water conservation and storage measures, 2) pro-viding
incentives for selection of drought-tolerant crop species, 3) using reduced-volume
irrigation systems, 4) managing crops to reduce water loss, or 5) not planting at all.
Water quality. The most important issues related to water quality involve salinization and
contamination of ground and surface waters by pesticides, nitrates and selenium.
Salinity has become a problem wherever water of even relatively low salt content is used on
shallow soils in arid regions and/or where the water table is near the root zone of crops. Tile
drainage can remove the water and salts, but the disposal of the salts and other contaminants
may negatively affect the environment depending upon where they are de-posited. Temporary
solutions include the use of salt-tolerant crops, low-volume irriga-tion, and various
management techniques to minimize the effects of salts on crops. In the long-term, some
farmland may need to be removed from production or converted to other uses. Other uses
include conversion of row crop land to production of drought- tolerant forages, the restoration
of wildlife habitat or the use of agroforestry to minimize
the impacts of salinity and high water tables. Pesticide and nitrate contamination of -
water can be reduced using many of the practices discussed later in the Plant
Production Prac-tices and Animal Production Practices sections.
Wildlife. Another way in which agriculture affects water resources is through the de-
struction of riparian habitats within watersheds. The conversion of wild habitat to
agri-cultural land reduces fish and wildlife through erosion and sedimentation, the
effects of pesticides, removal of riparian plants, and the diversion of water. The plant
diversity in and around both riparian and agricultural areas should be maintained in
order to sup-port a diversity of wildlife. This diversity will enhance natural
ecosystems and could aid in agricultural pest management.
Energy. Modern agriculture is heavily dependent on non-renewable energy sources,
es-pecially petroleum. The continued use of these energy sources cannot be sustained
in defnitely, yet to abruptly abandon our reliance on them would be economically
catastrophic. However, a sudden cutoff in energy supply would be equally disruptive.
In sustainable agricultural systems, there is reduced reliance on non-renewable energy
sources and a substitution of renewable sources or labor to the extent that is econom
ically feasible.
Air. Many agricultural activities affect air quality. These include smoke from agricultural
burning; dust from tillage, traffic and harvest; pesticide drift from spraying; and nitrous oxide
emissions from the use of nitrogen fertilizer. Options to improve air quality include
incorporating crop residue into the soil, using appropriate levels of tillage, and planting wind
breaks, cover crops or strips of native perennial grasses to reduce dust.
Soil. Soil erosion continues to be a serious threat to our continued ability to produce
ad-equate food. Numerous practices have been developed to keep soil in place, which
include reducing or eliminating tillage, managing irrigation to reduce runoff, and
keeping the soil covered with plants or mulch. Enhancement of soil quality is
discussed in the next section.

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Plant Production Practices

Sustainable production practices involve a variety of approaches. Specific strategies must
take into account topography, soil characteristics, climate, pests, local availability of inputs and
the individual grower’s goals. Despite the site-specific and individual nature of sustainable
agriculture, several general principles can be applied to help growers select appropriate
management practices: Selection of species and varieties that are well suited to the site and to
conditions on the farm; Diversification of crops (including livestock) and cultural practices to
enhance the biological and economic stability of the farm; Man-agement of the soil to enhance
and protect soil quality; Efficient and humane use of inputs; and Consideration of farmers’
goals and lifestyle choices.
Selection of site, species and variety. Preventive strategies, adopted early, can reduce inputs
and help establish a sustainable production system. When possible, pest-resistant crops should
be selected which are tolerant of existing soil or site conditions. When site selection is an
option, factors such as soil type and depth, previous crop history, and loca-tion (e.g., climate,
topography) should be taken into account before planting.
Diversity. Diversified farms are usually more economically and ecologically
resilient. While monoculture farming has advantages in terms of efficiency and ease
of manage-ment, the loss of the crop in any one year could put a farm out of business
and/or seri-ously disrupt the stability of a community dependent on that crop. By
growing a variety of crops, farmers spread economic risk and are less susceptible to
the radical price fluc-tuations associated with changes in supply and demand.
Properly managed, diversity can also buffer a farm in a biological sense. For example, in
annual cropping systems, crop rotation can be used to suppress weeds, pathogens and insect
pests. Also, cover crops can have stabilizing effects on the agroecosystem by hold-ing soil and
nutrients in place, conserving soil moisture with mowed or standing dead mulches, and by
increasing the water infiltration rate and soil water holding capacity. Cover crops in orchards
and vineyards can buffer the system against pest infestations by increas-ing beneficial
arthropod populations and can therefore reduce the need for chemical inputs. Using a variety
of cover crops is also important in order to protect against the failure of a particular species to
grow and to attract and sustain a wide range of beneficial arthropods.
Optimum diversity may be obtained by integrating both crops and livestock in the
same farming operation. This was the common practice for centuriesuntil the mid-
1900s when technology, government policy and economics compelled farms to
become more specialized. Mixed crop and livestock operations have several
advantages. First, growing row crops only on more level land and pasture or forages
on steeper slopes will reduce soil erosion. Second, pasture and forage crops in
rotation enhance soil quality and reduce erosion; livestock manure, in turn,
contributes to soil fertility. Third, livestock can buffer the negative impacts of low
rainfall periods by consuming crop residue that in “plant only” systems would have
been considered crop failures. Finally, feeding and marketing are flexible in animal
production systems. This can help cushion farmers against trade and price fluctuations
and, in conjunction with cropping operations, make more efficient use of farm labor.
Soil management. A common philosophy among sustainable agriculture practitioners is that a
“healthy” soil is a key component of sustainability; that is, a healthy soil will produce healthy
crop plants that have optimum vigor and are less susceptible to pests. While many crops have
key pests that attack even the healthiest of plants, proper soil, water and nutri-

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ent management can help prevent some pest problems brought on by crop stress or nutri-ent
imbalance. Furthermore, crop management systems that impair soil quality often result in
greater inputs of water, nutrients, pesticides, and/or energy for tillage to maintain yields.
In sustainable systems, the soil is viewed as a fragile and living medium that must be
protected and nurtured to ensure its long-term productivity and stability. Methods to protect
and enhance the productivity of the soil include using cover crops, compost and/ or manures,
reducing tillage, avoiding traffic on wet soils, and maintaining soil cover with plants and/or
mulches. Conditions in most California soils (warm, irrigated, and tilled) do not favor the
buildup of organic matter. Regular additions of organic matter or the use of cover crops can
increase soil aggregate stability, soil tilth, and diversity of soil microbial life.
Efficient use of inputs. Many inputs and practices used by conventional farmers are also used
in sustainable agriculture. Sustainable farmers, however, maximize reliance on natural,
renewable, and on-farm inputs. Equally important are the environmental, social, and economic
impacts of a particular strategy. Converting to sustainable practices does not mean simple input
substitution. Frequently, it substitutes enhanced management and scientific knowledge for
conventional inputs, especially chemical inputs that harm the environment on farms and in
rural communities. The goal is to develop efficient, biologi-cal systems which do not need high
levels of material inputs.
Growers frequently ask if synthetic chemicals are appropriate in a sustainable farming
system. Sustainable approaches are those that are the least toxic and least energy inten-sive,
and yet maintain productivity and profitability. Preventive strategies and other alter-natives
should be employed before using chemical inputs from any source. However,
there may be situations where the use of synthetic chemicals would be more “sustainable” than
a strictly nonchemical approach or an approach using toxic “organic” chemicals. For example,
one grape grower switched from tillage to a few applications of a broad spectrum contact
herbicide in the vine row. This approach may use less energy and may compact the soil less
than numerous passes with a cultivator or mower.
Consideration of farmer goals and lifestyle choices. Management decisions should
re-flect not only environmental and broad social considerations, but also individual
goals and lifestyle choices. For example, adoption of some technologies or practices
that prom-ise profitability may also require such intensive management that one’s
lifestyle actually deteriorates. Management decisions that promote sustainability,
nourish the environment, the community and the individual.
Animal Production Practices
In the early part of this century, most farms integrated both crop and livestock opera-tions.
Indeed, the two were highly complementary both biologically and economically. The current
picture has changed quite drastically since then. Crop and animal producers now are still
dependent on one another to some degree, but the integration now most commonly takes place
at a higher level — between farmers, through intermediaries, rather than within the farm itself.
This is the result of a trend toward separation and specializa-tion of crop and animal
production systems. Despite this trend, there are still many farm-ers, particularly in the
Midwest and Northeastern U.S. that integrate crop and animal
systems — either on dairy farms, or with range cattle, sheep or hog operations.
Even with the growing specialization of livestock and crop producers, many of the princi
ples outlined in the crop production section apply to both groups. The actual management

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practices will, of course, be quite diferent. Some of the specific points that livestock
pro-ducers need to address are listed below.
Management Planning. Including livestock in the farming system increases the
com-plexity of biological and economic relationships. The mobility of the stock,
daily feeding, health concerns, breeding operations, seasonal feed and forage sources,
and complex marketing are sources of this complexity. Therefore, a successful ranch
plan should in-clude enterprise calendars of operations, stock flows, forage flows,
labor needs, herd pro-duction records and land use plans to give the manager control
and a means of monitoring progress toward goals.
Animal Selection. The animal enterprise must be appropriate for the farm or ranch re-sources.
Farm capabilities and constraints such as feed and forage sources, landscape, cli-mate and
skill of the manager must be considered in selecting which animals to produce. For example,
ruminant animals can be raised on a variety of feed sources including range and pasture,
cultivated forage, cover crops, shrubs, weeds, and crop residues. There is a wide range of
breeds available in each of the major ruminant species, i.e., cattle, sheep and goats. Hardier
breeds that, in general, have lower growth and milk production potential, are better adapted to
less favorable environments with sparse or highly seasonal forage growth.
Animal nutrition. Feed costs are the largest single variable cost in any livestock opera-tion.
While most of the feed may come from other enterprises on the ranch, some pur-chased feed is
usually imported from off the farm. Feed costs can be kept to a minimum by monitoring
animal condition and performance and understanding seasonal variations in feed and forage
quality on the farm. Determining the optimal use of farm-generated by- products is an
important challenge of diversified farming.
Reproduction. Use of quality germplasm to improve herd performance is another key to
sustainability. In combination with good genetic stock, adapting the reproduction season to fit
the climate and sources of feed and forage reduce health problems and feed costs.
Herd Health. Animal health greatly influences reproductive success and weight gains, two
key aspects of successful livestock production. Unhealthy stock waste feed and require
additional labor. A herd health program is critical to sustainable livestock production.
Grazing Management. Most adverse environmental impacts associated with grazing
can be prevented or mitigated with proper grazing management. First, the number of
stock per unit area (stocking rate) must be correct for the landscape and the forage
sources. There will need to be compromises between the convenience of tilling large,
unfenced fields and the fencing needs of livestock operations. Use of modern,
temporary fencing may provide one practical solution to this dilemma. Second, the
long term carrying capac-ity and the stocking rate must take into account short and
long-term droughts. Especially in Mediterranean climates such as in California,
properly managed grazing significantly reduces fire hazards by reducing fuel build-up
in grasslands and brushlands. Finally, the manager must achieve sufficient control to
reduce overuse in some areas while other areas go unused. Prolonged concentration of
stock that results in permanent loss of vegetative cover on uplands or in riparian zones
should be avoided. However, small scale loss of veg-etative cover around water or
feed troughs may be tolerated if surrounding vegetative cover is adequate.
Confined Livestock Production. Animal health and waste management are key issues in
confined livestock operations. The moral and ethical debate taking place today regarding

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animal welfare is particularly intense for confined livestock production systems. The
is-sues raised in this debate need to be addressed.
Confinement livestock production is increasingly a source of surface and ground water
pollutants, particularly where there are large numbers of animals per unit area. Expensive
waste management facilities are now a necessary cost of confined production systems. Waste
is a problem of almost all operations and must be managed with respect to both the
environment and the quality of life in nearby communities. Livestock production systems that
disperse stock in pastures so the wastes are not concentrated and do not overwhelm natural
nutrient cycling processes have become a subject of renewed interest.

The Economic, Social, and Political Context

In addition to strategies for preserving natural resources and changing production
practices, sustainable agriculture requires a commitment to changing public policies,
economic institutions, and social values. Strategies for change must take into account
the complex, reciprocal and ever-changing relationship between agricultural
production and the broader society.
The “food system” extends far beyond the farm and involves the interaction of indi-viduals
and institutions with contrasting and often competing goals including farmers, researchers,
input suppliers, farmworkers, unions, farm advisors, processors, retailers, consumers, and
policymakers. Relationships among these actors shift over time as new technologies spawn
economic, social and political changes.
A wide diversity of strategies and approaches are necessary to create a more
sustain-able food system. These will range from specific and concentrated efforts to
alter specific policies or practices, to the longer-term tasks of reforming key
institutions, rethinking economic priorities, and challenging widely-held social
values. Areas of concern where change is most needed include the following:
Food and agricultural policy. Existing federal, state and local government policies often
impede the goals of sustainable agriculture. New policies are needed to simul taneously
promote environmental health, economic profitability, and social and economic equity. For
example, commodity and price support programs could be restructured to allow farmers to
realize the full benefits of the productivity gains made possible through alter-native practices.
Tax and credit policies could be modified to encourage a diverse and decentralized system of -
family farms rather than corporate concentration and absentee ownership. Government and
land grant university research policies could be modified to emphasize the development of
sustainable alternatives. Marketing orders and cosmetic standards could be amended to
encourage reduced pesticide use. Coalitions must be cre-
ated to address these policy concerns at the local, regional, and national level.
Land use. Conversion of agricultural land to urban uses is a particular concern in Cali-fornia,
as rapid growth and escalating land values threaten farming on prime soils. Exist-ing farmland
conversion patterns often discourage farmers from adopting sustainable practices and a long--
term perspective on the value of land. At the same time, the close proximity of newly
developed residential areas to farms is increasing the public demand for environmentally safe
farming practices. Comprehensive new policies to protect prime soils and regulate
development are needed, particularly in California’s Central Valley. By helping farmers to
adopt practices that reduce chemical use and conserve scarce re-sources, sustainable
agriculture research and education can play a key role in building

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public support for agricultural land preservation. Educating land use planners and
decision-makers about sustainable agriculture is an important priority.
Labor. In California, the conditions of agricultural labor are generally far below accepted
social standards and legal protections in other forms of employment. Policies and pro-
grams are needed to address this problem, working toward socially just and safe employ-ment
that provides adequate wages, working conditions, health benefits, and chances for economic
stability. The needs of migrant labor for year-around employment and ade-quate housing are a
particularly crucial problem needing immediate attention. To be
more sustainable over the long-term, labor must be acknowledged and supported by gov-
ernment policies, recognized as important constituents of land grant universities, and carefully
considered when assessing the impacts of new technologies and practices.
Rural Community Development. Rural communities in California are currently charac-
terized by economic and environmental deterioration. Many are among the poorest loca-tions
in the nation. The reasons for the decline are complex, but changes in farm structure have
played a significant role. Sustainable agriculture presents an opportunity to rethink
the importance of family farms and rural communities. Economic development policies are
needed that encourage more diversified agricultural production on family farms as a
foundation for healthy economies in rural communities. In combination with other strat-egies,
sustainable agriculture practices and policies can help foster community institutions that meet
employment, educational, health, cultural and spiritual needs.
Consumers and the Food System. Consumers can play a critical role in creating a sus-
tainable food system. Through their purchases, they send strong messages to producers,
retailers and others in the system about what they think is important. Food cost and nu-
tritional quality have always influenced consumer choices. The challenge now is to find
strategies that broaden consumer perspectives, so that environmental quality, resource use, and
social equity issues are also considered in shopping decisions. At the same time, new policies
and institutions must be created to enable producers using sustainable prac-tices to market
their goods to a wider public. Coalitions organized around improving the food system are one
specific method of creating a dialogue among consumers, retailers,
producers and others. These coalitions or other public forums can be important
vehicles for clarifying issues, suggesting new policies, increasing mutual trust, and
encouraging a long-term view of food production, distribution and consumption.
———————

Mary V. Gold
Sustainable Agriculture: Definitions and Terms, Background
Special Reference Briefs Series No. SRB 99-02
Updates SRB 94-05
USDA, National Agricultural Library
Sept. 1999; revised Aug. 2007
***
How have we come to reconsider our food and fiber production in terms of
sustain-ability? What are the ecological, economic, social and philosophical issues
that sustain-able agriculture addresses?

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The long-term viability of our current food production system is being questioned for
many reasons. The news media regularly present us with the paradox of starvation amidst
plenty — including pictures of hungry children juxtaposed with supermarket ads. Possi ble
adverse environmental impacts of agriculture and increased incidence of foodborne illness
also demand our attention. “Farm crises” seem to recur with regularity.
The prevailing agricultural system, variously called “conventional farming,” “modern
agriculture,” or “industrial farming” has delivered tremendous gains in productivity and
efficiency. Food production worldwide has risen in the past 50 years; the World Bank
estimates that between 70 percent and 90 percent of the recent increases in food produc-tion
are the result of conventional agriculture rather than greater acreage under cultiva-tion. U.S.
consumers have come to expect abundant and inexpensive food.
Conventional farming systems vary from farm to farm and from country to country.
However, they share many characteristics: rapid technological innovation; large capital
investments in order to apply production and management technology; large-scale farms;
single crops/row crops grown continuously over many seasons; uniform high-yield hybrid
crops; extensive use of pesticides, fertilizers, and external energy inputs; high labor
effi-ciency; and dependency on agribusiness. In the case of livestock, most
production comes from confined, concentrated systems.
Philosophical underpinnings of industrial agriculture include assumptions that “a) nature is
a competitor to be overcome; b) progress requires unending evolution of larger farms and
depopulation of farm communities; c) progress is measured primarily by increased material
consumption; d) efficiency is measured by looking at the bottom line; and e) science is an
unbiased enterprise driven by natural forces to produce social good.”44
Significant negative consequences have come with the bounty associated with indus-trial
farming. Concerns about contemporary agriculture are presented below. . . . While considering
these concerns, keep the following in mind: a) interactions between farming
systems and soil, water, biota, and atmosphere are complex — we have much to learn about
their dynamics and long term impacts; b) most environmental problems are inter-twined with
economic, social, and political forces external to agriculture; c) some problems are global in
scope while others are experienced only locally; d) many of these problems are being
addressed through conventional, as well as alternative, agricultural channels; e) the list is not
complete; and f) no order of importance is intended.

Ecological Concerns
Agriculture profoundly affects many ecological systems. Negative effects of
current practices include the following:
• Decline in soil productivity can be due to wind and water erosion of exposed top-
soil; soil compaction; loss of soil organic matter, water holding capacity, and
bio-logical activity; and salinization of soils and irrigation water in irrigated
farming areas. Desertification due to overgrazing is a growing problem,
especially in parts of Africa.

44. Karl N. Stauber et al., The Promise of Sustainable Agriculture, in Planting the Future: De-
veloping an Agriculture that Sustains Land and Community (Elizabeth Ann R. Bird, Gor-don L.
Bultena, and John C. Gardner, ed., Iowa State University Press 1995).

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• Agriculture is the largest single non-point source of water pollutants including

sediments, salts, fertilizers (nitrates and phosphorus), pesticides, and manures.
Pesticides from every chemical class have been detected in groundwater and are
commonly found in groundwater beneath agricultural areas; they are widespread in the
nation’s surface waters. Eutrophication and “dead zones” due to nutrient run-off affect
many rivers, lakes, and oceans. Reduced water quality impacts agricul-tural production,
drinking water supplies, and fishery production.
• Water scarcity in many places is due to overuse of surface and ground water for irri-
gation with little concern for the natural cycle that maintains stable water availability.
• Other environmental ills include over 400 insects and mite pests and more than
70 fungal pathogens that have become resistant to one or more pesticides;
stresses on pollinator and other beneficial species through pesticide use; loss of
wetlands and wildlife habitat; and reduced genetic diversity due to reliance on
genetic uniformity in most crops and livestock breeds.
• Agriculture’s link to global climate change is just beginning to be appreciated. De-
struction of tropical forests and other native vegetation for agricultural production has a
role in elevated levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Recent studies
have found that soils may be sources or sinks for greenhouse gases.
Economic and Social Concerns
Economic and social problems associated with agriculture can not be separated from
external economic and social pressures. As barriers to a sustainable and equitable food supply
system, however, the problems may be described in the following way:
• Economically, the U.S. agricultural sector includes a history of increasingly large
federal expenditures and corresponding government involvement in planting and
investment decisions; widening disparity among farmer incomes; and escalating
concentration of agribusiness — industries involved with manufacture, processing, and
distribution of farm products — into fewer and fewer hands. Market competition is
limited. Farmers have little control over farm prices, and they continue to receive a
smaller and smaller portion of consumer dollars spent on agricultural products.
• Economic pressures have led to a tremendous loss of farms, particularly small
farms, and farmers during the past few decades — more than 155,000 farms were lost
from 1987 to 1997. This contributes to the disintegration of rural communities and
localized marketing systems. Economically, it is very difficult for potential farmers to
enter the business today. Productive farmland also has been pressured
by urban and suburban sprawl — since 1970, over 30 million acres have been
lost to development.
Impacts on Human Health
Potential health hazards are tied to sub-therapeutic use of antibiotics in animal
pro-duction, and pesticide and nitrate contamination of water and food. Farm
workers are poisoned in fields, toxic residues are found on foods, and certain human
and animal diseases have developed resistance to currently used antibiotics.
Philosophical Considerations
Historically, farming played an important role in our development and identity as a nation.
From strongly agrarian roots, we have evolved into a culture with few farmers. Less than two
percent of Americans now produce food for all U.S. citizens. Can sustainable and

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equitable food production be established when most consumers have so little connection to the
natural processes that produce their food? What intrinsically American values have changed
and will change with the decline of rural life and farmland ownership?
World population continues to grow. According to recent United Nations
population projections, the world population will grow from 5.7 billion in 1995 to 9.4
billion in 2050, 10.4 billion in 2100, and 10.8 billion by 2150, and will stabilize at
slightly under 11 billion around 2200. The rate of population increase is especially
high in many developing coun-tries. In these countries, the population factor,
combined with rapid industrialization, poverty, political instability, and large food
imports and debt burden, make long-term food security especially urgent.
Finally, the challenge of defining and dealing with the problems associated with today’s
food production system is inherently laden with controversy and emotion. “It is unfortunate,
but true, that many in the agriculture community view sustainable agricul-ture as a personal
criticism, or an attack, on conventional agriculture of which they are
justifiably proud. ‘I guess that the main thing people get defensive about when you
say sustainable,’ explained one agent, ‘is that it implies that what they’ve been
doing is not sustainable. And that’s the biggest issue.’ ” [Judy Green, Sustainable
Agriculture: Why Green Ideas Raise a Red Flag, Farming Alternatives Newsletter
(Cornell) (Summer 1993).]
———————

Notes
1. According to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), “[t]he basic goals of
sustainable agriculture are environmental health, economic profitability, and so-cial and
economic equity (sometimes referred to as the ‘three legs’ of the sustainability stool).” See
http://sustainableagriculture.net/about-us/what-is-sustainable-ag/.
• How sustainable is the U.S. agricultural sector today? Which of the three “legs”
may present challenges? Are all of equal importance?
• What will an increased emphasis on sustainability do to our supply of “cheap
food”? How do concerns about adequate food production, affordability, and
poverty inter-sect with agricultural sustainability?
• Does the notion of a family farm or any other particular structure matter if the
“three legs of the sustainability stool” are met? Why or why not?
2. NSAC’s website states its vision of agriculture as one “where a safe, nutritious, ample, and
affordable food supply is produced by a legion of family farmers who make a decent living
pursuing their trade, while protecting the environment, and contributing to the strength and
stability of their communities.” It goes on to provide that:
NSAC member groups advance common positions to support small and mid-size
family farms, protect natural resources, promote healthy rural communities, and
ensure access to healthy, nutritious foods by everyone. By bringing grassroots
perspectives to the table normally dominated by big business, NSAC levels the
playing field and gives voice to sustainable and organic farmers.
What is a family farm, and how does it fit within the consideration of agrarianism,
sus-tainability, and agricultural law and policy? What role should the family farm
play in the overall food system?

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E. What Is a Family Farm?

Despite the changing face of agriculture, agrarianism is still apparent today in
public statements that call for the continued support for the family farm. Consider the
following passage from the United States Code.

UNITED STATES CODE

TITLE 7. AGRICULTURE
CHAPTER55 — DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
§ 2266. Congressional reaffirmation of policy to foster and encourage
family farms; annual report to Congress
(a) Congress reaffirms the historical policy of the United States to foster and
encourage the family farm system of agriculture in this country. Congress be-lieves
that the maintenance of the family farm system of agriculture is essential to the
social well being of the Nation and the competitive production of ade-quate supplies
of food and fiber. Congress further believes that any significant expansion of
nonfamily owned large-scale corporate farming enterprises will be detrimental to the
national welfare. It is neither the policy nor the intent of Con-gress that agricultural
and agriculture-related programs be administered exclu-
sively for family farm operations, but it is the policy and the express intent of
Congress that no such program be administered in a manner that will place the
family farm operation at an unfair economic disadvantage.
There is disagreement, however, regarding the definition of a “family farm system of
agriculture.”
The USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA), the agency charged with administering
the USDA loan programs for family farms who need special access to credit, has a
regulatory definition of family farm.
A family farm is a farm that:
(1) Produces agricultural commodities for sale in sufficient quantities so that
it is recognized as a farm rather than a rural residence;
(2) Has both physical labor and management provided as follows:
(i) The majority of day-to-day, operational decisions, and all strategic
manage-ment decisions are made by:
(A) The borrower and persons who are either related to the borrower by
blood or marriage, or are a relative, for an individual borrower; or
(B) The members responsible for operating the farm, in the case of an entity.
(ii) A substantial amount of labor to operate the farm is provided by:
(A) The borrower and persons who are either related to the borrower by
blood or marriage, or are a relative, for an individual borrower; or
(B) The members responsible for operating the farm, in the case of an entity.
(3) May use full-time hired labor in amounts only to supplement family labor.
(4) May use reasonable amounts of temporary labor for seasonal peak work-
load periods or intermittently for labor intensive activities.45

45. 7 C.F.R. § 761.2 (2015).

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In the landmark book Family Farming: A New Economic Vision, published in 1988,
Marty Strange described the difference between the “family farm” model of agriculture
and the industrialized model. He described the family farming model as an “[o]wner-
operated,” “[f]amily centered” operation that is “[e]ntrepreneurial” and “[t]echnologi-
cally progressive” while still “[s]triving for production processes in harmony with nature”
through “[d]iversified” production and “[r]esource conserv[ation].” Such a system is
characterized by “[d]ispersed” ownership, equal access to markets, and with a view of
“[f]arming as a way of life.” 46 Obviously, this holistic definition takes into consideration
more than simple familial ties and family labor.
The Center for Rural Affairs, a non-profit organization in Nebraska developed a
flexi-ble definition that was posted on its website for a number of years. Although it
is no longer posted, it remains instructive:
We subscribe to the definition of a family farm or ranch as one on which the
management and the majority of the labor are provided by the family or families that
own the production and at least some of the productive assets.
However, we believe that it is more important to decide what system of agricul-ture
we want than to define a category to decide who is in and who is out. We believe it
is in the interest of rural America and all of America to have a strong family farm
system of agriculture. By that we mean a system that:
• Provides genuine opportunity for those who work on farms and ranches to
own the fruits of their labor and productive assets.
• Offers open opportunity for new people to enter the business even if they
aren’t rich.
• Fairly compensates those who produce food and provides a meaningful
share of food system profit to agricultural producers.
• Maintains a substantial number of farms and ranches, sufficient to support
healthy communities.
Within such a system, there will always be farms of varying sizes. The key threat to
the family farm system today is the loss of our smaller commercial farms — our
medium-size farms — and movement toward a system where production is dominated
by a few very large farms with little opportunity for anyone else.
The USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) uses a much broader definition of
“family farm.” A farm is defined as “any place from which $1,000 or more of
agricultural products were sold or would normally have been sold during a given
year.” A “family farm” is “any farm where the majority of the business is owned by
the operator and rela-tives of the operator.”47
Note that under the USDA ERS definition, there is no size limitation on family
farms. Hired labor is also not a factor, so long as ownership is retained by the family.
Method of farming is similarly not at issue.
The ERS divides family farms into categories. From 1998–2012, these categories were
“large scale family farms” defined are those with gross sales of $250,000 or more. This

46. Marty Strange, Family Farming: A New Economic Vision 32–39 (1988).
47. RobertA. Hoppe, Structure and Finances of Family Farms: Family Farm, Report 2014
Edition 2–4, USDA, ERS, Econ. Inform. Bull. No. 132 (Dec. 2014).

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category was broken down into two sub-categories, large family farms with gross sales
between $250,000 and $499,000, and very large family farms with gross sales of $500,000 or
more. Small family farms were defined as those with less than $250,000 in gross sales per
year. This category is further broken down into sub-categories: retirement farms,
residential/lifestyle farms, and farming-occupation farms. These are defined as:
Retirement farms. Farms whose operators report they are retired.
Residential/lifestyle farms. Farms whose operators report a major occupation
other than farming.
Farming-occupation farms. Farms whose operators report farming as their
major occupation. This sub-category is further divided in to low-sales (less
than $100,000) and medium-sales ($100,000 to $249,999).48
In 2013, as a reflection of commodity price increases and a shift in production to larger
farms, the categories were revised. The following table provides the new definitions.

Revised ERS Farm Typology

Farm Operator’s Primary Farm Size Measured by Annual
Farm Type Occupation Gross Cash Farm Sales
Small Family Farm Varies Less than $350,000
Retirement Farms Retired from farming Less than $350,000
Off-farm Occupation Farms Non-farm Less than $350,000
Farm Occupation Farms:
Low-sales Farming Less than $150,000
Moderate-sales Farming $150,000 - $349,999
Mid-Sized Family Farm Not a criterion $350,000-$999,999
Large-scale Family Farm Not a criterion $1,000,000 or more
Large farms Not a criterion $1,000,000 to $499,999,999
Very large farms $,5,000,000,000 or more
Figure 1-1 Robert A. Hoppe, Structure and Finances of Family Farms: Family
Farm, Report 2014 Edition 4, USDA, ERS, Econ. Inform. Bull. No. 132 (Dec. 2014)

The USDA ERS summarizes its findings as follows:

Family farms accounted for 97 percent of U.S. farms in 2011. Small family farms
alone — those reporting annual gross cash farm income (GCFI) less than
$350,000 — made up 90 percent of farms. They also operated 52 percent of
the Nation’s farmland.
In contrast, small farms accounted for a relatively small share of production,
26 percent, although their share of production was much higher for specific
commodities. For example, small farms accounted for 56 percent of poultry
production, which accounted for the largest share of small farms’ production
under contract.

48. See, Robert A. Hoppe & David Banker, Structure and Finances of Family Farms — Family
Farm Report 2010 Edition iv-v, USDA, ERS, Bull. No. 66 (July 2010).

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Midsize and large-scale family farms together produce the bulk of agricultural
output. Large-scale and midsize family farms made up only 8 percent of all U.S.
farms in 2011, but they accounted for 60 percent of the value of U.S. agricul-
tural production. Another 3 percent of farms were nonfamily farms, produc-ing 15 -
percent of U.S. farm output; roughly 85 percent of nonfamily farm output was on
farms with GCFI of $1,000,000 or more. Most nonfamily farms
(78 percent), however, had GCFI below the $350,000 cutoff used to identify
small farms.
Small family farms are more likely to have profitability measures that fall in the
critical zone, indicating potential financial problems. About three-fourths of U.S.
farms are in the critical zone for rate of return on assets (a value less than
1 percent), and two-thirds are in the critical zone for operating profit margin (a
value less than 10 percent). The shares in these critical zones are especially high
for farms in the retirement, off-farm occupation, and low-sales categories, ta-
pering off rapidly as farm size (measured by GCFI) increases.49
The family farm debate continues to evolve and now incorporates the new farmers
that seek a place at the farm table. The Center for Rural Affairs in Nebraska now
describes the issue as follows.
Family farm agriculture plays a critical role in strengthening rural communities
and shaping the character of rural life. Quite simply, who farms matters.
Research has found that communities surrounded by farms that are larger than can
be operated by a family unit have a few wealthy elites, a majority of poor
laborers, and virtually no middle class. The absence of a middle class has a
seri-ous negative effect on social and commercial service, public education,
and local government.
We don’t have the option of returning to the family farm communities of a gen-
eration ago. But we can build strong 21st century rural communities based
on their key strength. Family farming afforded people who work — the
common person — the opportunity to shoulder the responsibilities of
ownership and enjoy its benefits. That strengthened their stake in their
community and nurtured their sense of responsibility.
Today, there are new opportunities in farming, ranching and related
businesses. Small dairies are remaking themselves with specialty cheeses
and organic milk. In the Midwest, hundreds of small farms are flourishing
by supplying the gour-met food supplier Niman Ranch with low-stress hogs
raised on straw or pasture. On the Great Plains, family growers are
cultivating specialty grains for expand-ing niche markets.
We’re still fighting for family farms that raise commodities, as you can see
in our advocacy for tighter limits on mega farm subsidies. But we are also
working to create the new 21st century opportunities for rural Americans to
own the fruits of their labor.50

49. RobertA. Hoppe, Structure and Finances of Family Farms: Family Farm, Report 2014
Edition, Report Summary, USDA, ERS, Econ. Inform. Bull. No. 132 (Dec. 2014).
50. Center for Rural Affairs website, Farm Policy at http://www.cfra.org/farm-policy.

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F. A Survey of Current U.S.

Agricultural Production
Every 5 years, the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) conducts a
Census or survey of U.S. agriculture. NASS describes this census providing “a complete count
of U.S. farms and ranches and the people who operate them” and it includes infor-mation
about “land use and ownership, operator characteristics, production practices, income and
expenditures, and many other areas.”
The first agriculture Census was taken in 1840, and for the next 156 years (1840–1996) the
U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census conducted the Census of Agri-culture.
In 1997, responsibility for conducting the Census of Agriculture transferred to the USDA
NASS. The most recent census, the 2012 Census of Agriculture was the 28th Federal Census
of Agriculture and the fourth conducted by NASS.
The 2012 Census reports fewer farmers than in 2007, but the productivity and eco-
nomic influence of American agriculture has increased. The Census reveals a
productive, largely industrialized agricultural sector that produces food, fiber, and
fuel for the United States and for export. The following summary of U.S. agriculture
is based on the 2012 Census of Agriculture. The data and the summary reports are
available on the USDA NASS Ag Census website.

1. The Number of Farms

As noted, the USDA NASS uses a broad definition of the term “farm” for purpose
of the census, defining it as any place that produced or sold — or normally would
have pro-duced or sold — $1,000 or more of agricultural products in a given year.
The 2012 Census of Agriculture counted 2,109,303 U.S. farms, down 4.3 percent
from the prior census in 2007. The 2007 Census had shown an increase, an exception
to the general trend. Other than in 2007, the number of farms has declined each
census since World War II.
The majority of these 2.1 million farms are small farms, measured by sales, and the
majority are supported by off-farm income. Seventy-five percent had farm sales of
less than $50,000 in 2012, and almost 57 percent had sales less than $10,000.

2. The Number of Farmers and Farm Demographics

The number of farmers is also down, from 2007 to 2012, a disappointment to
many who were encouraged by an increase observed in 2007. The 2012 Census
counted 3,180,074 farmers, a decline of 3.1 percent over 2007.
The number of farmers is determined by how “farm operators” are identified. The Cen-sus
of Agriculture identifies the “principal operator” of the farm, defined as the “person primarily
responsible for the day-to-day operation of the farm,” but also identifies any second or third
farm operators who are also involved in the day-to-day decision making on the farm. These
categories combine to reveal the reported number of “farmers.”
The number of principal farm operators declined by 4.3 percent from 2007 to 2012.
Seventy-eight percent of principal operators had been on their current farm for at least
10 years. Almost 80 percent of principal operators lived on their farm, but 70 percent
indicated that less than 25 percent of their household income came from farming. Just

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over 52 percent had a primary occupation other than farming, but most worked some days off
the farm. The decline in the number of farmers is consistent with the movement toward larger
farms. A separate concern is raised, however, by the aging of the farmer population. The 2012
Census revealed a continuation of the long term trend of the aging of farm operators. The
average age of the principal farm operator is now 58.3 years. The average age has increased
roughly one year in each census cycle for the last 30 years.

Average Age of Principal Farm Operator

60 58.3
57.1
58
55.3
56 54.3
53.3
54 52
52 50.5
50
48
46
1982 1992 2002 2012

Figure 1-2 USDA, NASS, 2012 Census of Agric., Highlights: Farm Demographics

These averages reveal a potential concern for the farming profession. Younger farmers
decreased in number. Between 2007 and 2012, there was a decrease in each age category of
principal operators from age 54 downward, with a statistically significant drop in op-erators
from 45–54 and from 35–44 years of age. In contrast, older farmers increased in number as
existing farmers aged. From 2007 to 2012, there was an increase in each of the categories of
principal operator at the high end of the age spectrum, with a statistically significant increase
in the top age categories, 65 to 74 and 75 years of age and older.

Principal Operators by Age Group: 2007 and 2012

75 years of age and older 243,472

257,705

65 to 74 years of age 412,182

443,571

55 to 64 years of age
596,306
608,052

45 to 54 years of age
565,401 2007 Census
466,036
2012 Census
35-44 years of age 268,818
214,106

106,735
25-34 years of age 109,119

11,878
Under 25 10,714

0 200,000 400,000 600,000 800,000

Figure 1-3 USDA, NASS , 2012 Census of Agriculture, Highlights: Farm Demographics

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Of the 2.1 million farms in the United States, 1.9 million have a white principal opera-tor.
The 2007 Census, however, showed that U.S. farm operators were becoming some-what more
diverse. The 2012 Census reports a continuation of this trend. All categories of minority--
operated farms increased from 2007 to 2012. Growth has been particularly apparent in the
Hispanic community. The number of primary operators of Hispanic ori-
gin increased 10 percent between 2002 and 2007 and 21 percent between 2007 and 2012.
These minority-operated farms, however, are overwhelmingly found at the lowest
tiers of gross cash farm sales. Except for Asian-run farms, the majority of minority-
operated farms had sales of less than $10,000.

Share of Farms by Sales Class for Minority Operators, 2012

American
Annual Sales All Farms Hispanic Indian Black Asian
Less than $10,000 56.6% 68.4% 78.1% 78.9% 43.4%
$10,000 to $49,999 18.9% 17.1% 14.3% 15.6% 22.3%
$50,000 to $99,999 6.1% 4.5% 2.9% 2.4% 7.5%
$100,000 or more 18.4% 10% 4.7% 3.1% 26.8%
Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
Figure 1-4 USDA, NASS , 2012 Census of Agriculture, Highlights: Farm Demographics

One of the most significant demographic changes in the 2007 Census was the increase
in female farm operators. There were 306,209 female principal operators counted in
2007, up from 237,819 in 2002 — an increase of almost 30 percent. The 2012 Census
reports a reduction in this number, identifying 288,264 female principal operators.
This reflects a 5.9% decline from 2007.

3. Agricultural Production
The value of farm commodity sales continue their positive trend, showing evidence of a
strong and economically powerful agricultural sector. In 2007, U.S. farms sold $297 bil-lion
in agricultural products, an increase of 48% above the value of products sold in 2002. In 2012,
farm sales again increased, this time by almost 33 percent (an increase of $97
billion) for total sales of $394.6 billion. Crop sales increased by almost 48 percent
and made up 54 percent of the 2012 sales. Livestock sale values were up almost 19 -
percent. The value of agricultural sales recorded in 2012 is the highest ever recorded,
with both livestock and crop sales significantly exceeding any prior year.
a. Type of Product
The value of corn sales increased dramatically, with sales of $39.9 billion in 2007 and
$67.3 billion in 2012. Soybeans also showed a dramatic increase, rising from $20.3 to $38.7
billion in sales. Fruit, tree nuts, and berries showed a more moderate increase, ris-ing from
$18.6 to $25.9 billion. The fourth category by sales is vegetables, melons and potatoes, which
increased from $14.7 in 2007 to $16.9 billion in 2012.
The value of sales of cattle and calves also showed a dramatic increase in 2012 over 2007.
Sales in 2012 were $76.4 billion compared to 2007 sales of $61.2. Note that 2007 sales also
reflected a significant gain of 36percent over the prior census in 2002.

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Poultry and eggs sales totaled $42.8 billion, an increase of 18 percent over 2007 sales. The
2007 sales represented an increase of 55 percent over 2002 sales. However, between
2007 and 2012, the U.S. poultry inventory declined 6 percent for turkeys and for broilers and
other meat-type chickens. Inventory increased 4 percent for pullets and remained nearly
unchanged for layers. Egg production for 2013 was estimated to be over 13 billion
eggs. The American Egg Board reported that there were 306 million commercially
raised laying hens in the U.S. at the start of 2015.
Milk sales increased at a slower pace, with sales of $31.8 billion in 2007 and $35.5 bil-
lion in 2012. Sales in 2007 were up 57 percent over 2002.
Hog and pig sales in 2012 were valued at $22.5 billion; in 2007 they were $18.1
billion; and in 2002, they $12 billion in 2002.
The top five commodities in terms of 2012 sales were cattle and calves, corn,
poultry and eggs, soybeans, and milk. Together, these commodities accounted for 66
percent of farm sales, producing $261 billion in sales.

Top Crop Commodities by 2012 Sales Value, 2007 and 2012

($ billions)

Corn

Soybeans

2012 Sales

2007 Sales
Fruits, tree nuts, berries

Vegetables, melons, and potatoes

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Figure 1-5 USDA NASS, 2012 Census of Agriculture

b. Geographic Area
According to the 2012 Ag Census, 13 states produced more than $10 billion in agri-
cultural products in 2012. These states accounted for 62 percent of U.S. agriculture sales.
California alone accounted for $29 billion in agricultural sales — 7 percent of total
U.S. sales. The top ten counties for agricultural production in the U.S. are in
California. At the top of the list, Fresno County had $5 billion in agriculture sales, a
value that is higher than 23 individual states.
The importance of California agriculture raises serious concerns about the impact
of the drought that is affecting production post-census.

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Top Livestock Commodities by 2012 Sales Value, 2007 and 2012

($ billions)

Cattle and calves

Poultry and eggs

2012

2007
Milk

Hogs and pigs

0 20 40 60 80 100

Figure 1-6 USDA NASS, 2012 Census of Agriculture

On January 17, 2014, the Governor of California declared a drought emergency and,
as of March 4, over 94 percent of California’s $43 billion agricultural sector was
experiencing severe, extreme, or exceptional drought, with the livestock sector more
directly exposed to exceptional drought than the crop sector. By
August 19, exposure had increased to over 99 percent of the sector with
crops and livestock equally exposed.51
There is always lag time between harvest and economic analysis. Readers are
directed to the companion website for current information.
Cattle production is concentrated primarily in five states — Nebraska, Texas, South
Dakota, Kansas, and Oklahoma; these states accounted for 43 percent of the total value of
U.S. sales of cattle and calves. However, there are individual counties with high con-
centrations — six of the top ten U.S. counties for cattle inventory were in Florida,
Oregon, and Montana — states that were not included in the top five state figures.
Note, however, that the 2012 Ag Census acknowledges that data from some counties
was withheld to avoid disclosing individual ownership data.
Six states accounted for 53 percent of poultry and egg sales — North Carolina, Georgia,
Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas, each with over $2 billon in annual sales. There is,
however, a significant geographic distinction between poultry and egg production.
Three southeastern states lead the nation in broiler production— Georgia, with
14.7 percent of U.S. broilers, Arkansas, with 12.6 percent, and Alabama, with 11.1 percent.

51. California Drought 2014: Farm and Food Impacts, USDA, ERS, at http://ers.usda.gov/topics/in -
the-news/california-drought-2014-farm-and-food-impacts/california-drought-2014-farms.aspx

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Egg production is also regionally concentrated, but in diferent states. Five states
— Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Texas — represent approximately 51 -
percent of all U.S. egg production.
According to the 2012 Ag Census, dairy production is reported in all states, but Cali-fornia
and Wisconsin produce one-third of U.S. milk sales. Seventy-five percent of the
value of total U.S. milk sales come from the top ten producing states — California,
Wis-consin, New York, Idaho, Pennsylvania, Texas, Minnesota, Michigan, New
Mexico, and Washington. California led the nation in the number of dairy cows at the
end of 2012–1.8 million. Wisconsin was second with 1.3 million cows.
Fifty-five percent of the value of U.S. hog and pig sales and fiftysix- percent of the hog
inventory at the end of 2012 is attributed to the states of Iowa, North Carolina, and Min-
nesota. Duplin County in North Carolina was responsible for 3 percent of the total
value of U.S. sales.
It would be hard to overstate the importance of California agriculture to specialty crop
production — fruits, berries, nuts, and vegetables. Ag Census data for 2012 reveal that
California is the leading state in the sale of fruits, tree nuts and berries and the third ranking
state in vegetables, melons, potatoes and sweet potatoes. USDA ERS estimates that this
reflects approximately 60 percent of the total U.S. fruit and tree nut farm value
and 51 percent of vegetable farm value. Twenty-two percent of all U.S. farms
growing fruit, berries, tree nuts, and/or vegetables are in California; this represents
43 percent of the farm acreage devoted to these crops.
• Most of this acreage is under irrigation — specifically, 98 percent of the State’s
land in orchards, 100 percent of the land in berries, and 100 percent of the land
planted to vegetables.
• California grows an overwhelming majority of the nation’s grapes, strawberries,
peaches, nectarines, avocados, raspberries, kiwifruit, olives, dates, and figs.
• California’s tree nut production is the nation’s largest, supplying virtually all
U.S. almonds, walnuts, and pistachios.
• California ranks second to Florida in citrus production but is the major supplier
of citrus fruit for the fresh market. A vast majority of citrus acreage in the State
is de-voted to oranges. California also produces over 90 percent of U.S. lemons
and more than 50 percent of U.S. tangerines.52
Again, the drought in California is likely impact these results going forward,
prompting some to increase the call for the redevelopment of regional food hubs.
Direct farm sales to consumers through farmers’ markets, roadside stands, pick--
your- own operations, and related ventures have increased significantly throughout
the coun-try, representing an increased focus on local production. However, in 2012,
these sales amounted to only .3 percent of total agricultural sales. Farms with direct
sales to grocer-ies and restaurants with an interest in the delivery of “local food” are
reported to have sold an estimated $6.1 billion in 2012, but this is only a USDA
estimate. These sales are not well reported in the Census of Agriculture.

52. California Drought 2014: Crop Sectors, USDA, ERS, at http://ers.usda.gov/topics/in-the-

news /california-drought-2014-farm-and-food-impacts/california-drought-2014-crop-sectors.aspx.

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c. Size of Farm and Concentration

U.S. agricultural production has become more concentrated over time, with a smaller
number of larger farms producing most of the value. This is a continuation of a long-
standing trend. In 2002, farms with more than $1 million in sales produced 47 percent of all
production; in 2007, they produced 59 percent of U.S. agricultural sales. In 2012,
farms with more than $1 million in sales produced 66 percent of total farm sales. In
2012, farms with agricultural sales of more than $5 million produced 32 percent of
the total value.
In U.S. crop production, large farms now dominate. A 2013 USDA ERS report
relying on pre-2012 Census data reported that while most cropland was operated by
farms with less than 600 crop acres in the early 1980s, current cropland production is
on farms with at least 1,100 acres, with many farms 5 and 10 times that size. The
report revealed that “[m]idpoint acreages increased in 45 of 50 States and more than
doubled in 16. The larg-est increases occurred in a contiguous group of 12 Corn Belt
and Northern Plains States. Midpoint acreages more than doubled in each of 5 major
field crops (corn, cotton, rice, soybeans, and wheat) and increased in 35 of 39 fruit
and vegetable crops, where the aver-age increase was 107 percent.”
Cropland has been shifting to larger farms. The shifts have been large,
centered on a doubling of farm size over 20–25 years, and they have been
ubiquitous across States and commodities. But the shifts have also been
complex, with land and production shifting primarily from mid-size
commercial farming opera-tions to larger farms, while the count of very
small farms increases. Larger crop farms still realize better financial returns,
on average, and they are able to make more intensive use of their labor and
capital resources, indicating that the trends are likely to continue.53
Increasing farm size generally has an adverse impact on rural communities and raises
barriers to entry for beginning farmers, a particular concern given the aging of farm
operators.
Concentration is apparent in each sector of production, but to diferent degrees. It is
particularly apparent in the livestock and poultry industries. Looking specifically at cattle
production, most cattle are initially raised on farms and ranches that remain relatively
dispersed, but then they are sent to feedlots for “finishing,” i.e. fed high-energy rations for
growth and weight gain before slaughter. Feedlots with capacity for 1,000 head or more
now market between 80–90 percent of cattle; feedlots with capacity for 32,000 head
or more sell approximately 40 percent, with the largest feedlots feeding 100,000 -
cattle at a time.
While U.S. sales of poultry and eggs showed a 15 percent increase from 2007 to 2012, the
number of farms with poultry and egg sales decreased by 8 percent. Large, special-
ized farms accounted for 98 percent ($42.0 billion) of sales in 2012. While there are an
increasing number of independent growers raising poultry for themselves and for sale,
contract growers raising poultry for a processor represent the dominant model of pro-duction.
For example, in 2012, contract production accounted for 48 percent of broiler

53. James M. MacDonald, Penni Korb, and Robert A. Hoppe, Farm Size and the Organization
of U.S. Crop Farming, USDA, ERS, Rep. No. 152 (Aug. 2013).

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farms but 96 percent of broiler production. Few commercial growers produce less
than 100,000 broilers in a year. Contract production continues to shift to larger
operations, from a production locus of 300,000 broilers in 1987 to 520,000 in 2002
and 600,000 by 2006.
The egg industry has also become very concentrated. According to the American Egg
Board, there are 175 companies which own flocks of 75,000 laying hens or more and
these flocks represent about 99 percent of all the laying hens in the U.S. There 66 egg
producing companies with flocks of more than 1 million hens, resulting in
approximately 87 percent of total egg production. Seventeen companies of these
companies each have greater than 5 million hens.
In the dairy sector, concentration is also evident. In 2002, the largest 24 percent of dairy
farms produced 74 percent of the total value of sales of dairy products. In 2007,
these large farms produced 81 percent of dairy products. Of the $31.8 billion in dairy sales in
2007, over $13 billion of it came from dairies with a herd size of over 1,000 cows. Data from
2012 shows a an 8 percent decline in the number of dairy farms.
The hog sector continues the trend toward more specialization and concentration. The 2007
reported a 9 percent decline in the number of hog farms since 2002, while produc-
tion and sales increased 46 percent. This trend continues. In 2012, saleswere up 25 percent,
but the number of farms that specialized in hog production was down 29 percent.
More hogs are now raised on fewer, larger, more specialized farms.

4. Organic Farming
The USDA NASS did a follow up to the 2007 Census of Agriculture and for the
first time ever conducted an in-depth survey of organic farming in the United States,
the 2008 Organic Production Survey. Data was collected from operators of farms that
were either USDA-certified as organic, were making the transition to organic
production, or were exempt from USDA certification because of sales totaling less
than $5,000. The survey was repeated in 2014.
The 2008 survey revealed a total of 14,540 organic farms and ranches in the
United States. To the disappointment of proponents of organic agriculture, the 2014
survey actually saw a slight decline in the number of organic farms to 14,093. The
decline, how-ever, was exclusively within the ranks of the exempt farms, i.e., those
with less than $5,000 annually in organic sales. These farms totaled 3,637 in 2008,
but decreased to 1,459 by 2014. The number of certified organic farms increased
from 10,903 in 2008 to 12,634 in 2014.
Organic farm sales increased by 72 percent, from $3.16 billion in sales in 2008 to
$5.5 billion in 2014.
Of the $5.5 billion in 2014 organic sales, $3.3 billion or 60 percent came from
the sale of crops, 28 percent came from livestock and poultry product sales (pri-
marily milk and eggs), and 12 percent came from sales of organic livestock and
poultry. In each group, organic sales are up substantially from 2008.
Organic production also concentrates in a few sectors. The top organic sector in
2014 sales was livestock and poultry products, primarily milk and eggs, followed by
vegetables grown in the open and fruits, tree nuts, and berries. These two vegetable
and fruit sectors together accounted for 42 percent of organic sales. In

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comparison, these two sectors accounted for 11 percent of all agriculture

sales in the 2012 Census of Agriculture.
Lettuce, apples, and grapes were the top-selling organic crop commodities, with
$264 million, $250 million, and $195 million in 2014 sales, respectively.54
Organic Sales: 2014 Organic Production Survey
Organic Sales ($ millions)
Top States Top Commodities
California 2,231 Milk 1,082
Washington 515 Eggs 420
Pennsylvania 313 Broiler chickens 372
Oregon 237 Lettuce 264
Wisconsin 201 Apples 250
Texas 199 Cattle 216
New York 164 Grapes 195
Colorado 147 Corn for grain 155
Michigan 125 Hay 139
Iowa 103 Spinach 117
Figure 1-6 USDA NASS 2014 Organic Production Survey, Organic Survey Highlights (Sept. 2015)

The organic farms in the 2008 survey reported production expenses totaling $2.5 bil-lion.
In 2014, that number rose to $4.0 billion. This includes $19 million spent on organic
certification. Feed and labor have consistently been the largest production expenses on organic
farms. In 2014, each constituted 23 percent of production expenses.
California reported the most organic farms; almost 20 percent of the total number of
organic farms were located there. The states with the highest number of organic farms and the
number of certified and exempt organic farms located within the state are: Cali-fornia (2,714);
Wisconsin (1,222); Washington (887); New York (887); Oregon (657); Pennsylvania (586);
Minnesota (550); Ohio (547); Iowa (518); and, Vermont (467).
There was a significant drop in organic acreage, however, between the 2008 and
2014 surveys. In 2008, there were 4.1 million acres of land designated as in organic
production. In 2014, that number had dropped to 3.67 million acres. As will be
discussed infra, in Chapter XI, the decline in certified organic acreage is in direct
contrast to the increasing demand for organic products.
Of the 3.67 million acres of organic acreage reported in 2014, approximately 3.6 mil-lion
acres were operated by certified organic farmers. Organic operations were found to own
three-fifths of this land, with the rest rented for organic production. Thirtynine- percent of
organic farmers indicated on the 2014 survey that they intended to increase
their organic production; only 5 percent expressed an intent to discontinue or
decrease organic production.
———————

54. USDA NASS, 2014 Organic Production Survey, Organic Survey Highlights (Sept. 2015).

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G. Consumer Awareness and Impact

In his essay Food Democracy, Neil Hamilton wrote of our changing food system
and its impact on agriculture.
[I]t is undeniable a major social transformation is underway in our nation’s food,
one that has the potential to reshape our food system, creating one more
reflective of democratic values. The signs of this are all around us. You can see
it in the foods we eat (Have you purchased anything organic lately?), in the
issues being debated (Was obesity such a concern five years ago?), and in the
discus-sions in farms and kitchens, boardrooms and dining rooms, in every
corner of the land. You may be part of the social movement yearning for a food
democ-racy, perhaps without realizing it. If you shop at the farmers’ market, buy
organic food, tend a garden, or eat at restaurants serving fresh local foods, then
you are part of the food democracy movement. If you are a food democrat, or
want to be, in reality you are joining a larger social movement, one resting on
commu-nity involvement and personal creativity, in which our identity and
values are reflected through the lives we lead. The growth in farmers markets,
the demand for high quality, more satisfying foods, the influence of chefs in
shaping our views of food, our passion for gardening, even our worries about
food safety, nutrition, and health, all these key forces are driving changes in our
food sys-tem. These developments are about more than just food. They are the
visible expression of democratic tendencies in society and they are the evidence
and the confirmation of an emerging food democracy.55
There is undeniably an increasing interest in food and food systems in the United
States. It is seen in the popularity and numerosity of food and food system books,
media reports, blogs, and advocacy organizations that not only evidence this interest,
but also fuel it. Similarly, documentaries about food and agriculture are also
abundant and have taken on the role of exposing consumers to a world of food
production and food policy that is not what they expect.
Universities, anxious to build on student interest, are developing food studies pro-grams.
According to the Washington Post, such programs have now “[h]it the [a]cademic
[m]ainstream.”56 Law schools have seen a marked rise in “food law & policy” courses and
clinics that connect agricultural law with food law.57 As these programs are preparing the
consumers of the future, as well as their lawyers and policymakers, it is likely that
the disconnection that has marked our food system in recent years will become an
historic anomaly.
For many consumers, there is a desire not only to know about their food, but to con-nect
more personally with its source. This trend is evidenced by the increased number of consumers
who seek to purchase their food directly from the producer. The 2007 Census of Agriculture
reported $1.2 billion direct-to-consumer sales, compared with only $551 million in 1997. The
2012 Census reported $1.3 billion in sales. Additional connections

55. Neil Hamilton, Essay — Food Democracy and the Future of American Values. 9 Drake J.
Agric. L. 9, 24 (Spring 2004).
56. See Jane Black, Field Studies, Wash. Post, Aug. 20, 2008, at F01.
57. See, Baylen J. Linnekin & Emily M. Broad Leib, Food Law & Policy: The Fertile Field’s Origins
& First Decade, 2014 Wisc. L. Rev. 557.

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are made as even the larger groceries seek to market and sell “local food.” According to
the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, farmers’ markets are consistently growing in
number, with 8,268 organized markets reported in 2012. There were only 5,274 farmers’
markets in 2009, up from 2,756 in 1998 and 1,755 in 1994. These are trends that are no
longer new, but that are persistent beyond expectation.58
Even the U.S. House of Representatives Agriculture Committee has expressed interest,
mandating a report on trends in local and regional food systems in 2014 appropriations
legislation. The result was released in January 2015. 59 These and many related issues are
discussed in Chapter XI, Food and Agriculture: A Changing Climate, infra.
An interest in local food, however, often is found in combination with a rejection
of our historical agricultural focus on lowering the cost of production and the cost of
food. Reviewing some of the latest books on food and our food system and
commenting on consumer interest, Michael Pollan wrote,
Cheap food has become an indispensable pillar of the modern economy. But it is no
longer an invisible or uncontested one. One of the most interesting social movements
to emerge in the last few years is the “food movement,” or perhaps I should say
“movements,” since it is unified as yet by little more than the recogni-tion that
industrial food production is in need of reform because its
social/envi-ronmental/public health/animal welfare/gastronomic costs are too high. 60
Pollan puts a variety of groups into his combined food movement — groups with con-cerns
regarding not only local food and direct contact with the producer, but also child nutrition,
animal welfare, environmental protection, food sovereignty, food safety, obe-sity, farmland
preservation, and food security, to provide only a partial list. Pollan notes
that it is a “big, lumpy tent” that houses these movements, but sees indications that
“these various voices may be coming together in something that looks more and
more like a coherent movement.”61
Consumers have not typically been involved in either farm policy or food policy. Is this
about to change? If so, what might consumers do with their new-found power? What
impact will there be on the global food system?
Consider the interests of the consumer, American and international, and consider
the concerns of the advocacy groups described by Hamilton and Pollan, as the
specific aspects of agricultural law unfold in the subsequent chapters.

For additional resources, links to many of the references cited, and

periodic updates to the emerging issues presented in this chapter, visit
the companion website, www.foodfarmingsustainability.com.

58. See, USDA, AMS, Farmers Markets and Local Food Marketing website. Neil Hamilton
refers to a growing consumer interest in “putting a face on our food.” Neil D. Hamilton, Putting a
Face on Our Food: How State and Local Food Policies Can Promote the New Agriculture, 7 Drake
J. Agric. L. 407 (2002).
59. Sarah A. Low & Aaron Adalja, et al, Trends in U.S. Local and Regional Food Systems: A
Report to Congress, USDA, ERS, AP-068 (Jan. 2015).
60. Michael Pollan, The Food Movement Rising, New York Review of Books (June 10, 2010).
61. Id.

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