Blog Entry 7: Topics in Food Quest

Time for another blog and another entry about farming. I hope no ones is tired of them yet. For this blog, I'd like to focus on the victim of industrial farming, the small-time farmer who are forced to conform.

Small-scale farmers have been run into a pen where they cannot escape as the gate is closed behind them. They are then given feed, seeds or animals, and when they mature they are sheered of everything they gained and the process repeats. The idea that you can make it in the United States is still viable, but to do so you cannot go into farming. Farming is regulated to such a high degree by larger corporations that a homegrown farm without pesticides is a thing of the passed. That might be for the better. Government regulation of the businesses forces safe habits and a safe product for the American people. The regulation of these farmers is to make a safer and more efficient product. With all of that being said, the family farms are suffering.

The United States Department of Agriculture recently released a summary document on family farm income that put an average of 70% of family farm operators having an off-farm job in order to make ends meet and have some form of disposable income. In the same document, 40% of farm operators claimed that farming was not their primary occupation. The reason for this can be attributed to large-scale businesses forcing anyone that is not with them to leave the business. These larger operations, although they only account for 18% of farms, sell up to 88% of total farm sales. To make matters worse for the family farm, over 80% of farm commodity programs go to these large farms.

The family farms are suffering. The larger businesses are cornering the market and are unwavering in their disposition does not allow any thought for the 82% of farms who are trying to find a place in the market. The government, although is indeed very caring about the American people, focuses more on the safety of the product then where the product comes from and who it effects. Also hurting the smaller farmers is the fluctuation of the market. With factors such as drought and excessive cold fronts affecting their ability to produce produce, they are left with no larger body to rely on and whether the storm.

Thank you everyone, and anyone, for reading. Leave your thoughts on family farms. Also, most of my information came from the Department of Agriculture if you have read anything different I'd be delighted to know. Blurt out my thoughts with you next time!