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The Family Farm in Transition

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The Family Farm in Transition HOWARD L. HILL AND FRANK U. MAIER THE FAMILY FARM IN TRANSITION AsLS FARMING has become more closely related to urban occupations and life, the rural tradition of the family farm has been changing and is being challenged. The farm population has declined. Farm production has become specialized and mechanized. Most of the descriptive characteristics of the family farm system have changed. Occasionally it is sug- gested that the tradition of the family farm is no longer relevant to the realities of American agriculture in the sixties. What does it mean? The ideal of the family farm had its achieved through a system of individ- roots in the colonial past, when land ually owned and operated family farms. was abundant relative to labor. Early Individual ownership of farms thus pro- efforts to establish feudal systems of vided the foundation for civic virtue land tenure failed, because unsettled and for social and political stability. and unclaimed land was generally avail- This preference for the family farm able to farmers of moderate means who in turn produced land policies during depended on family labor. Thus, during the next century that further rein- the colonial period, settlers developed forced the ideal, and, because agri- strong sympathy for the idea of indi- cultural lands were abundant, the Fed- vidually owned and operated farms. eral land policies during the 19th Thomas Jefferson's exposition of what century gave it strong support. Al- we now call the family farm was nur- though few Federal restrictions were tured in this soil. In his view, an agri- placed on the transfer of lands once culture of owner-operated farmers was title was granted, the coincidence of desired as the means to a good society abundant land and lenient land dis- rather than being an end in itself. He posal programs assured wide distri- held that the basis of enlightened self- bution of ownership of farmland over government was the independence and much of our country. self-reliance of the individual. Self-re- Even during Jefferson's lifetime, liance rested on social equality and though, the role of agriculture began economic security, which could best be to change as the percentage of the 166 The Family Farm in Transition 167 total work force that was employed in land that is leased has been fairly agriculture began to decline—72 per- stable—about one-third. In areas of cent in 1820, 59 in 186O5 3Ö in 1900, commercial farming, with their in- 27 in 1920, 12 in 1950, and 6 in i960. creasing size of farms and higher farm However important the family farm income, the proportion of farmland is as a system of agriculture, the small- under lease is high; land is commonly ness of the farm sector means that the leased both by full tenants (who rent family farm cannot be relied upon as all the land they farm) and by part the only source of civic virtue and owners (who own some land and rent social and political stability. additional land). In most of the low- Even before large-scale disposal of income farm sections, however, the public lands ended, farm tenancy proportion of full owners is relatively was increasing. As this trend pro- high. gressed, the concept of the agricultural For the country as a whole, the shift ladder emerged as an explanation for to fewer and larger farms has been the existence of tenancy in a system accompanied by a rise in part owner- that cherished the goal of owner- ship and increased use of such devices operatorship. A farm iDoy could climb as vertical integration and land pur- up the agricultural ladder step by chase contracts to gain control of the step—a worker on his parents' farm, resources needed for larger operations. a hired farmworker, renter of a farm, Farm operators seemingly have a basic the owner of a mortgaged farm, and interest in income levels and a second- finally, owner of a debt-free farm. ary interest in tenure status. Improving the operation of the Now the major concern is whether agricultural ladder was seen as a way the trend toward the larger and more to preserve the system of owner- specialized farming operations is com- operated family farms. Such programs patible with a family-farm system. As as publicly supported credit, research, a goal or an ideal of farm organization, and extension were also expected to the family farm has changed little. But assist family farmers. the actual conditions on what is com- Later, programs for conservation monly thought of as family farms have and for production control and price undergone continuous change, both support that were developed gave fur- in organization and in relation to other ther support to the idea of individually sectors of the economy. owned and operated farms. The right Nevertheless, a study by Radoje to participate in these programs, how- Nikolitch, of the Economic Research ever, for the most part is not limited Service of the Department of Agricul- to family farms. Whether or not these ture, showed that in numbers of farms, programs tend to strengthen a family the family farm overwhelmingly pre- farm system of agriculture is not vailed in 1949 and 1954 in all parts of evident. the country and for most of the census types of commercial farms. DISCUSSIONS of how to maintain and In that study, as in this paper, family strengthen our system of family farms farms were recognized as businesses are no longer concentrated primarily in which operating families are risk- on the issues of security of tenure and taking managers who do most of the the rights of tenants and sharecroppers. work. The labor supply of the usual Important changes in the tenure farm family is equivalent to 1.5 man- structure have taken place, and the years. inferior status sometimes associated Ninety-six percent of all farms and with tenancy has changed. 94 percent of all commercial farms were The proportion of all farmers who classed as family farms in 1954. More- are tenants (who operate only rented over, these percentages seem to have land) has declined, but the amount of increased slightly between 1949 and 168 Yearbook of Agriculture 1963 Blue-Collar Workers Replace Farmers as Largest Rural Occupational Group Professional, Technical, and Kindred Workers Managers, Officials, and Proprietors (Except Farm) Clerical, Sales, and Kindred Workers Craftsmen, Foremen, Operatives, and Kindred Workers Service and Private Household Workers Laborers (Except Farm and Mine) Farm Laborers and Farm Foremen Farmers and Farm Managers 1940 1950 I960 1954, even though the average size of excess of 2,500 dollars a year. A hired all commercial farms increased from wage expenditure of 2,500 dollars is 276 to 310 acres. roughly equivalent to 75 man-weeks of hired labor—slightly in excess of 1.5 THE 1959 CENSUS of Agriculture dis- man-years of hired labor. closed a situation not greatly different. The variation among regions, how- In 1959, for the whole country, 5.6 ever, was considerable. In the North- percent of all census farms reported east, 11,1 percent of all census farms annual expenditures on hired labor in spent 2,500 dollars or more for hired 77îf? Family Farnï in Transition 169 labor in 1959; the Corn Belt, 3.2 per- States to 56 percent in the Delta cent; Lake States, 2.9; Northern Plains, States. 3.3; Appalachian, 2.5; Southeast, 5.0; These data indicate that the ideal Delta States, 4.6; Southern Plains, 8.0; of the family farm as one relying pri- Mountain, 12.7; Pacific, 19.6. The aver- marily on family labor is more relevant age in 48 States was 5.6 percent. and more easily attainable in some Census data on farm expenditures types of farming and regions than in for hired labor also were analyzed for others. commercial farms by type of farm. The But what are the long-term trends in percentage of commercial vegetable the family and hired worker composi- producers who reported expenditures tion of the farm labor force? of 2,500 dollars or more for hired labor We obtained data from the Statistical was 36.8; fruit and nut growers, 38.0; Reporting Service of the Department cotton, 12.0; tobacco, 2.1;,cash grain, of Agriculture on the annual average 4.9; miscellaneous, 28.1; other field of monthly numbers of farm family crops, 25.4; poultry, 9.4; dairy, 7,9; workers and hired farmworkers by livestock ranches, 16.6; other livestock, regions from 1929 to 1962. During 5.4; general, 6.4. The figure for all com- the depressed years of the thirties, all mercial farms was 8.5 percent. More- regions experienced at least some drop over, within each of the types of farm, in the relative importance of hired regional variation was great. w^orkers in the farm labor force, very likely because of an accumulation of ANOTHER WAY of looking at the posi- family labor on farms as the rate of tion of the family farm is to look at ofF-farm migration slowed. the composition of the farm labor force between family workers and DURING THE period of the Second hired workers. This measure has the World War, another drop in the pro- advantage of reflecting the tenure portion of hired workers in the farm status of all the members of the farm labor force occurred in all regions ex- labor force, whereas consideration of cept the Pacific States—probably a re- the proportion of family farms among sult of the retention of family workers all farms obscures the statistical weight on farms under Selective Service pro- of hired workers on the relatively few cedures, the general wartime scarcity larger-than-family farms.
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