7
The changes in farming practices from small, mixed farming businesses to large, specialised industrial farming over the past 40 years have brought financial gain to some. Large farmers and big companies populating the food supply chain in particular have benefited. But these economic benefits have come at a social cost: we are losing our Australian farmers at a rapid rate.
In the last 40 years the number of full-time Australian farms has dropped from about 200,000 to 120,941.[1] Many small farms have gone to the wall or been bought up by neighbouring farmers or big corporations. Largely gone are the days of the mixed family farm that grew a diversity of food. Once upon a time, the small dairy farmer sold his milk to the local dairy co-operative. He may have run a small beef herd as well and regularly sold a few head to the local butcher. This farmer would have grown a barley or sorghum crop to feed his stock. Excess grain was sold to the Barley Board. He put his eggs in several baskets.
The lifestyle that farming offered back then was its drawcard. The farmer was his own boss. He worked with nature. The pace of life was slower. People stayed at home and cooked their own meals and made their own fun. The kids shared the farm workload and no one worked on a Sunday. Families grew their own fruit, vegetables and meat. It wasn’t always easy but it was satisfying. The family farm was like a much-loved family member. It had been in the family for generations. As a result, farmers had an emotional, if not almost spiritual connection to their land. (Are you misty-eyed yet?)
This connection stemmed from our forebears’ traditional European beliefs that farming should not be treated as a business, but rather as a way of life. As late as 1932 when mechanisation was changing the face of farming, European farmers resisted and argued that ‘the man in the field is important; the plough is a sacred symbol, while ploughing, sowing and harvesting are almost religious occasions’.[2]
Perhaps this is all pure nostalgia because, historically, the economic reality of small farming is that it has always been tough, certainly in Australia. Protectionist policies of the early to mid twentieth century artificially kept many farmers on the land. History shows the world over that family farming, at its best, is plain hard work, with poor returns, and offering limited social and cultural opportunities for family members. It is a high risk, high input business. Farmers are in it for love not money.
Without the determination of small farmers, for better or for worse, we would not have the agricultural industry we have today. Small to medium-sized family farms are still the dominant type of farm business in Australia, but in our current economic climate and industrialised production system, the viability of small farms is under threat. Many agricultural economists predict corporate farming will be the way of the future to supply the world with food.[3] Because of the solid tradition of family farming and the strong financial system in Australia, corporate farming has yet to take off in a big way as it has done in America and Europe, but we are on the cusp. There has been increased investment in big farms by wealthy Australian companies and overseas interests. The wolf is at the door.
Farmers, continually encouraged by government and agribusiness interests, have increased productivity and efficiency. But still they struggle to make ends meet financially. Many farmers are forced to work off-farm to maintain the business. The lifestyle is not what it was—if it ever was. Following the trends in the United States, larger, more intensive farms owned by corporations and multinational companies are creeping across the Australian countryside. The ‘agribusiness managers’ who run these ‘facilities’ are not concerned about lifestyle, culture or tradition. They value their role for what they can produce in dollars, not days off. They have no emotional investment in the business or the land. They are not working to preserve the environment to pass on to their children or for the enjoyment of the wider public.
In the short term, this change has not affected the volume of food produced in Australia, but it has affected the type of food produced, the quality of the food and the way it is produced. It has also narrowed the general public’s understanding of food and food production. This might be good for corporations with high fences and vested interests but not necessarily for the consumer who needs good information to make good choices.
Forty years ago a vast number of Australians had a grandparent, uncle or second cousin who lived on a farm in the country. In the school holidays, the kids would visit Nana, Uncle Ben or Cousin Bob on the farm. Everyone had a go at milking a cow, got itchy playing in a grain bin, chased sheep and poddy calves around the yard, and became sunburnt chipping burrs or picking fruit. Kids learnt to stack hay, ride a horse or a motorbike and drive a car across the paddocks. Friendships and understanding were forged between city and country cousins. As a result, non-farmers had a fair idea of how their food was produced. There was a social connection between the farmer and the city dweller. Today most Australians are completely disconnected from how and where their food is produced. We have lost our physical, social and cultural connection to the farm.
Due to long-term agricultural industry restructuring, Uncle Ben or Cousin Bob has long ago sold his farm and moved to greener pastures. In 1901, the Population Census showed 14 per cent of Australians were employed in agriculture.[4] (This did not include women and Aboriginal people who, once in the paddock, became invisible.) By the late twentieth century, only 3 per cent of Australians were employed directly on the farm. Fewer farms and modern farming techniques required fewer people. As a result, populations in rural and remote farming areas have declined. Despite our beginnings riding on the sheep’s back, Australia is now one of the most highly urbanised countries in the world.[5] We have, in rather dramatic fashion, dismounted. Data from the 2006 Census showed that 68 per cent of the Australian population lived in cities while more than 80 per cent lived along the coastal strip.[6] The urbanisation of Australia means we have become physically removed from the agricultural landscape we once inhabited.
Land-use zoning in most places of Australia has literally separated people from farming.[7] Since 1945, through the expansion of Australian cities, we have lost more than 1 million hectares of rural land surrounding these cities.[8] In coastal areas this was our most productive land. Small farms grew the fruit and vegetables that supplied our urban centres. People living in towns and cities could still smell and touch farmland, even if they didn’t own it or derive an income from it.
Today in Australia, farming is being pushed further away from the cities and out of sight of food consumers. Fertile peri-urban farmland (farmland on the edge of cities) is now worth more as house blocks than farms. Unfortunately, accompanying our modern, intensive agricultural industries are odour, noise, dust and chemical use. As a result, urban living and agricultural land use have come into conflict, requiring local laws to keep them separate. Before the 1960s, the city edges were intermingled with farming land. Farming was less intensive and less offensive. It might not always have been a perfect co-habitation, but in days gone by small-scale farmers and city folk managed to get along.
Up until the last few decades, most families in the city grew their own vegetables. They kept chickens for eggs. When the hens grew old and stopped laying, Dad chopped off their heads and dropped them into the pot on the stove. In fact, up until the 1950s and ’60s farm animals including horses, cows and pigs were often kept in urban backyards to supply the household with transport, meat and milk. With the gentrification of city suburbs, the animals were removed as keeping animals was considered a pursuit of the working class and not appropriate in a modern, progressive community.[9] This view was underpinned by the growing split between rural and urban society—the industrialised and civilised city versus the agricultural and barbarian countryside. Animals were noisy and disruptive and destructive if they wandered the cityscape. With the economic boom of the 1960s and the growing culture of consumerism, the keeping of farm animals came to be considered unnecessary, particularly when there was a supermarket down the road, and town planning laws formalised these widely held views.
Further urbanisation, the dwindling number of small farms and the changed nature of farming have removed opportunities for us to get up close and personal with food-producing animals and crops today. We don’t know what goes on in the long industrial sheds that house thousands and thousands of food animals and chequer the coastal hinterland. Or the shiny plastic green houses of hydroponically grown crops. Or the broadacre grain farms, now far inland, which extend from horizon to horizon. Or the intensive cattle feedlots plonked on the edge of grain-growing regions. They are out of sight and out of mind. As social researcher Andrea Gaynor says, ‘Live cows and goats remain, for the middle-class majority, a satisfyingly picturesque distance from suburban homes—and dinner tables.’[10] Consumers are now more geographically and socially removed from where and how their food is produced than ever before.
Those Australians who didn’t live in the major coastal cities 40 years ago may well have lived in a country town. There you were even more likely to come face to face with a sheep or a cow. While the population today is growing around major cities and in coastal regions due to ‘tree-’ and ‘sea changers’, it is declining in regional and remote inland towns. Communities established around traditional farming areas are the hardest hit. When the farmers leave, so too do town businesses, which support the farm sector. With them go the skilled workers. As populations decline so too do hospitals, schools, bus and train services, post offices and banks. Without work and vital services, those who remain in rural towns experience unemployment, increased health problems, climbing crime rates and other social issues. This leads to a further drift of population, particularly among the young, away from rural communities. It is a vicious circle. Who would want to live in a place like this? The Australian government predicts that employment in agriculture and fisheries is not expected to grow in the foreseeable future.[11] Throw in the odd prolonged drought and, eventually, small towns die.
As we lose our farmers so do we also lose our knowledge of local food production. Small-scale, traditional farmers are the primary source of wisdom about the land they farm. Decades of daily experience can’t be found in a textbook. Farmers are in tune with the changing seasons. They know the lay of their land, local plants and animals and rainfall patterns. They know what grows best and where and what can go wrong. They have close networks with their farming neighbours and friends often spanning generations. While Australia has a history of farming challenges which has led to many problems—deforestation, salinity, soil erosion, soil nutrient decline and loss of biodiversity in some parts of the country—today’s farmers are learning from past generations’ mistakes. They are not perfect but they are wiser. Australian farmers are world leaders in conservation farming practices such as zero tillage and direct drill planting methods which help enrich soil organic matter and retain soil moisture. They were the first in the world to incorporate legumes into crops and pasture to naturally improve soil fertility and to rotate crops to manage pests and disease.
If we want Australian-produced food, we need farmers to grow it. With the disappearance of farmers and small farms, their vital knowledge and experience is under threat too.[12] More and more the traditional farmer’s role is being contracted out to managers, many of whom are not farmers. The gated compounds of the multinational-owned chicken, pork or veal sheds are not about to share their secrets—even if this was the kind of knowledge we were after.
The average age of an Australian farmer is 58. Forty per cent of farmers are over 55 and 18 per cent are over 65.[13] Despite modern labour-saving technology, farming is still hard work. Bodies wear out. Bank accounts dry up. Sixty per cent of farmers will retire in the next ten years. With attractive salaries and lifestyles on offer away from the farm, generations X and Y are choosing not to come back. As the young ones say, you can’t eat ‘lifestyle’.
The National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) predicted that regional Australia would need 100,000 new employees over the next five years to return agriculture to pre-drought (2001–09) production levels.[14] Now that the decade-long drought of the 2000s is over and agricultural production ramps up again, the sector faces stiff competition from the mining and energy sectors for workers in rural areas. In 2009 there were 22,000 vacancies for fruit pickers. The NFF said this had cost horticultural farms, on average, $100,000 per year in unpicked, rotting fruit.[15] There are thousands of skilled and unskilled farm jobs vacant across all agricultural industry sectors, not just horticulture.
Between 2001 and 2006 the number of graduates studying agricultural disciplines dropped by 30 per cent.[16] About 800 students graduate to fill an estimated 6000 job vacancies. Industry leaders blame this drop on the negative image of agriculture and community ignorance.[17] This may contribute but could it be something else? Traditionally, the majority of young people seeking careers in agriculture have been the sons and daughters of farmers. They went on to work in science-based professions such as agronomy or natural resource management or into agribusiness as managers and marketers. In the past, it was the longer-term goal of many young people to eventually return to the farm. Not so anymore. The sons and daughters of farmers know full well the poor returns farming provides. They are put off not by the negative image of agriculture but by its negative terms of trade. The Australian Council of Deans of Agriculture (ACDA) in 2010 noted that the starting pay rates for new graduates of agricultural science were also a disincentive to enter the field: graduates earn $5000 less than those entering comparable disciplines.[18]
On top of the shortage of young people entering the field, Australia could lose up to 50 per cent of its experienced agricultural scientists and agribusiness professionals in the next few years as they retire.[19] Many of these people are employed by state and Federal agricultural agencies that have had funding cut for research and development programs. Funding for agricultural colleges and agricultural studies in universities has also been gradually cut over the years. This action sends the message that agriculture is not worth the investment and governments will get more bang for their buck elsewhere. The loss of experienced researchers and the knowledge they collect and impart will impact Australian food production. The egg timer is ticking.
Government and rural industry is attempting to close the rural–urban gap through funding general awareness programs such as ‘Farm Day’, where a country family hosts a city family—an experience which is increasingly uncommon today. Meat & Livestock Australia runs virtual farm visits on its website and media promotional campaigns such as ‘Target 100’ aimed at getting good news agricultural stories into the mainstream media. But is it enough? After all, what do Australians—particularly urban Australians—really think of farmers?
In 2003 the NFF commissioned market researcher CrosbyTextor to find out.[20] The findings showed farmers were seen as ‘the backbone of Australia’, ‘hard working’ and ‘salt of the earth’. But at the same time, it also showed a majority of Australians viewed farmers as ‘antiquated’ and ‘relics of a by-gone era’. Their way of life was ‘dead or dying’ and they were ‘reliant on handouts, always whingeing and were irrelevant to modern Australia’. Not a positive picture of the people whom you rely on to produce your food. Worse still, 92 per cent of people surveyed described farmers as ‘raping the environment’ and ‘couldn’t be trusted as responsible land managers’.[21]
No, farmers are not perfect. Some do intentionally or unintentionally exploit the environment for monetary gain. Just as some stockbrokers are not fit to be stockbrokers and some parents are not fit to be parents, some farmers are not fit to be farmers. But in the main this is not the case. The land is a farmer’s means of production. If he destroys this, he destroys his livelihood and his future.
To many urban dwellers their understanding of rural Australia and farming extends only as far as what they see on their television sets and cinema screens. The information they have traditionally received is through blockbuster films like Australia or old movie reruns of We of the Never Never and The Thornbirds. These films romanticise a long-gone era. They depict the glory days of Australian agriculture. Contemporary television series like McLeod’s Daughters again provide an unrealistic, idealistic notion of current daily life on the farm. Those girls never get dirty. Not a nail broken, not a hair out of place. The program gives no hint of the sophistication of modern farming either.
On the other hand, post protectionism and deregulation, the ‘real life’ stories fed to city folk are about how tough farmers are doing it. Images portrayed on the nightly news are of drought-stricken or flooded farmland, or plagues of rabbits or locusts. While this is often the reality, even farmers are sick of seeing television pictures of the same old sheep skull in the cracked clay of the same old dry dam.
The bush, in recent times, has been depicted as remote, backwards, depleted and depressed.[22] Extended periods of drought during the 1980s, ’90s and 2000s have exacerbated this. Worse still, some films since the 1970s have depicted Australian rural communities as representing all that is bad in society—racism, xenophobia, misogyny, intolerance, homophobia and aggressive masculinism.[23] Films such as The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Dead Heart, Wake in Fright, The Year My Voice Broke and even The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert highlight some of these not so desirable traits. The metropolitan media’s coverage of politician Pauline Hanson and the One Nation Party during the mid 1990s showed rural Australians, the majority of whom are farmers, to be ignorant, prejudiced and backward ‘rednecks’.
The often-misinformed perceptions city folk take away as a result of these images belie the sophistication of many farmers. While today’s farmers, including small-scale farmers, are socially and politically conservative in the main, they are not stupid. Many are well educated with university degrees or trade qualifications and a repertoire of skills and practical knowledge passed down through generations. The media portrayal does not show the extent and technological sophistication of food production today.
Contrary to popular belief, the modern-day farmer does not spend his days chewing on straw and watching the sky. Advances in science and technology have been a godsend in reducing the back-breaking nature of farm work. The crowbar and shovel have been replaced by mechanical post-hole diggers, bobcats and front-end loaders, and a raft of mechanical aids. The farmer’s tools of trade are expensive modern tractors, global positioning system technology, soil moisture probes, soil nutrient modelling software, the latest financial accounting software and e-marketing tools. He gets his weather information from the Bureau of Meteorology website more so than the sky. Farmers use agronomists and other professionals to help make on-farm management decisions and take the advice of market experts to sell their produce. Today’s farmer, by necessity, is a bit of a tech-head. He is also an economic rationalist taught by the market within which he is compelled to operate. Farmers were once farmers. Now they are neo-liberal, business people with marketing strategies. If city people knew this, maybe they would like them more.
In response to the negative perceptions of Australian farmers, the NFF set about to ‘engender informed support for agriculture’s modern contribution’ through a constant and carefully planned media campaign.[24] The NFF public affairs department claimed it worked. Further market research carried out three years later showed that metropolitan Australia now perceived farmers as innovative, modern and important to Australia. It must have convinced former Australian Prime Minister John Howard. In 2006 he vowed never to let Australian farms fall below a critical mass because ‘it was part of the psyche of the country’ and that ‘Australia would lose something of our character’ if farmers and farming went.[25] He made the claim in response to suggestions that Australian farmers should be paid to leave land left unproductive by climate change.
Whether we agree with them or not, Howard’s comments demonstrate the special place rural Australia has held in the cultural identity of Australia. The spirit of the early settlers and pioneers in overcoming hardship make up Australian myths and legends. We are ‘battlers’, ‘resilient’, ‘fighters by nature’, particularly when it comes to drought, floods, cyclone, pests, plagues and even social disadvantage. These attributes are carried over into war, sport and the challenges of urban living.
This demonstrates the ‘social’ function of Australian agriculture in our history, a function that has sometimes been considered more important than its utilitarian purpose of feeding the people. Settler programs of the 1890s encouraged farmers to settle, populate and ‘civilise’ remote, inland regions.[26] The aim was to raise the status of agriculture from its lowly state alongside squatting and mining—as it was then regarded—to the exact science it was becoming.[27] In the 1920s agriculture became a reward for returned soldiers. Former World War I soldiers were given small, often poor-quality parcels of land on the condition they would farm them. It was part of a bigger government strategy to increase Australia’s population to fend off any invasion from the north. With current government policy in effect leaving agriculture and rural Australia on its own, one must question even the ‘social’ value afforded agriculture in Australia today.
More importantly, false perceptions of farming and country life can serve to belittle or disguise the inherent problems underlying our current farming and food system. Years of declining income and quality of life has led to the social decay of many small communities where farmers live. Frustration, anger and an increased feeling of helplessness in those who remain are all evident. Suicide rates are highest in rural and remote areas. Suicide among farmers is even higher than the community average in these locations. Factors leading up to suicide include financial pressure, social isolation and family stress.[28] Despite the healthy, outdoor, physical nature of the job, farmers are also over-represented with poor health. The average age of farmers certainly contributes to this, but the stresses imposed by the variable nature of farming, high costs and labour shortages don’t help. Up to 30 per cent of farmers today rely on a portion of off-farm income to survive. Working away from home is often at the expense of family, community interaction and personal health.[29] Despite this, farmers are psychologically tough. They are practical people capable of managing risk. A farmer can carry the psychological burden of financial debt for long periods and still maintain good relationships with his bank manager.
Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that mothers in rural areas have the highest labour force participation of mothers anywhere. As farming and mining are traditionally male-dominated industries not known for gender equality, this sounds odd. But because of the labour shortage in rural areas and the need for off-farm income to support the farm, many women from farming families work extra jobs. In the past, most farming women gave up their careers as nurses and teachers after they had children. It was the norm of the day, reinforced by the distance to the workplace. Today, out of necessity, many mothers stay working in these professions in rural areas despite long travelling distances, poor childcare options and the expectation that they will continue to be the housekeeper, bookkeeper and a farm labourer at the same time.
Negative images of farming—actual or perceived—don’t necessarily engender compassion or understanding from the urban majority who, through sheer numbers if nothing else, hold the balance of economic and political power in Australia. In past times, policies of regionalisation and decentralisation better supported farmers in rural and remote regions. Today’s free-market policies and economic rationalist approach do not. Without the political will, the farm sector as we know it will go.
The truth is, Australia is no longer reliant on agriculture for its economic wellbeing. Mining and energy now contributes 65 per cent of Australia’s export trade. The service industries—education, banking and finance, tourism and hospitality, media and entertainment—account for 70 per cent of the country’s economic activity.[30][31] These are city-centric professions. With increasing urbanisation, the economic and social changes affecting rural communities have weakened the cultural link between city and country. With the growth in the service industries, the gap between urban and rural is likely to continue to grow. As we’ve seen, Australian agriculture has, at times, been valued more for its cultural purpose than its role of providing food and fibre. Yet even this is on the wane. These trends suggest we are destined to become further removed from our food.
Re-establishing a connection between farmers and consumers is important for both. Farmers are responsible for food safety. The health and safety of food are uppermost in the mind of today’s consumer. Consumers should want a relationship with the farmer so they know how their food is produced and, if necessary, so they can influence this. The farmer is also the custodian of the land. Sixty per cent of Australia’s land mass is farming land. He is, therefore, responsible for the health and conservation of the environment—another priority concern for the wider public.
The farmer wants a good relationship with the consumer to avoid misconceptions. Consumers who are ignorant of food production are more likely to over-react to reported food scares or misuse of agricultural technology than if they have a basic knowledge of food production, an appreciation of farming and a good relationship with farmers. Furthermore, if consumers are unaware of how agriculture operates, this means most elected representatives and legislators are too. Where does this leave the farming and food industry at a leadership level?
The farmer needs the consumer, not only to buy his product and support him financially, but also to value his role in sustaining rural communities and as the keeper of knowledge and stimulator of the local economy. The mass-scale, industrial system of food production alienates consumers from food producers. The scale and intensity of production is unnatural and is often kept hidden from the general public. Small farms and family farmers using traditional, sustainable production methods are the key to reconnecting farmers and consumers, and rural and urban communities.
The United States has been most affected by the industrialisation of farming, the growth of corporate farming and the loss of small-to medium-sized family farms. Australia is certainly on the same train but we haven’t yet arrived at the station. There is hope.
In the United States there has been a resurgence in small farming during the past few years. In the state of Vermont small farms and farmer networks have sprung up everywhere. The growing cost of shipping food from California and further afield, and concern over food safety has spurred an interest in local food production in Vermont. Consumers want to know where their food comes from and to meet the farmer who grew it. People entering small farming are doing it primarily for the lifestyle and still maintain an off-farm income. However, US agricultural officials say there is substantial money to be made from small crops and niche products.[32] Following years of decline, 2007 US census figures showed an increase in small farm numbers and that direct-to-consumer sales by these farmers were increasing. Many of these are organic farms of less than 50 acres (20 hectares). Small, ‘sustainable’ or ‘localvore’ farmers, as they are known, are now selling fresh produce directly to co-operatives, supermarkets, schools and restaurants in Vermont. There are about 70 farmers’ markets and 74 community-supported agriculture (CSA) schemes operating in Vermont too. Direct marketing keeps costs down for both the farmer and the shopper. Food is grown seasonally. There are fewer storage and transport costs. Food consumers are connected with food producers.
Australian farmers’ markets have also grown in popularity and are now commonplace in most large cities and towns. Many city residents connect with local farmers when they visit to buy their weekly fresh fruit, vegetables, and increasingly cheese, smallgoods, chutneys and other value-added foods. Advocates for farmers’ markets say they are a healthy, ethical alternative to supporting the global trading system and its economic, environmental and socially destructive effects.[33]
City-livers not only have a desire to eat fresh, locally grown food, they want to be involved in its production too, as evidenced by the growing interest and promulgation of city or community gardens. A community garden is a block of land gardened collectively by a group of people to grow food. The land, often found in the heart of our major cities, is typically owned in trust by local government but leased by groups of individuals. There are hundreds of community gardens across Australia operating in different ways but all providing local, organically grown, fresh food to the gardeners.
Community-supported agriculture (CSA) is not as well known in Australia but it is shaping up as an exciting alternative food-production system that values small farmers. CSA is a socio-economic model of agriculture and food distribution that operates at a local or regional level. Farmers organise themselves to directly supply individual, local customers with fresh food straight from the farm. The farmer sets the price (novel in itself) and the customers pay for their food up-front before the season begins. This helps the farmer by spreading the risk: if a crop fails the consumer wears some of this cost. It also provides the farmer with start-up money to get the crop in the ground. For the customer, a CSA secures them a weekly box of fresh, quality, locally grown food delivered to their door. There are more than 1000 CSAs operating in America with between ten and 700 customers or subscribers each.
Perhaps the best-known example of a CSA in Australia is Food Connect, operating in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, with up to 1000 subscribers each. Some CSA farms encourage the consumer to collect the weekly box of produce from the farm or spend time physically working on the farm to better understand food production and keep costs down. Most CSAs produce organic fruit and vegetables using environmentally sustainable farming practices. Some schemes offer fresh meat, preserved fruit and condiments. Because the food is produced locally and same-day harvested, it is not stored and is on par or often cheaper than shoppers would pay in the supermarket. CSAs provide the farmer with a guaranteed market and an increased share of the food dollar due to fewer marketing, packaging and distribution costs. Some farmers supplying Brisbane’s Food Connect are already paid up to four times more than what they would receive selling into the conventional market.[34] CSAs stimulate local economies and build a sense of community, and are best suited to small to medium-sized family farms located near large cities or regional centres. Proponents of CSAs say they can help to level the playing field for farmers in a food system that favours large-scale industrialised food production.
So could a return to small, localised farming and direct marketing be the secret to saving the small family farmer? Could small farms be just as important to our future as they have been to our past?
Current policies tell us small farms cannot produce enough food to meet demand. But US researcher Dr Peter Rosset challenges conventional wisdom that small farms are unproductive and inefficient.[35] While they may not be able to compete in large-scale commodity production, he claims they are multifunctional and are actually more productive, more efficient and contribute more to economic development than large farms.
Rosset says farms should be judged for productivity on total output per unit area and not yield per unit area. Because small farms have the ability to plant crop mixtures, instead of monocrops, and rotate crops with livestock, they actually have a greater total output than large farms. Crop mixtures and intercropping—where crops are planted in the bare ground between crop rows, a method used particularly in developing countries—are better for weed and pest management and soil fertility.
Research has shown that the smallest farms in the United States—those under 27 acres (11 hectares)—have more than ten times the dollar output per acre than large farms.[36] This is partly due to the fact that smaller farms tend to specialise in high-value crops like vegetables and flowers, but also because small farms utilise the whole parcel of land rather than leaving land fallow (unplanted) for certain periods. They are also more labour intensive, often utilising family members; use irrigation more efficiently than big farms; and choose natural inputs like manure and compost over synthetic fertilisers. Many do not use chemicals. Established organic farmers say it is possible to grow food organically and get the same if not better productivity. The costs to produce organic food may be higher than for conventionally produced food—largely due to increased labour costs and extra time taken to grow food naturally—but the nutritional and eating quality are generally believed to be better.[37]
Small farms tend to more readily preserve waterways and areas of natural habitat. Small farmers, both in developing countries and industrialised countries like Australia and the United States, better manage natural resources, conserve biodiversity and are more sustainable in the long term. Sold yet?
Critics of conventional agriculture say broadacre farms growing monocultures of food crops are encouraged to do so by the big agribusinesses who market the seed, fertilisers, herbicides and insecticides—and have made a lot of money doing so. Unfortunately this is the dominant paradigm within which modern Australian agriculture operates.
There are scientists who believe diversity of crop genetics, not economic efficiency, underpins the sustainability of world agriculture, and that it is small farmers who will preserve this as they have done for 400 farming generations.[38] Farmers have been responsible for the artificial selection of plants since they were first domesticated. Current industrial agricultural practices are wiping out the diversity of our food at an astonishing rate.[39] Yet US government policies, and increasingly Australian government policy, have favoured large, corporate-style farms. To increase profits, these large farming businesses plant fence-to-fence monocultures because they are the easiest to manage with heavy machinery, agrochemicals, fertilisers and low labour costs. This is all to the detriment of local rural communities, food diversity and the environment.
As in the United States, there has been a slight increase in small farm numbers in Australia in recent years, particularly in periurban areas. Again, mainly for lifestyle and amenity reasons rather than economic. But Australian research has shown small farms are important contributors to Australia economically, culturally and socially. Small farms generate wealth and employment, support local businesses and services, create tourism opportunities, and help to keep rural populations viable. Small farms also keep landownership in the hands of the local people who contribute to local economies. The inherent bias towards larger agricultural holdings stems from our pioneering history. Upon settlement by the British, Australia became largely a pastoral country consisting of large runs of land grazing sheep and cattle. Grazing proved more profitable than farming per se. The first pastoralists, or ‘squatters’ as they were known, acquired large tracts of Crown land simply by being the first there. They had no legal rights to the land and paid no rent. These squatters were often from the upper echelons of colonial society—from good English and Scottish families. Their pastoral activities proved lucrative and by 1840 squatters were recognised as some of the wealthiest men in the colony.
This was in stark contrast to Australia’s first ‘farmers’—the exconvicts of New South Wales or newly arrived free settlers to South Australia who had been granted small farms in the early 1800s. Most were not farmers to start with, and farming in the harsh Australian conditions would have tested even the best English farmer. Clearing and tilling the land was hard work and unpredictable seasons made farming a financially risky business. The early farmers struggled to grow crops and keep livestock. Many went broke and left the land. Farming was ‘the preserve of small settlers only, men without capital sufficient to enable them to obtain and stock large grants of land and [sic] would have abandoned farming altogether if suitable opportunities had offered’.[40] Farmers were looked down upon as ‘needy’, ‘struggling’ and the most ‘poverty stricken’ of settlers who ran their land down in desperation to make a living.[41]
This period of history created a social divide between ‘farmers’ and ‘graziers’ which continued for a good 100 years and, some might suggest, still underlies prejudices in society today. Even after World War II, the Australian National Dictionary gave the advice ‘you must never refer to a grazier as a farmer. A farmer is a lower type of human.’[42]
While the number of small farms is growing around metropolitan cities and large inland towns, their significance economically and socially is not yet understood by policy makers.[43] Support for small farmers by all levels of Australian government could go a long way to increasing the diversity and profitability of this sector and the flow-on benefits to rural communities.[44]
But this will not suit all Australian farmers. Many medium-sized, family-owned farms are too big to prosper from the artisan or niche markets but not large enough to be competitive in commodity production. They are the most vulnerable in this polarised market, yet they make up the majority of farmers in Australia. So what are the alternatives for these mid-sized farmers, who like the small farmers, are feeling the financial pinch?
At present they can survive if they are willing to become contract growers—with or without the written document—for large agribusiness companies. These are the farmers who grow 300 hectares of wheat each year to sell to Cargill, or the beef farmer who grows out his 800 steers annually to meet the specifications of JBS Australia’s feedlot or Nippon’s processing works. Their throughput of cattle or tonnage of grain is not quite enough to return a profit in bulk commodity markets and ensure their survival long term, but they are too big or too far from large centres to supply farmers’ markets or participate in community-supported agriculture.
One option for the mid-sized farmer is to move from producing low-value commodities (bulk wheat and beef) to high-value foods (bread flour and prime steak). This involves a mindset change for many farmers, which is often the hardest part. Mid-sized farms have a comparative advantage: their smaller size means they are flexible and innovative enough to produce highly differentiated or unique products, but they have sufficient land to still be able to employ economies of scale. By changing to alternative crops they can add more strings to their bows. A food and farming system ‘of the middle’ will also maintain the farmers’ financial independence.[45]
Of course, none of this will work well without an organised supply chain. Ideally, a strong local food system consisting of regionally based food processors, distributors and retailers will serve everyone’s needs. Co-operative marketing might play a significant part. Community-based enterprises such as food-buying groups could feature. Yes, it does sound a bit ‘back to the future’ but it may be what is needed. Changing to a regionalised food system, however it looks, will also require a change in government policy to support it.
Consumers are demanding high quality, locally grown, ‘organic’ food. Organic, chemical free, free range, grass fed, biodynamic, agroecological, permacultural or a combination of all—is definitely the new black.[46] Revenue for organic farming is expected to grow 13.4 per cent per year for the next five years.[47] Higher disposable incomes and consumers’ increased awareness of environmentally sustainable farming practices are fuelling the trend, and there are plenty of new small businesses popping up to service the demand, including small organic stores, organic fresh food markets and home delivery of organic food facilitated by the internet. Organic food producers are reaping premiums of 20 per cent over conventionally produced food, yet domestic supply of organic food is falling well short of demand.
Unfortunately, to date there has been little government support for the organic farming industry in Australia, particularly in the areas of research and development.[48] This is necessary for the industry to grow, but will come about only if consumers continue to demand quality food, produced with integrity. Mid-sized farmers are well positioned to develop competitive alternatives to commodity agriculture. ‘Organic’ farming, in one of its various forms, could be one way of doing it.
American agricultural economists and social researchers have put the plight of mid-sized farms on the policy agenda during the last decade or so. The ‘Agriculture of the Middle’—a research, planning and implementation project led by Fred Kirschenmann and Steve Stevenson—seeks to renew the mid-sized farm sector in the United States. Other organisations such as Farm Aid (headlined by musicians Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews) have raised money for and brought attention to the plight of small farmers for the past 25 years. Other high-profile university-based research groups supporting family-farm-centred food systems in the United States include the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems and the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Iowa. As a result, alternative local food systems are being developed across America at the behest of consumers and small farmers alike. Mid-sized farms in the US are not just valued for quality food production, but also for the ‘public good’ that these farms have provided in the form of land stewardship and social capital (the benefits to the people). These farmers own the land and have the knowledge and experience to look after it.
Unfortunately, the same attention has not been paid to small and mid-sized family farmers in Australia. While individual scholarly work by the likes of Neil Barr, Geoffrey Lawrence and Ian Gray has documented the plight of Australian farmers, there are few dedicated groups to advocate for their cause.[49] There also appears to be a disconnect between what we know will help farmers and the political will to do it. Political commentator and academic Judith Brett says Australia has chosen efficient agriculture over the social goal of putting more people on the land.[50] As mining now earns Australia the big dollars, agriculture has lost its economic clout and appears no longer entitled to any special treatment.
Along with farmer numbers, the political party which represents farmers, the National Party, is in decline. In 1984 the Nationals held 21 Federal seats pulling 10.6 per cent of the vote. In the 2007 Federal election, the Nationals won only ten seats and 5.49 per cent of the vote.[51] Unfortunately, without sufficient farmer voters, the Nationals’ days appear numbered.
Like the powerful American Farm Bureau, Australia’s peak farmer group, the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF), looks after big farmers. Although the NFF might claim to look after all farmers, its policy focus does not extend beyond the industrial food production system that directly benefits the very large commodity farmers and connected agribusiness interests. The small farmer is not well catered for. The farmer with radically alternative ideas is not catered for at all. But despite its best efforts for the big farmer, and gung-ho promotion of conventional farming, the farm lobby sector has done little to improve the farmer’s terms of trade or guarantee his sustainability no matter what his size.
Government attention paid to the farm sector today is minimal and at best ad hoc. Drought funding programs (the only type of direct government subsidy farmers receive—and only some of them) demonstrates this. Neither the Australian agricultural sector nor the Federal government has a long-term strategic plan for agriculture, particularly food producers. With promises of a government-led national food plan currently on the menu, there may be hope at the leadership level yet, but it is still a way off.
The commercial rural media in Australia is of little help to farmers either. Australian media studies have shown that mainstream rural newspapers confirm the collective values of farmers and country folk, which serves only to reinforce the status quo.[52] The culture of the country press means these newspapers do not challenge farmers to think outside the square, something that could well result in new solutions to old problems.[53] Small, often under-resourced rural newsrooms are staffed by usually young, inexperienced journalists who are more often than not from traditional rural backgrounds themselves, further limiting their point of view. To add to these problems, media ownership in Australia is highly concentrated, with Fairfax’s Rural Press Ltd owning more than 160 rural newspapers and magazines across the country. These are read by more than 2 million people in rural and regional Australia each week. Traditionally, the concentration of media ownership has the potential to reduce diversity of opinion.[54] And like all commercial media, rural newspapers are beholden to their major advertisers—in this case, the big banks, seed, pesticide and fertiliser companies—and others who have vested interests in conventional farming. Advertisers’ undue influence certainly poses an ethical dilemma for newspaper owners, editors and journalists when it comes to objective reporting.[55]
Without an effective voice, no one will notice the dwindling number of small and medium-sized farmers in Australia. The Australian farm sector stays afloat essentially via bulk-exported commodities—wheat, beef and sugar—produced by the largest 4 per cent of farmers. When these big farmers cannot produce the fruit, vegetables, grain and meat we want at home, it will be too late to raise the alarm: the small farmers will already have gone.