CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Community Agriculture and Local Food Systems
Civic Agriculture
While the American food and agriculture system follows a decades-old path of industrialization and globalization, a counter trend toward localizing some agriculture and food production has appeared. I call this rebirth of locally based agriculture and food production civic agriculture, because these activities are tightly linked to a community's social and economic development. The organizational manifestations of civic agriculture such as farmers’ markets, community gardens, and community-supported agriculture are not monitored by most federal or state agencies, so what we know about this new form of agriculture and food production comes mainly from the civic agriculture community itself.
Civic agriculture does not currently represent an economic challenge to the conventional agriculture and food industry, and it is unlikely to pose a challenge anytime soon. However, it does include some innovative ways to produce, process, and distribute food. And it represents a sustainable alternative to the socially, economically, and environmentally destructive practices that have come to be associated with conventional agriculture. The term “civic agriculture” references the emergence and growth of community-based agriculture and food production activities that not only meet consumer demands for fresh, safe, and locally produced foods but create jobs, encourage entrepreneurship, and strengthen community identity. Civic agriculture brings together production and consumption activities within communities and offers consumers real alternatives to the commodities produced, processed, and marketed by large agribusiness firms.
Farming and Food Today
America's agriculture and food have changed dramatically over the past several decades. Smaller, family-labor farms have declined substantially in number as larger, increasingly industrial-like operations have become the main source of food and fiber. Technologically sophisticated and highly standardized production techniques have penetrated most segments of the farm and food economy, and advances in plant and animal sciences have resulted in substantial increases in production. These advances have become linked tightly to a narrow range of bulk products.1
In the past, farmers produced bulk commodities that they sold to brokers, wholesalers, and other middlemen, who, in turn, directed these commodities to food processors or retailers. The consumer was presented with a fairly standard set of products on supermarket shelves. Today, a case is being made—mostly by large food processors and retailers—that consumers are no longer satisfied with the homogeneous fare they received in the past. They are now “demanding” food products tailored to their individual tastes and preferences. “Have it your way” at Burger King and “Think outside the bun” from Taco Bell are part of a push by the food industry to create “you food,” food products that are tailored to your life. Fast-food outlets sit at the end of supply chains that stretch around the world. The shelves in modern grocery stores and supermarkets are stocked with products that have been produced and processed thousands of miles away.
As U.S. agriculture has modernized and industrialized it has also regionalized. Farmers in areas that were once characterized by diverse agricultural activities have been driven to exploit their “comparative advantage.” Producers in the Great Lakes states, for example, have been able to establish and maintain a niche in dairy production. Producers in the Plains states have been able to raise hogs cheaper than farmers elsewhere, while farmers in California and several other Sunbelt states have used subsidized water and a favorable growing climate to become the leading producers of fresh fruits and vegetables. More recently, agricultural regionalization within the United States has given way to global regionalization as producers from all over the world participate in an emerging “global” agricultural marketplace.2
The emerging configuration of agriculture and food production in the United States and the world has been guided by an economic development paradigm grounded in neoclassical/market-based economics. For farm operators, the “production function,” which describes the economic sustainability of agriculture in terms of the optimal balancing of land, labor, and capital, has long served as an important tool for farm management. Throughout most of this century, farm management professionals have emphasized substituting capital, in the form of machinery, chemicals, and other off-farm inputs, for land and labor.3
At another level, the neoclassical paradigm treats agriculture as just another industry, not unlike manufacturing or mining, and calls for the introduction of labor-saving, mass-production techniques throughout the production process. The guiding principles are that agricultural production should be concentrated into fewer units to capture economies of scale, machinery should be substituted for labor whenever possible, and the remaining jobs should be routinized to the point that workers within occupational categories become “interchangeable.”
Beyond the farm gate, the processing sector of the food industry has also been shaped by neoclassical precepts. To capture the benefits associated with economies of scale, many small food processors have been forced to expand, merge with larger operations, or go out of business. During the latter half of the twentieth century, large, multinational food processors became dominant in the food sector of the American economy as they gained control over large segments of the food system. Today, the ten largest multinational corporations account for over 60 percent of the retail purchases of food in the United States.4 Mass-production manufacturers and mass-market retailers provide abundant quantities of relatively inexpensive, standardized products. While these giant food corporations are still forming, their growth and development has shaped local agriculture and food systems in every region of the country.
Today, no region of the United States can be said to be even substantially self-sufficient in food production. Consumers depend heavily on imported products that can be produced only in climates and soils outside their regions. In many areas of the country, there is little or no locally produced food in commercial channels. The peri-urban areas around many large American cities have the soils and climate needed to produce a broad array of food products. Historically, these areas were sources of fresh fruits, vegetables, and dairy and meat products. Fruit and vegetables from nearby “truck farms” were a regular staple during the summer and fall in many urban food economies. The industrialization of agriculture coupled with a policy of cheap energy, however, made it possible to move food great distances at little cost. At the same time, places that have little or no local resources to produce food have burst forth as America's fastest-growing cities. These cities are tethered to food pipelines that extend around the globe.5
The relationships between large-scale, regionally concentrated agricultural producers, national and multinational food processors and distributors, and the structure of local food systems are complex, geographically dispersed, and heavily influenced by policy. For example, as the agricultural landscape of California changed in the early part of the twentieth century to accommodate large-scale, corporately controlled fruit and vegetable farms, the number of fruit and vegetable farms in the Northeast declined. Between 1910 and 1950 the value of small fruits and berries and tree fruits increased from $20.1 million to $106 million in California, a 421 percent increase, while in New York the value of small fruits and berries and tree fruits increased only 25 percent from $20.9 million in 1910 to only $26.2 million in 1950. At the same time, the food system in the Northeast was transformed from a more locally interdependent system of production and consumption to a more globally oriented system where production was uncoupled from consumption. These changes have impacts that go far beyond the agricultural sector. The character and structure of communities are dramatically altered by these trends.
A global system of food production, one that is controlled by large national and multinational corporations, has already begun to refashion how and, more importantly, where food is produced. Driving the global/industrial system of farming is the continual search by agribusiness firms for areas of low-cost production. In a global system of food production, labor and capital flow to places where maximum profits can be extracted.
A Place for Civic Agriculture
Communities can buffer and shelter themselves from the global food system only if they develop the needed infrastructure, maintain a sufficient farmland base, and provide enough technical expertise so that local farmers and processors can successfully compete in the local marketplace against the highly industrialized, internationally organized corporate food system. There is accumulating evidence that a relocalization of agriculture and food systems is taking place in regions that have been hit hard by global competition. It is not surprising that Massachusetts, New York, and other states in the Northeast are in the vanguard of the relocalization efforts. Large-scale, industrial farming has largely bypassed this region, and consumers there must rely on food produced elsewhere.
Although the nature and range of agricultural products found in most American communities are shaped by the decisions made by large multinational firms, important environmental, social, political, and economic reasons justify the reemergence of a smaller-scale, more locally controlled food system. A new civic agriculture is emerging and taking hold in every region of the country. Community-supported agriculture (CSA), farmer's markets, specialized agricultural districts, alternative food stores, and consumer cooperatives represent important manifestations of the movement toward a civic agriculture. These new organizational forms have the potential to nurture local economic development, maintain diversity and quality in products, and provide forums where producers and consumers can come together to solidify bonds of local identity and solidarity. By rebuilding the linkages between farmers and consumers wherever possible, communities throughout the United States will establish a foundation for a more socially and environmentally integrated food system.
Plan of the Book
In the next chapters I examine the global and local dimensions of America's agriculture and food system today. I begin with an overview of how agricultural producers in the United States moved from a local, self-sufficient system of food production, processing, and distribution to an industrially organized, globally managed system. I then explore corporate control of the food system. Following this, I identify a set of trends and possibilities that suggest that a relocalization of production and processing may be occurring throughout the United States. I outline theoretical and organizational dimensions of this emerging civic agriculture. The book concludes with some thoughts about the future of the American food system.