Culture, Community, and Sustainability - Agroecology: The Ecology of Sustainable Food Systems - page 328

T HE A GRARIAN C RISIS

In developing countries, farmers are increasingly
affected by the double impacts of cheap, heavily subsi-
dized imports of foods from outside of their traditional
local markets, coupled with exclusion from opportunities
to sell their products for export to distant markets. Locally
livelihoods suffer, agroecosystems degrade, and rural
communities begin to unravel.
Of course, the declining numbers of farmers do not
imply that there has been a decline in the importance of
the farm sector. The world still has to eat, and there are
70 million more mouths to feed each year. Despite the
drop in people making their living from farming, half of
the world's people still depend on farming for their live-
lihoods. In some parts of the world, such as much of South
Asia, over 70% do, and in these regions, agriculture
accounts in many places for half of the total economic
activity (FAO, 2004). In both developed and developing
countries, the decline in the number of people making
their living through farming has been accompanied by
farm modernization. This, of course, is what has created
large increases in farm production per acre and allowed
rural people to move into the more advanced economies
of the cities. This modernization is typically referred to
as “progress,” and the substitution of tractors for people
is usually seen as a way to a more abundant and affordable
food supply for the consumer. But urban life too often
does not meet the hopes and expectations of displaced
farmers as they encounter unhealthy city living conditions,
poor housing, and few opportunities for full employment,
putting them in worse situations than they were in on the
farm. It would appear that farmers are less lured from their
farms by the promise of the city, than they are driven off
from their farms by a variety of changes in the way the
global food chain is structured and operates, making it
more difficult for farmers to survive every day.

One would think that with the development of these
diverse and dynamic market structures for food and
changes in diets, farmers would be enjoying a time of
plenty. But as we saw in Chapter 1, rural farm communi-
ties are in decline around the world. Once thriving assem-
blages of people from all walks of life, livelihoods, and
outlooks, today they are increasingly aging and depopu-
lating. In the U.S., less than 1% of the population is made
up of full-time farmers, and of those, farmers over 65 years
old outnumber those under 35 by nearly six to one (USDA,
2002). In developing countries, farmers and their families
are leaving rural areas and their farms in alarming num-
bers, because the land can no longer viably absorb more
population, because local prices for farm products collapse
as cheaper products are imported under free trade agree-
ments, or subsidies are removed.
When the economies of rural communities decline,
their social fabric begins to unravel as well. This unrav-
eling has been documented in the powerful writings of
many authors (e.g., Wendell Berry, Gene Logsdon,
Donald Worster, Wes Jackson, and others). When a way
of life is restricted to merely making a living, many of
the reasons for being and doing are lost. When a person
feels like they are nothing more than a link in a com-
modity chain, and less a member of a vibrant, interactive,
and healthy community, the indicators of decline appear.
Poverty, crime, high school dropout rates, spousal and
child abuse, mental stress, and substance abuse — all
signs of social dysfunction — soon approach levels simi-
lar to those of crowded urban areas. The consequences
are ecological as much as they are social, affecting the
farmers, their communities, and the landscapes in which
they live (Figure 23.1).

FIGURE 23.1 Suburban sprawl encroaching upon agricultural land in the south bay region near Sa n Jose, California. Farmers
find it very difficult to resist the spread of urban development onto their farmland.