Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 5
Toward a Civic Agriculture
Moving toward Civic Agriculture
Agriculture and food production is being restructured in the United States. On the one
hand, large-scale, well-managed, capital-intensive, technologically sophisticated, industrial-
like operations are becoming tightly tied into a network of national and global food produ-
cers. These farms will be producing large quantities of highly standardized bulk commodities
that will feed into large national and multinational integrators and processors. A few hundred
very large farms will account for most of the gross agricultural sales.
However, a substantial number of smaller-scale, locally oriented, flexibly organized farms
and food producers are taking root throughout the United States. These are part and parcel of
what I call the new civic agriculture. 1 And if the current trends continue, civic agriculture will
likely expand in scope to become an enduring feature of the agricultural landscape. These
farms and food processors will fill the geographic and economic spaces that have been passed
over or ignored by large-scale, industrial producers. Civic agricultural farms and food pro-
cessors will articulate with consumer demand for locally produced and processed food. Civic
agriculture is the embedding of local agricultural and food production in the community.
Civic agriculture is not only a source of family income for the farmer and food processor;
civic agricultural enterprises contribute to the health and vitality of communities in a variety
of social, economic, political, and cultural ways. 2 For example, civic agriculture increases
agricultural literacy by directly linking consumers to producers. Likewise, civic agricultural
enterprises have a much higher local economic multiplier than farms or processors that are
producing for the global mass market. Dollars spent for locally produced food and agricul-
tural products circulate several times more through the local community than money spent
for products manufactured by multinational corporations and sold in national supermarket
chains.
Civic agriculture should not be confused with civic farmers. Farmers who vote in local
elections, who sit on school boards, who are active members of local service clubs such as
Rotary, Lions, or Kiwanis, and who otherwise participate in the civic affairs of their com-
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