Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
munities may be seen as “good citizens.” However, a farm or food operation that is not integ-
rated into the economic structure of the local community, that produces for the export market,
that relies on nonlocal hired labor, and that provides few benefits for its workers is not a civic
enterprise, regardless of the civic engagement of its operator.
Obviously, no agricultural or food enterprise is without some civic merit. However, large-
scale, contract poultry and hog operations—farmers who sell only to large food corporations
such as Tyson's, Perdue, or Hormel—would lie at the far outside end of civicness. Likewise,
large-scale, absentee-owned, factory-like fruit and vegetable farms that rely on large numbers
of migrant workers and sell their produce for export around the world would not be deemed
very civic.
Smaller-scale agriculture and food ventures that are tied to the community through direct
marketing or integration into local circuits of food processing and procurement would em-
body the civic concept. 3 Taken together, the enterprises that make up and support civic agri-
culture can been seen as part of a community's problem-solving capacity . The locally based
organizational, associational, and institutional component of the agriculture and food system
is at the heart of civic agriculture. Local producer and marketing cooperatives, regional trade
associations, and community-based farm and food organizations are part of the underlying
structure that supports civic agriculture.
The conventional approach to production agriculture has been to treat the farm operator as
a manager and as an individual “problem solver.” The role of USDA's Cooperative Extension
Service, which is still the primary educational outreach organization for farmers, has been
to provide each producer with the knowledge, skills, and information necessary to make the
best decisions within the parameters of his or her own farm. The individual, not the commu-
nity, has been the sole locus of attention (for program development) and of action (for out-
reach efforts). Farmers who “failed” to make a profit and subsequently went out of business,
whether or not they had followed the prescriptions of Cooperative Extension, were deemed
“bad managers.” 4
Civic agriculture, by contrast, is a locally organized system of agriculture and food pro-
duction characterized by networks of producers who are bound together by place. Civic ag-
riculture embodies a commitment to developing and strengthening an economically, envir-
onmentally, and socially sustainable system of agriculture and food production that relies on
local resources and serves local markets and consumers. The imperative to earn a profit is
filtered through a set of cooperative and mutually supporting social relations. Community
problem solving rather than individual competition is the foundation of civic agriculture. 5
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