A Contemporary Political Economy of Family Farming

Abstract

Making sense of two ill-defined concepts is not an easy task. It must be undertaken, however, because people inside and outside of agriculture are asking about the family farm and how it relates to the political economy. The source of confusion centers on the changing organization of agriculture and changes in the control of resources traditionally used by North American farmers to produce crops and livestock products. It is suspected that this changing control is bringing considerable change in output, efficiency, and the distribution of spoils in the industry, but no one yet knows if this is so. The fundamental changes in U.S. farming need not be recounted. Farm numbers have dropped, nonfarm capital has substituted for home-grown capital, the use of stock resources has replaced the use of flow resources, and formal information-gathering techniques have substituted for informal gossip. All this is known; some is only partially understood. Similarly, the increased centralization of economic activity, the increased interdependence between the agricultural and the nonagricultural sectors, the resurgence of world trade, and the apparent worldwide fuel crisis are familiar attributes of the contemporary political economy. They impinge upon agriculture, but they need not be described here. It seems appropriate to turn directly to the main problem. How is the family farm related to the contemporary political economy and what relationships exist between economic society and the agricultural industry? This question is addressed by elaborating some definitions, commenting on production, exchange, and distribution within agriculture, and discussing agriculture's place in the political economy.