Family as a catalyst in farms' diversifying agricultural products: A mixed methods analysis of diversified and non-diversified farms in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio

Abstract

Farms diversifying their agricultural products are going against a prevailing trend of product specialization. Understanding these farms’ motivations has value because diversified farming systems may confer economic, social, and environmental benefits to farms and their ecosystems. Research has looked retrospectively at the reasons diversified farms recall for expanding their range of agricultural outputs. This study contributes to that literature by looking prospectively at how a set of diversified and non-diversified farms in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio considers further diversifying agricultural products. A phase 2 survey (n=179) examines a narrative elicited in phase 1 interviews (n=18): that farms diversify so that more adults in the family can work on the farm. Survey findings support this narrative. Among all respondents, two factors are positively associated with outlook on diversifying: (1) prioritizing the farm as something that adult descendants can do for a profession, and (2) having children under 18. However among a subgroup of non-diversified farms (n=71), while having children at home is positively associated with interest in diversifying, wanting the farm to employ descendants is not. This divergent pattern among non-diversified farms may support a secondary interview narrative, which is that farms only diversify during the years children are teens, to supplement their college savings, with no expectation of maintaining diversified enterprises into children’s adulthood. These findings merit follow-on research to clarify how farms that trial diversified outputs while children are teens may evolve to longer-term diversified agricultural systems.