Abstract
Abstract Despite population growth and development at the rural-urban interface (RUI), agriculture continues to persist there. This resilience is partially a reflection of land use policies and market support programs designed to protect farm and ranch land that is vulnerable to nonfarm development. Studies examining the RUI primarily focus on the diversity of production and markets and do not discuss the diversity of operators. As the farmland protection and food systems movements continue to refine policy objectives and decide how to allocate scarce resources, it is critical to have up-to-date statistics on the health and vitality of agriculture at the RUI. Using the 2007 Census of Agriculture statistics, we examine (1) the spatial distribution by county of high-value production and marketing practices assumed to play a role in the persistence and vitality of agriculture at the RUI; and (2) the demographic characteristics of farmers in these counties. We find that only some types of high-value production and marketing systems are more prevalent in metropolitan regions, including horses, nursery-greenhouse, and direct sales, while organic production, recreation sales, CSA farms, and value-added farms are more likely to be concentrated in nonmetropolitan counties. We also find that farmers at the RUI are extremely diverse and that a substantial number of beginning and women farmers are found in nonmetropolitan counties, along with a small but notable number of African American, Hispanic and Native American farmers.
Highlights
The rural-urban interface (RUI) is the relatively rural space on the edge of urbanized areas (Audirac, 1999); farms and ranches in these geographic areas are highly vulnerable to nonfarm development, yet they continue to thrive and significantly contribute to the U.S agricultural economy
Starting in the 1970s, the U.S Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service (ERS) published a series of reports and research studies documenting the complexity of agriculture at the RUI and the significant contributions metro farmers make to U.S agricultural production
Metro counties account for 34.8 percent of all counties, while agriculturally important (AI) counties represent only 26.5 percent of all counties
Summary
The rural-urban interface (RUI) is the relatively rural space on the edge of urbanized areas (Audirac, 1999); farms and ranches in these geographic areas are highly vulnerable to nonfarm development, yet they continue to thrive and significantly contribute to the U.S agricultural economy. Since the 1970s the RUI has often been the focus of local, state and national debates over disappearing farmland, a shrinking farm population, land use policy, and local and regional food systems. Recognizing the importance and vulnerability of RUI agriculture, farm advocacy organizations, researchers, and policy-makers used these reports to develop a variety of land-based and market-based strategies designed to support farmers at the RUI (AFT, 1997; Bryant & Johnston, 1992). Farmland preservation and efforts to promote local and regional food systems as a viable economic livelihood for farmers (e.g., through on-farm valueadded strategies, promoting higher intensity production, etc.) have become mainstream; these efforts are no longer limited to community- or state-level campaigns but are a part of federal farm policy (AFT, 2013; Clancy & Ruff, 2010; Lyson, 2004; Oberholtzer , Clancy, & Esseks, 2012)
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