Toward an Agenda for Small Farm Research

Abstract

Ever since the days of Thomas Jefferson, the expressed intent of the nation's agricultural policy has been to support family farms, particularly small, land-owning farms. Despite expressions of concern and support by both agriculturalists and statesmen, often the effect (if not the intent) of public policy has been to undermine the economic and political support structures of a system of agriculture and rural communities based on land-owning family farms. Recently a widening array of interested groups of citizens have begun to express alarm over the discrepancy between the avowed intent and the ultimate effect of public policythat is, the failure of public policy to achieve the goal of supporting family-owned and operated farms. Increased attention to the changing structure of agriculture has illumined the economic, political, sociological, and ecological ramifications of the trend toward fewer but larger farms (especially highly technical and capitalintensive farms) to policy makers, the private sector, philanthropic organizations, and the public. This increased awareness has created a climate in which the value of small-scale family farms is being reassessed and reaffirmed. Advocates for smaller-scale family farms cite a wide range of adverse social and ecological consequences of current trends in production and marketing and in changes in the structure of agriculture as a rationale for more strenuous political and economic support of smallerscale family farms. In general, these concerns are characterized by a striving to understand the interrelationships between and among production practices, marketing systems, the structure of agriculture, and their impact on ecological and human well-being. For example: