Federal Agricultural Policy Research Articles

Farms and gardens everywhere but not a bite to eat? A critical geographic approach to food apartheid in Salt Lake City

Through community-engaged research, we investi­gate how political and economic practices have cre­ated food apartheid and the ways in which this legacy complicates efforts toward equitable urban agriculture in Salt Lake City (SLC). The study takes place in SLC’s Westside, where an ample number of farms and gardens exist, yet food insecurity is a persistent issue. We partner with a small urban CSA farm operating in a USDA-designated food desert in SLC’s Westside to explore the farmers’ own questions about whom their farm is serving and the farms’ potential to contribute to food jus­tice in their community. Specifically, we examine (1) the member distribution of this urban CSA farm and (2) the underlying socio-political, eco­nomic, and geographic factors, such as inequitable access to land, housing, urban agriculture, food, and transportation, that contribute to this distribu­tion. GIS analyses, developed with community partners, reveal spatial patterns between contempo­rary food insecurity and ongoing socioeconomic disparities matching 1930s residential redlining maps. These data resonate with a critical geo­graphic approach to food apartheid and inform a need for deeper and more holistic strategies for food sovereignty through urban agriculture in SLC. While resource constraints may prevent some small farmers from attending to these issues, partner­ships in praxis can build capacity and engender opportunities to investigate and disrupt the racial hierarchies enmeshed in federal agricultural policy, municipal zoning, and residential homeownership programs that perpetuate food apartheid.

Moving niche agroecological initiatives to the mainstream: A case-study of sheep-vineyard integration in California

Across the world, an increasing number of farmers are piloting agroecological systems. The recoupling of crops and livestock is one type of agroecological practice that has potential to help reduce the use of off-farm inputs, improve soil quality, and reduce costs for farmers. Yet, a major part of the world's agricultural landscapes remain dominated by conventional specialized crop and livestock practices. In particular, grazing animals in perennial cropping systems may reduce pesticide and fuel use, decrease labor, and build soil organic carbon and soil fertility. In this study, we examined adopters and non-adopters’ perceptions of a niche system, integrated sheep-vineyard systems (ISVS) in California. We aimed at understanding the conditions under which ISVS, a specific case of ICLS (integrated crop-livestock systems), could be mainstreamed. We then contextualized these interviews using the Multi-Level Perspective framework to analyze the levers favoring or impeding mainstreaming of this niche system. We considered both pull factors arising from changes in the landscape, and push factors arising through decentralized, grassroot processes. Our inductive analysis is a promising first insight into farmers’ perceptions and motivations toward ISVS adoption in California, considering both vineyard managers and contractors (i.e. shepherds renting their sheep to vineyard managers). We found a positive perception of ISVS among both current adopters and non-adopters regarding the potential agronomic, environmental and economic benefits of these practices. All adopters were satisfied with this system as they experienced labor and fuel savings, soil quality improvement and marketing advantages. Local push factors (bottom-up levers emerging from the niche systems) were highlighted by interviewees as contributing to adoption. Push factors identified include knowledge exchange and networking between vineyard managers and developing marketing pathways for “carbon-positive” wool, meat and wine products. However, some pull factors (macro-economic and policy levers acting as top-down levers) could help move the system beyond limited adoption. We point out biotechnical and socio-economic research avenues to encourage the scaling-up of ISVS and ICLS more broadly. On the biotechnical dimension, we recommend continuing and scaling-out system experiments to redesign vineyards considering sheep integration and evaluate the effect of grazing on soil quality and fire management. On the socio-economic dimension, we encourage the exploration of relevant spatial scenarios through co-design of collaborative arrangements between vineyard managers and contractors at the landscape level. Greater research on the social, environmental and economic services provided by ISVS is urgently needed to inform state and federal agricultural policies, including whether such systems should be supported through payment for ecosystem services and as part of environmental good practices and fire safety recommendations.

Past and Current Dynamics of U.S. Agricultural Land Use and Policy

Over the past century, agricultural land use in the United States has seen drastic shifts to support increasing demand for food and commodities; in many regions, this has resulted in highly simplified agricultural landscapes. Surmounting evidence exhibits the negative impacts of this simplification on the long-term provisioning of necessary ecosystem services to and from agriculture. However, transitions toward alternative systems often occur at a small scale, rather than at a systemic level. Within the National Research Council’s (NRC) sustainable agricultural systems framework, we utilize national open-source datasets spanning several decades to broadly assess past and current agricultural landscapes across the U.S. We integrate and analyze agricultural land use and land cover data with policy data to address two main objectives: 1) Document and visualize changes over recent decades in cropland conversion, agricultural productivity, and crop composition across the U.S.; and 2) identify broad policy changes of the U.S. Farm Bills from 1933 to 2018 associated with these land use trends. We show that U.S. agriculture has gradually trended toward an intensely regulated and specialized system. Crop production is heavily concentrated in certain areas, larger farms are getting larger, while the number of smaller operations is decreasing, and crop diversity is declining. Meanwhile, federal agricultural policy is increasing in scope and influence. Through these data-driven insights, we argue that incremental and transformative pathways of change are needed to support alternative production practices, incentivize diversified landscapes, and promote innovation toward more sustainable agricultural systems across multiple scales.

Environmental, social and health dimensions of food supply policies and proposals in Brazil

ABSTRACT Objective To analyze the presence and characteristics of social, environmental and health dimensions identified in the current national food supply policy proposals and policies. Methods This is a study with a qualitative approach using a documentary analysis technique referring to the period between 2003 and 2015, in addition to the Agricultural Policy of 1991. Results The results of the analyzes of the documents of the Federal Executive Power and the Public Policy Councils are similar, policies that seek alternatives to the negative impacts of the hegemonic model of food supply, different from the document of the Federal Legislative Power and Agricultural Policy, which superficially approach alternatives to these impacts, or are limited to strengthening the dominant productive system. Conclusion Thus, a national food supply policy is needed for the planning of actions, considering social, environmental and health impacts and taking as reference the initiatives already built by sectors of the Executive Power and by the Public Policy Councils.

Building joined-up agricultural policies: Lessons from Québec

In an effort to think about innovative and comprehensive federal food and agricultural policies, this commentary offers some insight into Québec’s integrated agricultural policy framework. In theory, key operating principles such as the precautionary principle, multifunctionality and subsidiarity integrate health, social, rural and environmental goals and therefore might contribute to a joined up and healthier food system.

Women Agricultural Landowners—Past Time to Put Them “On the Radar”

ABSTRACTWhile women own 25% of the acres rented out for farming, little has been done in terms of federal policy that focuses on these women. In this policy analysis, we detail how (1) lack of data on these women landowners and (2) the invisibility of these women to federal natural resource and agricultural agency staff contribute to women nonoperating landowners (WNOLs) not being on the federal policy radar. We discuss how the persistence of these factors continues to marginalize WNOLs in federal agricultural policy, despite the mandate of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) agencies to be serving underserved populations such as WNOLs. Our study findings clearly illustrate a critical point: federal agricultural/conservation agencies are not fulfilling their mandate to reach WNOLs. Using data from USDA Production Regions in the United States, we detail how WNOLs are marginalized and provide specific policy recommendations to allow for intentional inclusion of these women.

Science, Agriculture, and Nutrition: The Government Documents that Influenced a Nation’s Food and Diet

Since its creation in 1862, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has published bulletins, reports, pamphlets, posters and a variety of other informational resources. These materials have facilitated the crafting of strategies that have shaped the nutritional standards of the country but also records scientific and technological advances in farming, agriculture and food production. These publications (dating back from the 1800s to the present) help tell the stories of how U.S. federal agricultural policies have advanced the health and welfare of a growing American population.

Additionality in agricultural conservation payment programs

A large number of both state and federal agricultural policies are designed to pay farmers and ranchers to undertake conservation practices that have off-farm environmental benefits or long-run farm-productivity payoffs. These supported actions can include implementing a nutrient management plan, installing stream-side or field-edge buffers, adopting no-till, or retiring cropland to grass or tree cover. Payments can take the form of cost-sharing for explicit costs incurred by the farmer, specified payment amounts meant to capture the cost of transitioning to the new practices, or lost income, particularly when land is taken out of production. In fiscal year 2012, USDA spent nearly US$5.5 billion through voluntary payment programs to support the adoption of conservation practices. What are taxpayers getting for their money? The answer entails, in part, knowing whether practices that receive conservation payments would have been pursued without those payments. Additionality is a measure of the extent to which conservation payments are necessary for practice adoption for those farmers who receive payments. Practices supported by payments are additional if they would not have been adopted without the payment, or, from an environmental standpoint, if the environmental benefits would not have been realized without the payment. Practices that would have been…

Contemporary Agrarianism: A Reality Check

Agrarian ideology—the celebration of farming and rural life for the benefit it brings to individuals and the nation—has become part of a widespread national discourse about what we eat and how we live. This essay examines major tenets of new agrarian thinking and offers a critique of many of the assumptions that underlie the new agrarian movement. The author argues that incremental changes in consumer behavior can only achieve incremental improvements in the food system and that true systemic change depends on a fundamental alteration of in federal agricultural policy.

Getting What We Pay For (and Other Unintended Consequences): An Overview of Federal Agricultural Policy

The reauthoriza­tion of the Federal Farm Bill in 2012 means that activity is heating up to reform U.S. agricultural, nutrition, and energy policy. Mary Ann Hayes provides an overview of the Farm Bill’s history, its intended and unintended consequences, and what can be hoped for in 2012.

Cost-effective conservation programs: The role of economics

A s global demand for food and fuel grows, the potential tradeoff between agricultural production and environmental quality has renewed urgency. While grain and soybean prices have retreated from previous peaks, demand for food and fuel remains strong and prices continue at levels well above their 2004 to 2006 averages. These market signals are encouraging the use of additional land, water, and other inputs in crop production. If pursued without caution, however, increasingly intensive agricultural production can damage land, deplete water resources, and degrade the environment. Environmental protection often requires government intervention. Agricultural producers generally do not receive a financial benefit from using production methods that could protect or improve the environment downstream or downwind. Unless these methods are also the most profitable way to farm, producers have no tangible incentive to adopt them. Because nonpoint source pollution processes such as nutrient runoff cannot be directly observed, farmers and ranchers may not even realize the environmental effect of their actions. Federal agricultural conservation policy seeks to provide incentives for environmental protection where markets have failed to do so. Agricultural conservation policy is implemented largely through voluntary programs that offer economic incentives for the adoption and use of environmentally sound practices. Between…

Cash Crops, Smallholder Decision-Making and Institutional Interactions in a Closing Frontier: Calakmul, Campeche, Mexico

In Mexico, since the revolution of 1910, agricultural development for subsistence and market has been a priority of diverse stakeholder groups, particularly farmers. Within the last ten years, Mexican federal agricultural policy shifted from a paternalistic to an enterprise model. This shift resulted in benefits for a few farmers while placing most producers at risk of economic failure. In addition to the impacts on the household economy, these policies influence land use and land cover. This paper explores the dynamics of chili production and how these dynamics are influenced by household and policy factors in the municipality of Calakmul in Campeche, Mexico. Jalapeño chili is the foremost market crop in Calakmul, until recently a development frontier for Mexico, and now the site of the largest biosphere reserve in that country and a landscape where priorities for forest conservation meet those for agricultural development. An integration of qualitative and quantitative methods enables a more complete understanding of this important and expanding land use in the region. En México, desde la revolución, el desarrollo agrícola para la subsistencia y el mercado ha sido una prioridad para diversos grupos, especialmente los agricultores. Durante la última década la política federal mexicana en relación a la agricultura ha cambiado de uno marcado de paternalismo hacia un modelo empresarial. Este cambio benefició a un grupo pequeño de agricultores, pero exponía la mayoría al riesgo de un fracaso económico. Por encima de los impactos en la economía doméstica, esas políticas impactaron en el uso del suelo y la cobertura de la tierra. Este estudio explora los dinámicos de la producción de chili y cómo ellos son influidos por los factores y políticas domésticos dentro el municipio de Calakmul, en Campeche, México. El chili jalapeño es el producto principal del mercado de Calakmul, desde hace poco en la frontera de desarrollo de México, pero ahora la ubicación de la reserva bioesférica más grande de México, y un paisaje en el cual las prioridades de conservación confrontan aquellas del desarrollo. Una integración de métodos cuantitativos y cualitativos permiten un mejor entendimiento de este importante y ampliando uso de suelo de la región.

Using normative scenarios in landscape ecology

The normative landscape scenario is one of many types of scenario methods that are used by landscape ecologists. We describe how normative landscape scenarios are different from other types and how these differences create special potential for engaging science to build landscape policy and for exploring scientific questions in realistic simulated landscapes. We describe criteria and a method for generating normative scenarios to realize this potential in both policy and landscape ecology research. Finally, we describe how the method and criteria apply to an interdisciplinary project that proposed alternative scenarios for federal agricultural policy and related futures for agricultural watersheds in Iowa, USA.

Federal Agricultural Policies: Do Black Farm Operators Benefit?

Findings of this study support the contention that benefits from federal agricultural programs accrue primarily to a few very large producers while small producers receive only minimal amounts, and black producers, even less. Not only does this study confirm the belief that, as a whole, black farmers receive only a very thin slice of the “benefit pie” but it makes clear the fact that their individual share is much smaller than their white counterparts'. Although low product volume is an obvious and often cited factor contributing to this inequity, these findings indicate that another very important factor is low program participation. Underparticipation by black farm operators is primarily attributed to racial discrimination against blacks, the negative attitude of many black farm operators toward government programs, failure of some to access available information, and poor decision-making skills of others.

Challenging Industrialization: The Rekindling of Agrarian Protest in a Modern Agriculture, 1977–1987

This analysis explores why a farmers-led social movement mobilized against federal government policy in the late twentieth century. It also explores where that revolt may lead and whether it was different from previous farm protests. Was it, as populist rhetoric of the 1980s charged, a reflection of structural changes in farmers' own agricultural production systems? Or was it simply a case of farmers wanting more federal income support? The distinction is important because the answer determines producer commitment to the central agricultural development premises of U.S. public policy. Farmers always have promoted the agrarian value of hardworking independence. Yet they also have been caught, especially since midcentury, in a cycle of farm industrialization. Technical innovation and federal agricultural policy have combined to make industrialization unavoidable for individual farm operators who want to remain as full-time, commercial growers. Has there been a link between the dissenting politics of farm protest and industrialized agricultural change? This linkage is the subject of concern in the following pages. Why industrialization might well have caused policy dissent is examined first.

The appearance of ecological systems as a matter of policy

Environmental policy should explicitly address the appearance of the landscape because people make inferences about ecological quality from the look of the land. Where appearances are misleading, failing to portray ecological degradation or ecological health, public opinion may be ill-informed, with consequences for environmental policy. This paper argues that while ecology is a scientific concept, landscape perception is a social process. If we do not recognize this difference, we have problems with the appearance of ecological systems. Three influential problems are discussed: 1) the problem of the false identity of ecological systems, 2) the problem of design and planning as deceit about ecological systems, and 3) the problem of invisible ecological systems. These problems for environmental policy may be resolved in part if landscape planners and policy-makers use socially-recognized signs to display human intentions for ecological systems. Specifically, planning and policy can include socially-recognized signs of beauty and stewardship to display human care for ecological systems. An example in United States federal agricultural policy is described.

POLICY IMPACTS ON AGRICULTURAL IRRIGATION ELECTRICITY DEMAND IN THE COLUMBIA BASIN1

ABSTRACT: Accurately estimating the price elasticity of demand for irrigation electricity is important to major electricity suppliers such as the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) of the Pacific Northwest. The BPA has a revenue maximization objective, and the elasticity of demand is central to its rate setting process. Several studies have attempted to estimate demand for irrigation electricity, but none has explicitly included federal agricultural policy and program variables. Tins paper discusses how agricultural programs may influence farmers irrigation decisions and thus their demand for irrigation electricity. It suggests that existing programs serve to make farmers more responsive to electricity rate increases than would otherwise be the case. Thus, studies that fail to include them may underestimate the responsiveness of farmers to electricity rate increases.

Private interests, public policy, and American agriculture

Agriculture is at a critical juncture. The Food Security Act of 1985, which was intended to reduce surpluses by making American farm products more competitive in world markets, has not yet succeeded. Food imports have outstripped food exports. Huge grain surpluses continue to pile up. Because many farmers and economists fault federal agricultural policies for the current predicament, this book examines how recent policies, like the 1985 law, have been made and focuses on the key role that private interests play in the policy process. Not only does Browne give us the first comprehensive study of all of the organized interests at work in agricultural policymaking, but he also makes an important contribution to understanding the interaction of organized interests in the American political process. His book should appeal to a wide audience composed of those interested in agriculture, policy process, and interest group behavior. In the early 1980s, 128 separate organizations employed Washington-based lobbyists who regularly worked to influence agricultural policies. Many other organizations periodically lobbied in agriculture. The general farm organizations have been joined by commodity organizations, trade associations, corporate spokesmen, farm activists, industry lobbyists, consumer groups, environmentalists, and advocates of a variety of food-related programs. Long gone are the days when the farm bloc preordained policy outcomes and when students of American politics looked upon agriculture as a classic example of the iron triangle or self-governing subsystem of interest groups, bureaucrats, and legislators. Now the policymaking process is fragmented by the clamor from competing organized interest groups, and the policy makers responded by fashioning piecemeal policy with no seeming thought to unity of purpose. In an attempt to throw light on what actually happens in Washington, Browne explains what groups and interests are active in agricultural policymaking, what strategy and tactics they employ, and why some have more influence than others. One of Browne's conclusions is that a surprising number of agricultural issues are uninfluenced by the interest groups because they ignore them. For nearly a decade William P. Browne has studied the major farm organizations, congressional hearings and records related to agricultural issues, and the American Agricultural Movement. But perhaps his richest source of information has been extensive interviews with lobbyists, executives, and grassroots activists during and just after the 1985 farm bill debates. In the course of his research, Browne sought to learn how interest groups behave in deciding their policy priorities and how this behavior actually relates to influence over the desired policy outcomes.

Regional Incidence of Agricultural Policy: The Case of Switzerland

Agricultural expenditure is one of the largest categories of spending in the Swiss federal budget. Yet little is known about the transfer volume and its spatial effects. In this article the regional monetary incidence of the federal agricultural policy, including both the performance and the financial side, is investigated. The calculations show that lowlands receive a much greater average transfer than the mountain areas, measured per farming unit or by agricultural worker. The relative burden of the financing is greater in mountain areas than in the lowlands. Examination of the distribution of the burden according to income groups reveals a regressive effect. The financing of the Swiss agricultural policy cannot be called a social policy—neither for Switzerland as a whole nor from a regional perspective.

Problemdisparitäten Talgebiet : Berggebiet und agrarpolitische Möglichkeiten zu deren Abbau

Abstract. This article deals with the disparities between mountain and plane agriculture in Switzerland. A first part shows the causes. It states that beside natural conditions as well the development of the specific technology as well the federal agricultural laws lead to increasing disparities. The consequences are discussed, too. The federal agricultural policy responded with three special laws in favour of the mountain agriculture. The character of these laws are also discussed. The problems are not yet solved, specifically it can be observed, that the smaU villages get smaller and the big are growing. The article discusses a number of possibilities to diminish the disparities within the Swiss agriculture: these are (a) more efficiency of the already existing measures, (b) incentives for «new» products and (c) measures, which lead to conditions, that small farms could reach a füll economical existence. This again would increase the number of families in the small mountain villages. Results of planning and field studies are presented.