Ask Prof Wolff: The Small Family Farm Issue

A Patron of Economic Update asks: "Small or family farmers are struggling to survive amidst industrial agribusiness.Can they? How would they fit in, in a system based on democracy in the workplace? (Really enjoyed your conversation with Mark Bittman!)"

This is Professor Richard Wolff's video response.

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“Hennelly brilliantly analyzes our capitalist crises and how individuals cope with them, tragically but often heroically. He helps us draw inspiration and realistic hope from how courageous Americans are facing and fixing a stuck nation.” - Richard D. Wolff
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Mark Bittman's book: "Animal, Vegetable, Junk"

[itzenormous]

Small family farms went the way of the small Mom & Pop hardware store - they were either gobbled up, put out of business, or could not compete with capitalist agribusiness.
As is the case in every other venue of production, capital always consolidates power in the hands of the few, at the expense of the many. The people we call capitalists i.e. the bourgeois class do not and/or does not want people to be able to grow their own food, provide income for their families, or be able to feed their neighbors. Capital wants to control the production and circulation of food, and they must crush and impoverish all of the other farmers in order to make that happen.

[MsLuath]

There is a reason Fred Magdoff, one of the great American agronomist, is also a Marxist. Hopefully Prof Wolff will talk more about family farms and agriculture in general.

[gobeyondaj]

Prof Wolff, I'm sorry in advance for the running hug I'm going to try to give you if I ever see you in public.

[auferstandenausruinen]

There is no way back. Switching back to petit-bourgeois small businesses will only breed private monopolies again under the market system. Nationalize the corporate farms, organize small family farms into co-ops and let workers, scientists and consumers decide together democratically how the production and distribution process should be handled.

[drd]

In the 1950's my grandfather sold a bushel of barley for the same nominal price a farmer receives today. Inflation adjusted, a farmer is paid less than 10% for their products than they once received. Farms are becoming larger to make up in scale what they are losing in unit prices. Most of the revenue in the agri-food sector goes to middlemen. A farmer receives less than 10 cents for the grain in a $2 loaf of bread. There is room for massive disruption in the agri-food sector wherein small farmers use new technologies to claim a larger share of the value from their crop.

[ericopaschoalbitencourt]

During my undergrad at a university focused on agriculture many students were studying precision agriculture to help their family farms compete against agribusinesses. They weren’t a fan of the current system in the least. Radically changed my notion of rural folk. Good topic Wolff!

[kevchard]

There can't be family /small farms coexisting with corporate farms. What we are seeing now is the end of the attempt to coexist but by money, power and corruption the corporate farms will always win. I grew up on a small sugar cane farm in south Louisiana and watched the hostile take over of the corporate farms with great success. I could post many pages on the tactics that was used but no one cares. Corporate farming will create food shortages and price increases very very soon. The corporate strategy of food production is unsustainable.

[jamesstephenson]

Please address co-ops like Riceland Foods & Producer's Rice mill. They provide a significant portion of the US rice market and are very successful co-ops and go back to the 1920's. (close to 50% of the US market) I spent 11 years there and I still don't understand them.

[sivedan]

This is a uniquely American phenomena, here in the UK there is a lot of push back against the introduction of the American style mega farms, as there is accepting American slaughtered meat, since it uses lower sanitation standards than in the EU; The same of for GMF, again where it is way more restricted in the EU than in the US, Fracking is completely prohibited in the EU.
Almost in all aspect of food and health standards the US is well below other developed countries, not for nothing it is the birth place of junk food....

[bobcornwell]

I once met a fellow who was a small farmer. I asked him about why he left the business.

He told me he was raising some hogs.

His neighbor was raising some too. He soon noticed his neighbor's hogs were growing faster than his were

One day, he asked the neighbor what his secret was.

The neighbor told him:

"I mix in a little arsenic with the feed. That irritates their bellies, and they eat more to sooth that irritation."

This fellow I worked with was unwilling to do this. It was then he knew he had to get out of the business.

[zehrajafri]

Now it's considered a plus that we get all season produce all year round because it can be imported but the truth is that the produce of a particular region and season is healthier for us. The fruits or vegetables consumed fresh when grown in their season and region is healthier, than consuming something that isn't in season and so has to be imported.

[lisakukla]

I would very much like to hear more on the topic of agriculture and economy from a left perspective!
Farmers are aging out and the younger generation can't even get a foot in the door because of the financial barrier to entry. I'm partnering with a friend to try to start an agricultural co-op, but it's not easy without a big sack of cash.

[Viroquan]

I grew up in Wisconsin when the average Dairy farm was 200 acres and average milk herd was 40.
This was non-intensive agriculture.
Reagan threw us to the wind with the 1987 farm bill.
Farm Crisis, bankruptcy for most and now the area is gentrified with little farming left and most of the land in the possession of wealthy tourists who own horses.
So unnecessary, so cruel, and it devastated the entire economy and killed our towns and any semblance of community.
Now the people who grew up here live in the trailer courts on the outskirts of the towns their parents and grandparents built.
It’s devastating.
There’s a few trust fund organic farmers and many wealthy people (who live off of capital gains income) who have moved here for the new Waldorf and Montessori schools but they treat the locals like garbage because they believe all the liberal rhetoric about how rural people are secret brownshirts just waiting for some imaginary DogTrump whistle to be activated.
I’ve been told to my face by these people that the increasing land and home prices are “removing the White Trash Settler Colonialists.” BUT THEY ARE WHITE TOO?
All with the Love is Love yard signs that don’t address any redistribution of the wealth.
It breaks my heart.

[marygard]

This push-out of smaller farms has been happening all over my state, to build unaffordable housing. I learned a lot when I went vegan. The price of meat is so artificially lowered by our ( yes, it belongs to us) agriculture department that it's just become cheaper to eat meat that to afford fresh vegetables and whole grains. Thank the fates for the Netherlands, they are doing incredible work in food science.

[bfjlmjk]

There are experimental farms like co-op, a farmer produce exclusively to co-op member, each member pay a fix fee to the farmer, in return everyone receive weekly some veg, diary, meat products. I think there are 2 co-op like this in my tiny country. Critiques from other farmers is that they are not "cost efficient" and not certified by some industrial labels or something...

[mikaelwerner]

And in Sweden 🇸🇪 they are coming back
We can buy directly from them
It’s important and buy local if you can
And it’s much better for your health there he are totally right

[GhostOnTheHalfShell]

Agribusiness is subsidized. It is pretty much state sponsored capitalism.

[deeremandoug]

one of the few things people MUST have is food. if u dont have cheap food no money left for other items like computers. industrial farming is by design. consolidation is the natural outcome of profit driven capitalism. look at the auto industry. lots of car makers in 1900 now very few

[WolfgangFeist]

You didn't even mention the environmental problems created by the unreflected industrial food production.

I would like to add two aspects:1) there are a lot of humans now on the planet; so, to have enough food, it will have to be quite efficient 2) #1 nowadays will still possible even with a majority of small (be it "family") farming, if we use the knowledge provided by science.

Small, independent, democratic businesses based on the distribution of science for the people.

The same will work in other sectors.

[BBBarua]

Businesses of all kinds want to have long-lasting recurring revenue. Therefore they will do anything to raise barriers, never expiring patents to keep the competitors out. This will go on as long as the government allows that kind of behavior.