Family Farming as Opposed to the Industrial Side of Agriculture

There are many types of agriculture around me. I live in Arkansas where agriculture is the largest industry, adding around $ 16 billion to the stateś economy annually. Some of the largest agricultural products I see around me are soybeans, cotton, timber, and grain.

Modern day farming has transformed from the farming process of last century. Instead of farmers producing for their families, farmers are now similar to input/output managers supplying massive manufacturers that feed the country.

Former president George Washington once said, “Agriculture is the most healthful, most useful, and most noble employment of man,” (George Washington Quote). Since Washington’s presidency, countless advancements and developments within the agricultural industry have allowed the United States to grow, develop, and become one of the most prosperous countries in the entire world. Nevertheless, this prosperity is also marked by several key historical events, such as the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions, which have caused the core values and traditions that this great nation was built on to slowly disappear. Today, the majority of Americans have no knowledge, understanding, or appreciation for the agricultural industry, causing them to take for granted the basic necessities they rely on each day. This disconnection has created a gap between producers and consumers, which is known as

Farmland is important to farmers to grow their crops. More farmland would be useful for

One of the biggest issues accompanied with modern agriculture is land use. In the United States, for example, around 60 percent of land is used to grow produce and livestock. With such an extensive use of land

Like much of the midwest, Indiana is especially dependent on agricultural success to boost their economy. Farming is the backbone of the Hoosier state, with 57,500 farming operations functioning in 2016, per the United States Department of Agriculture. While Indiana relies heavily on the agricultural sector of their economy, the agricultural sector in turn often relies upon subsidization. According to “Food Policy: Looking Forward from the Past”, a book written by Arlene Spark and Janel Obenchain, “An agricultural subsidy is governmental assistance paid to farmers and agribusiness to supplement their income, manage the supply of agricultural commodities, and influence the cost and supply of such commodities.” Now that we accurately

While the Midwest may be “the breadbasket of the United States,” the Central Valley of California is the entire rest of the Thanksgiving meal on the table for the country. With its fertile soil, Mediterranean climate, and expansive flat land, the Central Valley produces more than 250 different crops that produce more than $20 billion annually, meaning it provides over half the produce grown in the United States. Recent droughts, recession, and growing urbanization in California have changed the conversation around farming practices and the large role family farms still play in the state. Popular opinions circulating the urban areas were calling into question the sacrifices farms were making throughout the drought, believing they got a

Why should anyone who doesn't farm or ranch care about Question 777, the Right To Farm amendment? Simple, because each and every one of us relies on agriculture to feed us, clothe us, and drive our economy.

Although I am not from a farm, I think I am still closely related to agriculture since my major is nutrition. As a nutrition major, it is important to know the chemistry of food and plants, the growing places of crops in the United States, the way farmer grow the crops, the benefits and risks behind organic crops, the benefits and risks of GMO and the potential food safety problems associated to pathogens, pesticides, toxicity. Besides, knowing how much crop grown and crop prices can give me a more complete picture on nutrition. Since food costs and availability influences people’s food choices and their nutrient intake. For example, the high costs for vegetables is one of the reason that causes obesity problem in the United States. Besides, one of my aunt is currently living in China, she owned a farmland and grow crops such as sweet potatoes, choy sum for her family.

Growing up on a small family wheat farm in southwestern Oklahoma, I have experienced the harsh conditions of farming firsthand. The job that used to employ the largest amount of people in the United States has lost the support and the respect of the American people. The Jeffersonian Ideal of a nation of farmers has been tossed aside to be replaced by a nation of white-collar workers. The family farm is under attack and it is not being protected. The family farm can help the United States economically by creating jobs in a time when many cannot afford the food in the stores. The family farm can help prevent the degradation of the environment by creating a mutually beneficial relationship between the people producing the food and nature. The family farm is the answer to many of the tough questions facing the United States today, but these small farms are going bankrupt all too often. The government’s policy on farming is the largest factor in what farms succeed, but simple economics, large corporations, and society as a whole influence the decline in family farms; small changes in these areas will help break up the huge corporate farms, keeping the small family farm afloat.

When we mention about farm, most of us have this image of a vast green pasture where farmers spend most of their time herding livestock but that idyllic picture is just a thing from the past. Since the 1930s in America, small farms started to wither away, made way to bigger and highly mechanized factory farms. It all traced back to McDonalds and the booming of fast food restaurants (Food, Inc 2008). Fast food restaurants had become successful because they could produce tasty food with cheaper cost. Their franchises eventually made them a multi-million-dollars industry. Big business required big suppliers. Small rural farms cannot meet the demand for supply and they quickly fade away. Farmers were being replaced by corporations in

Many small towns and families make their living off of their family farms. Yes, this may be a great way of living for these families, but would it really be able to support a nation? Thomas Jefferson's idea of how a nation should be ran

The agriculture field is one of the biggest employers, employing over 155 million people in the United States. What do you think about when you hear the word “agriculture?” Many people would say farming, but this is not the most common occupation in this field. Farmers make up a fraction of the agricultural jobs at 900,000, but over 2.1 million people own, rent, and claim farming as a primary source of income. The average farm size has dropped from 460 acres in 1990 to 418 acres in 2007, while the average age of this occupation rose to 57, making this one of the older workforces in the United States.

The Agriculture sector has changed monumentally over the past century in response to vast economic change and technological advancements. Farm subsidies are various forms of payments from the federal government put in place in an effort to stabilize prices, keep farmers in business, and ensure quality of crops. The federal government currently pays $20 billion in cash each year to US farmers and spent an estimated $250 billion between 1995-2005. Presently, a new farm bill is passed every five years

The theoretical model adopted for this study is the agricultural household model. In this model we assume a unitary farm household model where a farm operator maximises his or her utility over a set of consumption and leisure for all family members. The utility of the farm operator is subject to the time and budget constraints of the household. Following Becker (1965), we consider the labour allocation decision from a farm operator’s perspective only, and assume that the farm operator maximises his utility function, (U), which is a function of consumption (q), leisure time (l), human capital (H), and household characteristics (k). The farm operator in the model allocates his or her time endowment (T) to three (3) main activities: farm work(T_f), nonfarm or off-farm production or market work(T_of) , and home time or leisure activities(l). Since the optimal hours of market work might be zero in a given year, but not less than zero, a non-negativity constraints is placed on farm work and nonfarm work of each household member: T_of≥0, T_f≥0. The farm operator therefore maximises utility have leisure activities(l) and consumption (q), which is expressed as follows: