Question by Amazing: How has organic farming, the movement to consume locally, sustainable agriculture, and fair trade agriculture…?
How has organic farming, the movement to consume locally, sustainable agriculture, and fair trade agriculture affected the quantity of loved ones owned farms, size of farms, and the capability for individually owned farms to compete against corporate farms?
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Answer by random_man
Someplace about 90 percent of farms in the US are owned by households or a partnership of families. That statistic hasn’t changed significantly more than the years. The typical size of farms continues to grow as economies of scale develop, but there are nonetheless a lot of tiny farms out there. In truth the “average” farm is a modest farm in terms of the absolute number of farms.
Organic farming and the nearby foods movement along with the growth in farmers markets has been a boon to modest farmers, and has helped them compete against bigger farms. Fair trade agriculture normally refers to imported goods like coffee and cocoa, so it is impact on domestic farms is minimal.
I am not confident what you mean precisely by “corporate farms”. Many farms are incorporated for liability or tax purposes, but are genuinely generally still household farms – even most big farms are nonetheless owned by one particular or two households. Investment in production agriculture by large, shareholder-owned corporations has been fairly restricted. There’s just too a lot threat and not adequate return to attract significant corporate ownership. On the input side (fertilizers, seeds) and the output side (processing, grain trading, distribution, and so on) there has been tremendous corporate consolidation. But the actual operate of increasing remains, by and large, a family endeavor. Still I believe I get what you mean – a local grower of say, raspberries, will uncover themselves competing with huge packers and distributors who are promoting raspberries from all over the planet into the very same marketplace as the nearby guy. I consider the nearby foods movement has helped that neighborhood famer compete, but the reality is that s/he has to be capable to make profitably at a price set by the wholesale industry. Buyers have demonstrated that they are willing to pay a premium for regional foods, but the amount of that premium is not limitless.
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