I think folks who are trying to Save Family Farms, by & large, drastically misunderstand why those farms are struggling. It's not because of agribusiness. Agribusiness exists because family farms have *always* struggled. Before we get too far, let's lay out some basics:
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• US family farms have always struggled with basic functions that a food supply needs to do- like marketing, managing a workforce, & accessing capital. These longstanding shortcomings of family farming are *why agbiz happened in the first place.* To fill those gaps.
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• I've personally worked with dozens of farms that *do* handle their own marketing, salesforce, capital needs, etc very well. They exist! It's 100% doable. The problem isn't lack of resources. The problem is that a lot of farms just ... don't see that stuff as their job.
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They expect someone else to handle that for them- at very favorable terms, of course. I don't know how to explain this to folks who don't work in ag. So many farmers work from a place of deep entitlement, & haven't figured out how to actually negotiate their way in the world.
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Have personally worked w so many farms that were getting screwed by a supplier. So I say something like "hey you need X from them, they said they'd do it, you're paying them, so if they don't? Stop buying from them." And they look at me like I just slapped baby jesus.
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And we're not talking monopolistic buyers. I'm not throwing out daft shit like "oh why don't you just break your contract with Purdue nbd." It's… like… "Your porta-potty or chem sales guy isn't doing what he said he would, try one of the other 2-10 suppliers in the county."
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These are situations where farmers absolutely have alternatives and won't use them. How tf is trust-busting supposed to fix that? There are deep-seated cultural issues here that well-meaning "save family farms!" interventions cannot address.
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Re: many farms' dysfunction with marketing- this pretty much sums it up.https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/1111697869214486528 …
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• The death of family farms is greatly exaggerated. There were 3.2 million white farmers in 1920 *and* 2012. 1920 data: http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/AgCensusImages/1920/Farm_Statistics_By_Color_and_Tenure.pdf … 2012: https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2012/Full_Report/Volume_1,_Chapter_2_US_State_Level/st99_2_054_054.pdf … BIPOC farms, meanwhile, dwindled to maybe 25-30% their 1920 numbers. That's the real story IMO.
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• Facts on the farm suicide epidemic. The CDC counted day laborers on farms- who *were* having a spike in suicides- as "farmers." CDC retracted the finding years ago, but farm lobby's still running with it bc it's so good for fundraising.https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/1078049449950224384 …
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To be clear: yes, this means farmers have been driving their workers to suicide through terrible working conditions, then stealing their death stats to play victim & claim more federal funding. This is a pathological tactic that should not be rewarded.
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Real farmer suicide stats- when you control for race, geography, age, & access to firearms- are comparable with their peers. It's not a farmer problem, it's an old white men with guns problem. The first step in healing this is understanding what's really happening.
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Why do we have this skewed picture of what's wrong with ag? Because when journalists have ag questions, they only talk to farmers. "But farmers make food!" No. There's a vast community of people who make food, and farmers are like 1/10th of it.
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We talk about farmers like they're the proletariat. But they own land, often $millions in equipment, employ the country's most exploited workforce, and actively lobby to keep their workforce down. That ain't working class, folks. Family farms are management.
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That means that when we equate "fixing agriculture = saving family farms," we're really kinda about saving a hereditary landowning class from their own mistakes. And we will never fix what's wrong with ag as long as that's what we think "fixing" looks like.
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Bottom line, I think what's happening with ag is it's the product of 100+ years of preferential treatment towards white folks. In other words, multiple generations of people's demographics mattering more than their skill. Of *course* the sector's a deskilled shitshow.
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The panic over farms misses really key things: • There are lots of farms that *aren't* struggling. That's bc they take care of their marketing, capital, etc. Folks do it every day. • There are more ways to farm than "family" & "corporate," we should talk about that.
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A thread on some other ways to farm. "Family farming" is just a folksy name for privately-owned estates. They build a cycle of rich get richer, poor get poorer. Scaled-up, employee-owned farms are an established alternative w real potential.https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/1104468788278452226 …
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NZ stopped their farm bleeding decades ago by 1) giving farmers a financially dignified way out of ag (mostly used by those struggling most) & 2) abolishing subsidies. (No their ag sector's not perfect, but ours is imperfect AND subsidizes incompetence at taxpayer expense.)
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Please take some time to read this myth-shattering essay by rancher Kate Miller "I Will Not Thank A Farmer." It has amazing perspective on how much of the work that goes into raising food, even on the farm, is not from farmers.https://www.porkbusiness.com/article/kate-miller-i-will-not-thank-farmer …
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If we want to fix ag, we need to listen to what farm *workers* & young farmers can tell us about what's broken. For a very preliminary starter course, here's some thoughts by @velvetworkshirt. https://twitter.com/velvetworkshirt/status/1111698062844547080 … See also
@ciw,@UFWupdates, & other farmworker groups.Prikaži ovu nit -
We need to be real about how much the ag industry has voted in its own destruction. Like when 45's first act in office was to destroy TPP and with it, 123,000 rural jobs.https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/824809072423796736 …
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Or how much of the ag industry is made of politically well-connected people who could use those resources to improve their business & uplift their communities, but mostly use them to make life harder for other Americans. https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a23471864/devin-nunes-family-farm-iowa-california/ …https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/richard-spencer-cotton-farms-louisiana-subsidies/ …
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To journalists covering farm problems: Please for the love of God dig deeper. We cannot afford to keep circle-jerking around the conventional wisdom. Talk to farm workers, farmers of color, and young people and women in farming. They've got insights that'll blow your minds.
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