Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is currently commenting on the state of small-scale agriculture in America.
It comes from the National Agricultural Statistics Service and shows the country has lost 544,000 of the average size of farms since 1981.
“That’s every farm that exists today in North Dakota and South Dakota, in addition to those in Wisconsin and Minnesota, in addition to those in Nebraska and Colorado, in addition to those in Oklahoma and Missouri,” Mr. Vilsack said at a conference this spring in Washington. “Are we okay with this as a country?”
Even as the United States continues to produce more food on fewer acres, Mr. Vilsack fears that the loss of small farmers has weakened the rural economy, and he wants to stop the bleeding. Unlike his last inauguration under former President Barack Obama, this time his department is positioned to spend billions of dollars in subsidies and incentives passed since 2021 under three major pieces of legislation – including the largest investment in conservation programs in the country History of the USA.
The plan in a nutshell: Multiply and improve sources of income to strengthen farm balance sheets. Instead of just selling grain and livestock, farms of the future could also sell carbon credits, waste products and renewable energy.
“Instead of the farm getting one check, they could potentially get four checks,” Mr. Vilsack said in an interview. He also helps schools, hospitals and other institutions purchase locally grown food and helps investors build meatpacking plants and other processing facilities to free farmers from powerful middlemen.
But it’s far from clear whether new policies and a cash injection will be enough to counter the forces that have driven farmers off their land for decades – especially since much of the money is, and therefore is, intended for reducing carbon emissions will flow into large farms because they are the biggest polluters.
The number of farms has declined since the 1930s, due in large part to migration from rural areas to cities and greater mechanization of agriculture, which allowed operators to farm larger areas with fewer people. Over time, the federal government abandoned its policy of controlling production to support prices, leading producers to focus more on exports while local distribution networks withered.
The last half decade has been more turbulent than most. First, there was a trade war against China under former President Donald J. Trump, which brought retaliatory tariffs that restricted U.S. exports of agricultural products such as soybeans and pork. Then came the pandemic, disrupting supply chains, cutting agricultural labor and leaving crops to rot in the fields.
After Congress softened the blow by providing relief to farmers affected by the pandemic-related disruptions, things began to change. While the cost of supplies like fertilizer and seeds rose, so did food prices and farm incomes. In 2023, agricultural loan default rates approached record lows.
“Ag balance sheets overall are the healthiest they’ve ever been,” said Brad Nordholm, chief executive of Farmer Mac, a major secondary farm loan marketplace. “The opportunities available to American farmers to achieve a more predictable return on investment, even as commodity and input prices change, are greater than ever before.”
However, wholesale grain prices are expected to fall next year. Rising interest rates have made it harder to finance plantings and harvests, borrow for expansion or simply get into farming — especially as land values rose 29 percent from 2020 to 2023.
This is particularly true for small farmers, who are far less likely to benefit from Department of Agriculture assistance programs and are more vulnerable to bad weather, labor shortages and consumer demands.
“I think in some ways they are in a worse situation than they were before the pandemic,” said Benneth Phelps, executive director of the nonprofit Carrot Project, which advises small farmers in New England. “We see that many farmers are currently making difficult decisions about whether they want to stay or leave because they have run out of energy.”
This is where the American Rescue Plan, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the bipartisan infrastructure bill come into play.
The legislation gave the Agriculture Department a total of about $60 billion, which it has allocated across a range of priorities, from easing farmers’ debt to paying them for reducing their carbon emissions.
The largest chunk — about $19.5 billion — has given new life to subsidies to promote conservation practices that improve the land, such as reducing plowing and growing cover crops to sequester carbon in the soil. Some of the programs had shrunk in successive farm bills, which are five-year legislative packages that cover most agricultural subsidies, and about two-thirds of farmers who applied each year received nothing.
The new funding added 16,000 recipients in the last two years. Preliminary data shows that the expansion allows smaller businesses to participate.
Part of that money – combined with another Department of Agriculture renewable energy pot – will be used to purchase a $2.9 million methane digester at Savage View Farm, a 700-heifer dairy in Grand Isle, Vt. , used.
The machines are fed plenty of manure and produce electricity, which is sold to the local utility, as well as dried solids that can be used as bedding for the cows. An Inflation Reduction Act tax credit will reduce the farm’s tax liability and, as a non-financial benefit, the facility will reduce the odors caused by spreading raw manure in the fields.
“We have a surplus of manure,” said Sara Griswold, a farm manager who is engaged to one of the farm owners. “It will make the experience of distribution a little more pleasant for the people around us.”
Another $3.1 billion will be paid to farmers who are willing to do a little more monitoring, verification and reporting to scientifically determine what actually helps reduce carbon emissions.
The hope is that manufacturers will be able to charge a premium for goods advertised as climate-friendly. Consumers say they are willing to pay more, and in Europe many food companies are under regulatory pressure to source ingredients with a smaller carbon footprint. To generate additional revenue, the Agriculture Department plans to develop markets where polluting companies buy carbon offsets from farms that have reduced their own emissions.
However, not everyone agrees with these initiatives. On the one hand, it can be difficult for smaller farmers to benefit. For example, the methane digester at Savage View Farm is not cost effective for dairy herds of fewer than about 200 cows.
Additionally, scientists fear that the climate benefits are being overstated and that further subsidizing farms – particularly those with methane-producing livestock – could increase the sector’s overall greenhouse gas emissions.
“Agriculture in general, particularly when it comes to meat and dairy, creates more emissions than it sequesters,” said Matthew Hayek, an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at New York University. “The more money you put into agriculture, the more agriculture there will be.”
To more directly support small farmers, the Agriculture Department has provided additional money to help beginning farmers get started and to help local producers find buyers for crops other than dominant commodities like corn and soybeans.
The effort includes $300 million to help traditionally marginalized and emerging farmers – including Black, Hispanic, recent immigrant and Native American farmers – gain access to land. The program was vastly oversubscribed, and the money has now been distributed to nonprofits across the country that establish community land trusts, help heirs obtain clear ownership of family lands, and provide technical assistance to those just starting out.
Another bottleneck choking smaller farmers is the availability of meat and poultry processors, an industry that has been consolidated under large companies like Cargill and Tyson Foods. To fix the problem, the Agriculture Department has stepped up enforcement of long-neglected antitrust laws and invested $1 billion to build or expand facilities.
Once the land is secured, customers decide whether the farm withers or thrives. A smaller farm often cannot survive on raw material prices alone and therefore needs individual buyers who are willing to pay a little more for a wider range of crops.
The Department of Agriculture has tried to address this problem by spending $900 million encouraging institutions to buy from local producers and by establishing a network of regional grocery centers.
Many farmers say the money has been helpful, but it still hasn’t reached the mountains and plains of America. Graham Christensen’s family has farmed approximately 1,000 acres of land in eastern Nebraska since their arrival as settlers in the late 19th century. The family now mainly produces white corn and soybeans and has expanded their range to include hazelnuts, cherries and pecans. These are usually high-value crops, but only if someone buys them – such as a grocery chain or a packaged food company.
“We have nowhere to take these products when we’re done,” Mr. Christensen said. “These are the markets we want and we don’t have a path to get there.”
That’s why Mr. Christensen and groups like the National Family Farm Coalition and the American Farmland Trust are pushing for the new funding to continue in the upcoming Farm Bill. They want billions more to help transfer land from retired farmers to small operators instead of corporations, and for the Agriculture Department to create a Small Farms Office to oversee everything.
They point out that some of the money could come from the subsidies that have propped up huge producers of wheat, corn and other agricultural products for many years.
“It’s about driving investment away from just one type of farm to be more inclusive,” said Carolina Mueller, deputy coalition director of the Young Farmers Coalition. “This is a great potential source of financial support that could benefit young, inexperienced and, frankly, not-so-young farmers.”
Source link
2024-05-30 09:02:09
www.nytimes.com
