Globalization: The Impact on America's Small Farms

Globalization: The Impact on Our Small Farms
As a child I remember riding through the Wisconsin countryside on the outskirts of Oshkosh. The sight of cows in the fields would captivate me. The never ending rows of corn topped with golden tassels would capture my imagination. The smell of fresh cut hay made me dream of living life on a farm. Even when the scent of fresh manure hit the air I took it all in and enjoyed every aspect of the farm.
Today, the countryside is dotted with dilapidated barns and vacant farm houses. The fields which once grew corn now grow unwanted weeds. And the city is now rapidly consuming the land once owned by the farmers. I now find myself speeding though the countryside to get from one city to the next. Should I encounter a farm that is still in operation, I roll up my window to avoid the new noxious odor of fertilizers and pesticides.
The world’s small farms are facing an unprecedented threat to their way of life. Globalization has become a key player in recent years to the demise of the small farm in many nations. With recent free trade agreements, and government subsidies, the price a farmer receives for produce has dropped through the floor. This is leading to the consolidation and merge

mergers at both ends of the farming cycle – inputs that the farmer has to buy (seeds, fertilizers, chemicals), and outputs; what the farmer gets at the selling end. (Rosset, 1999)

In a recent interview with a small family farmer from Wisconsin, I asked how the government has either helped or hurt his farm. “The funny thing is, the corporate farm down the road can get a loan at 2% interest, and I cannot.” I then asked him why this was. “The size of the loan is not large enough. If I was to borrow as much money as the corporate farm, I might as well give it [farming] up, move to California and get a real job.”

Again money is the key factor in the loss of small fruit farms. As technology and transportation advances and becomes less expensive, it is cheaper for the U.S. to purchase produce from developing countries and turn around and charge virtually the same price as American grown produce at the grocery store.

Economic globalization is changing the face of America and other countries. This should not be met with panic, but welcomed as a sign of progress. Farms have become more efficient and more productive. Currently 50,000 farming operations now produce 75% of the total U.S. farm production.

With the technologies associated with the transportation of goods, it is now cost effective to ship components around the world to be manufactured for a lower cost and then shipped back to the selling market. The same is true with farming. The inputs such as seed and fertilizers can be shipped to a Third World country to be farmed and harvested at virtually no cost to the corporation, and then the produce is rapidly shipped back to the selling market to be sold for a greater profit. This cycle removes the profits from American farmers thus removing the American farmers’ investments in the local community thus creating a sort of economic depression in areas which are dependent on farmers. This trend is even more evident in the U.S. manufacturing industry. Many manufacturing plants have closed down their U.S. operations and moved overseas in search of cheaper labor. The result is massive unemployment and a weakening economy.

The U.S. has long been a net exporter of fruit and nut production, but the trade gap is narrowing and the U.S. will soon become a net importer of fruit. The total number of farms with land in orchards and vineyards has dropped 13.5%, from 120,434 farms in 1987 to 106,069 in 1997. The state with the largest numerical loss of farms was California, the nation’s dominant fruit producer, which lost almost 2,300 farms. Apple growers experienced the largest numerical decrease in farms. Apples farms declined from 36,718 in 1987 to 28,100 in 1997. (Rawlins, 2000)