Small Farms in the year 2050

Small Farms in the year 2050[i]

John Ikerd[ii]

By the year 2050, Americans will be living in a different world. Cheap fossil energy will be a distant memory. Anything that depends on fossil energy will be obsolete, including the current industrial approach to agriculture. Global climate change will be widely accepted as an everyday reality and the industrialization of agriculture will be identified as one of its major causes. People will be suffering the consequences of trying to make dramatic changes that should have been made decades before. Global society will be trying once again to resolve the political and military conflicts that have arisen over access to dwindling stocks of fossil energy and the resulting economic and social inequities. Hopefully an all out global war will have been averted but the disparity between the rich and poor of the world will be a continuing problem for humanity. Regardless, it will take decades to recover from the unavoidable conflicts in cultural, social, and economic ideology that accompany all great transitions in human society.

Change is neither unusual nor unexpected. The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus originated the doctrine of change as a central aspect of the universe. “The only thing constant is change,” is a modern expression of that doctrine. However, some types of change are not usual and constant; some are uncommon and abrupt. Such change fundamentally reshapes the future. As Peter Drucker, the time-honored writer, scholar, and corporate consultant observed, “Every few hundred years in Western history there occurs a sharp transformation. Within a few decades, society rearranges itself–its worldview; its basic values; its social and political structure, its arts; its key institutions. Fifty years later, there is a new world. We are currently living through just such a transformation.”[1] There is reason to believe the current transformation is at least as great as the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700s and perhaps as great as the Scientific Revolution of the early 1600s. Addressing the challenges of this historic change will require not only a new paradigm for economic development but also new scientific understanding of how the world works and of our place within it. We will have to rethink virtually everything we think we know and change virtually every aspect of our lives, including the ways we farm and produce food.

The current transformation is being driven by a search for the answers to questions of sustainability, and there are growing indications that the industrial approach to economic development is simply not sustainable. The industrial era has brought tremendous material benefits to humanity and no one would willingly return to pre-industrial times of widespread and persistent drudgery, hunger, disease, and depravation. However, the environmental movement of the 1960s reflected a growing public awareness that the natural environment was incapable of assimilating the wastes being discharged into air and water by our modern industrial society. Rising energy prices during the 1970s brought similar public attention to the finiteness of the earth’s natural resources. Today, the twin threats of “peak oil” and global climate change are creating a global awakening to the direct linkages between fossil energy depletion and global environmental degradation.

The concept of peak oil relates to the fact that it takes about 30 to 40 years to bring newly discovered oil fields into “peak” production.[2] At that point, about half of the total quantity of recoverable oil remains in the ground. However, the last half is invariably more difficult and costly to retrieve, and after the peak, annual production invariably declines. U.S. oil discoveries peaked in the late 1930s and 1940s. U.S. oil production peaked in 1971 and has been declining ever since. The peak in global oil discoveries was in 1962. Estimates range from 2005 to 2025 for the peak year of global oil production.[3] Other fossil energy sources, including natural gas and coal, have similar patterns of discovery and use and all are expected to peak within the next few decades. In addition, all renewable sources of energy for the future – wind, water, solar – will be less plentiful and more costly. The world is not running out of energy, at least not yet, but it is running out of “cheap energy” as production of fossil energy is destined to decline in the decades ahead.

Global climate change is a direct consequence of fossil energy depletion. All fossil energy is biological in origin. It is stored in the bonds that connect molecules of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, the major elements forming the tissues of biological organisms. When the energy is released, these bonds are broken and the various chemical elements, including carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses, are released into the environment. This problem is intrinsic for all fossil energy sources – particularly for coal, the most abundant source of remaining fossil energy. Petroleum shortfalls cannot be offset by using coal or any other fossil energy sources without exacerbating the risks of global climate change. The preponderance of scientific evidence indicates that industrial development is a major contributor of greenhouse gasses and that a fundamental change in energy use will be required to avoid potentially catastrophic changes in global climate.[4]

At no time since the Great Depression has the global economy been so vulnerable to economic chaos and collapse, and the lack of sustainability of the U.S. economy is a major part of the global problem. U.S. federal budget deficits will continue to set new records, as we continue borrowing money to fund our military and economic misadventures and stimulate a faltering economy. Over time, the U.S. has become the world’s largest debtor nation and other countries continue to loan us money only because the U.S. economy is “too big to fail.” Our international trade deficits also have reached historic highs as we come to rely on cheap imports from low-wage countries such as Mexico, India, and China. Many Americans no longer make enough money to buy things “made in America.” The value of the U.S. dollar has declined precipitously in relation to other world currencies, reflecting a lack of confidence in our economic future. Yet the government has little choice other than to continue borrowing and spending, if it is going to avoid another great depression.

American consumers are also suffering under the burden of too much debt, as their incomes have failed to keep pace with their spending habits from better times. The disparity of incomes between the rich and the poor in the United States has reached unprecedented levels. One-half of all Americans currently now live on about the same amount of income as the richest one percent. In the words of Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Chairman, “The income gap between the rich and the rest of the U.S. population has become so wide, and is growing so fast, that it might eventually threaten the stability of democratic capitalism itself.”[5] The growing economic disparity is helping to create “two Americas,” the rich and the rest of us. Some denounce such conclusions as “class warfare,” others accept them as reality. In the words one of our greatest Presidents from the past, “A nation divided against itself cannot stand.”

Our current systems of farming and food production are major contributors to all of these problems. Today’s industrial food system accounts for about 17% of all fossil energy used in the United States and requires more than ten kcals of fossil energy for each kcal of food energy it produces.[6] Farms account for about one-third of that total. U.S. agriculture accounts for an estimated 22.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., with livestock production contributing more than 80% of the total.[7] With respect to income disparity, farm laborers and food industry workers are among the lowest paid workers in the U.S. and most receive few if any additional benefits. Many lack access to health care even though they work under conditions that are among the most dangerous of professions. At the consumer level, diet related illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are most prevalent among lower income consumers. Recent scientific studies documenting the nutrient deficiency of industrial foods may eventually explain the apparent paradox that many poor people are “over-fed but under-nourished.”[8]

Ultimately the issues of peak oil, global warming, and economic inequity are all issues of food security. No individual, community, or nation that depends solely on the economic marketplace for their basic food needs can ever be food secure. The markets will produce foods that are most profitable, not necessarily foods that are the safest or highest in quality. The market will not provide food in relation to peoples’ needs, but instead in relation to their ability to pay. The poor must vote with dollars in a market driven food economy, and without enough dollars, the poor will go hungry. In addition, the markets cannot and will not ensure long run food security. Economic value in individualistic in nature, and thus puts the wants of individuals ahead of the needs of society and places a premium on the present relative to the future. Economic value must be expected to accrue at least during the lifetime of the individual decision maker, and the closer in time, the higher in value. Those of future generations cannot express their food needs and preferences in today’s marketplace. Economics will not ensure the sustainability of our society or of humanity.

The fundamental question confronting society today is whether an alternative food system can be developed that will address the ecological and social concerns confronting today’s society. The answer is a resounding, yes! Thousands of farmers all across America and around the world are already showing the way. They may label themselves organic, biodynamic, ecological, natural, holistic, practical, innovative, or nothing at all; but they are all pursuing the same basic purpose. They are creating an agriculture that is capable of meeting the real needs of the present while leaving equal or better opportunities for the future. They are creating a sustainable agriculture.

A number of studies have indicated that farmers pursuing various organic and sustainable farming strategies are able to reduce their fossil energy use by 30% to 60%.[9]^,[10] A shift from industrial to organic farming – restoring the organic matter to levels needed for healthy, productive organic soils – could more than offset the current net emissions of CO₂by U.S. agriculture, according to a recent study by the Rodale Institute.[11] When beef animals are finished on pastures rather than finished in feed lots, a calorie of protein can be produced using less than one-third as much fossil energy.[12] Furthermore, CO₂emissions from beef production could be cut by 80% by shifting from grain-fed to grass-fed beef, on pastures rather than CAFOs, according to Animal Science professor, David Tisch.[13] Grass-fed and pasture-based production of meat, milk, and eggs are some of the most common and most profitable examples of sustainable agriculture. Farmers are proving that natural, organic, local, and other approaches to sustainable agriculture can produce high-quality food while addressing the ecological challenges of the twenty-first century.

Questions of social and economic equity and opportunity are at the very heart of sustainable agriculture. In sustainable agriculture, the farmer does the thinking and the farmer has the opportunity to reap the economic rewards. Industrial agriculture, on the other hand, transforms farms into factories, fields and feed lots in biological assembly lines, and farmers into little more than low-skilled, low-paid assembly line workers. With industrial agriculture, particularly contract agriculture, someone other than the farmer does most of the thinking. Someone other than the farmer developed the seeds, fertilizers and pesticides for industrial farming and developed the breeds, feeds, and confinement facilities of industrial animal agriculture. In many cases, someone other than the farmer makes the important decisions concerning planting, harvesting, breeding, feeding, medicating, and marketing. As a result, someone other than the farmer quite logically reaps the economic rewards.

Sustainable farmers work with nature, rather than attempt to conquer nature. They fit the farm to their land and climate rather than try to force nature to fit the way they might prefer to farm. Their farming operations tend to be more diverse and complex because nature is diverse and complex. Diversity may be expressed through a variety of crop and animal enterprises, crop rotations and cover crops, or in multi-species livestock grazing systems. By managing diversity, farmers are able to reduce their dependence on the pesticides, fertilizers, and other commercial inputs that threaten the environment and squeeze farmers’ profits. Working with nature requires knowledge and understanding of nature – it requires thinking – but it yields both ecological and economic rewards.

Sustainable farmers build relationships rather than exploit short run market opportunities. They have a sense of personal connectedness with their customers and realize that each person values things differently because each has different needs and preferences. They must have a deep sense of respect for people and an understanding of the needs and preferences of their particular customers in order to produce the things that their customers value most. They market to likeminded people who care where their food comes from and how it is produced – locally grown, organic, natural, humanely raised, hormone and antibiotic free – and, they receive premium prices for their products. Relationship marketing requires a knowledge and understanding of people – it requires thinking – but it yields both social and economic rewards.

Sustainable agriculture is a knowledge-based approach to management. Peter Drucker, a time-honored consultant to twentieth-century industry, writes of a post-industrial, knowledge-based society in his book, Post-Capitalist Society. "In the knowledge society into which we are moving, individuals are central,” he writes. “Knowledge is not impersonal, like money. Knowledge does not reside in a book, a databank, a software program; they contain only information. Knowledge is always embodied in a person, carried by a person; created, augmented, or improved by a person; applied by a person; taught by a person, and passed on by a person. The shift to the knowledge society therefore puts the person in the center."[14] Industrial agriculture is centered on capital and technology; sustainable agriculture is centered on people. Industrial agriculture is of the past era; sustainable farming is of the future.

The current popularity of local foods gives us a glimpse into that future. The local food movement is but the latest phase in a long-term trend that is fundamentally transforming the American food system. The organic and local food movements are simply continuations of the natural foods movement begun with the “back to the earth” movement of the 1960s. The natural food movement laid the foundation for the booming organic food market of the 1990s, during which organic food sales doubled every three to four years. Most of the early growth in organic foods was for vegetables, fruits, grains, and soy products, reflecting environmental and health concerns linked to use of agricultural chemicals. Animal products, led by organic milk, began to break into organic markets in the late 1980s. Widespread use of antibiotics and growth hormones in industrial livestock operations were the major concerns for consumers of meat, milk, and cheese. The inhumane treatment of animals in large-scale confinement animal feeding operations (CAFOs) helped fuel demand for free-range, pasture-based, and naturally-raised meat and dairy products. Concerns for the exploitation of family farmers, farm workers, and other food industry workers grew as agricultural operations became larger and more geographically concentrated.

Several recent books have documented a growing list of important ecological, social, and economic concerns that are driving the organic and local food movements. Best-selling books, particularly Fast Food Nation[15] and Omnivore’s Dilemma,[16] have awakened mainstream society to the dramatic changes in the ways their foods have been produced, processed, distributed, and marketed over the past few decades. These books vividly portray a food system that has not only compromised food quality and safety but also has helped homogenize the landscape, widened the chasm between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and promoted American cultural imperialism around the world. These best-sellers sparked the interests of other investigative authors, resulting in books such as The End of Food[17] and America’s Food[18] which covers virtually all aspects of today’s food system. These books are filled with statistics and facts and are extensively referenced and they all tell the same basic story. The natural-organic-local food movement reflects a growing demand for fundamental change in the American food system.

People tend to underestimate the potential of this post-industrial food movement because they associate local foods with farmers markets and community supported agricultural organizations or CSAs. USDA statistics indicate the number of farmers markets in the United States has increased from 1,755 to 4,385 between 1994 and 2006, increasing two and a half times in just over a decade. Current unofficial estimates of numbers of CSAs range from 1500 to 2000 nationwide compared to less than 100 in 1990. While farmers markets and CSAs are important, and will continue to be important, the local foods movement is probably most accurately defined by the growing number of discriminating restaurants, supermarkets, and other retail food markets who are committed to reconnecting with their local communities and to sourcing as much food as possible from local growers.

The White Dog Café,[19] located in Philadelphia, PA, is known for its unusual blend of award-winning cuisine and social activism. Their four-part mission includes serving their customers, serving their community, serving each other, and serving the earth. Jesse Z Cool,[20] with three restaurants in Palo Alto, CA, is an ardent advocate for local, sustainable, organic food production and the local farmers, whom she warmly calls “her heroes.” She is committed to buying locally because it “provides great quality, boosts our economy, protects our farmland, enhances our local food systems, and keeps us and our environment healthy.” The Farmers Diner[21] in Quechee, VT is committed to establishing a national network of restaurants that provide family/casual dining from locally-grown foods at affordable prices. Claire’s Restaurant[22] in Hardwick, VT is pioneering the concept of a “community supported restaurant.”

New Seasons Market[23] is one of the fastest growing food markets in Portland, OR, currently operating nine stores with plans to open two more in 2009. New Seasons’ stores look pretty much like other modern supermarkets, with delis, bakeries, and other amenities American food shoppers have come to expect. Their stores are typically located in areas bordering lower and higher income neighborhoods, drawing their loyal customers from both, and helping to strengthen both communities. Virtually every item in the store is labeled with respect to not just the country of origin but the “farm of origin.” They promote local-grown products and have long-term commitments with hundreds of local and regional farmers.

Hen House Markets[24] is a 13-store supermarket chain operated by Ball Foods Inc., a family corporation with a long history and strong commitment to the Kansas City community. They teamed up with Good Natured Family Farms, [25] a cooperative of thirty-plus farmers in southeastern Kansas and southwestern Missouri. The cooperative owns and manages their own Good Natured brand, which now includes an expanding line of branded food products, including beef, chicken, eggs, milk, and sausages. The Good Natured-Hen House “Buy Fresh, Buy Local” campaign has grown in retail sales of local products by 35% per year over the past several years, with sales topping $10 million in 2007. Hen House has recently initiated a CSA program, featuring Good Natured products, with weekly customer pickups at Hen House stores.

In addition to retail food markets, local foods are making inroads into the institutional food markets, including schools, colleges, and hospitals. More than 2,000 farm-to-school programs have been initiated in 40 states, with concerned parents encouraging and coercing public school administrators to buy as much food as possible from local farmers.[26] A recent survey returned by more than 100 colleges programs indicated average annual purchases of locally grown foods of more than $200,000 per school.[27] Organic foods are also growing in popularity among hospitals with increasing awareness of the links between diet health problems, including obesity, diabetes, heart failure, and various types of cancer.[28] Farm-to-hospital programs are beginning to spring up to ensure the integrity of organic.[29]

However, the model for the sustainable, local food system of the future may resemble more closely today’s multi-farm CSAs. Grown Locally,[30] Idaho’s Bounty,[31] and the Oklahoma Food Cooperative[32] offer a variety of vegetables, fruits, meats, eggs, cheese, baked goods, flowers, and herbs produced by local farmers. Many items are available as CSA shares, standing orders, or for week-by-week purchase. Customers may have the option of on-farm pick-up, local delivery points, or delivery to the door for an added charge. Websites allow producers to post what they have available each week, ensuring that products sold are available for delivery, and allowing customers to place or revise their orders on the website. These innovative agripreneurs are creating the template for a national network of community-based food systems.

In the not too distant future, virtually everyone in the United States will have access to the Internet. Community-based food associations could establish local assembly and distribution systems to pick up products at local farms and assemble customer orders. Existing retail delivery system networks, such as UPS and Fed-Ex, are already making deliveries into most neighborhoods on a daily basis and will become even more frequent as internet sales for all products increase in the future. A local food association could help establish and maintain personal connections between farmers and their customers through local food events, scheduled farm visits, and “dinners at the farm.”[33] Healthy farms, healthy foods, healthy communities.

Fifty years ago, most food in America was locally grown. Construction on the interstate highway system had just begun and supermarkets and franchise restaurants were just beginning to catch on. By the 1960s, however, supermarket chains had replaced the local “mom and pop” grocers, by the 1970s, fast food franchises were “freeing housewives from their kitchens” and by the 1990s, industrial agribusinesses had replaced family farms as the nation's major food producers. In the 2000s, the American food system is being transformed from national to global. But, cheap fossil energy made all of this possible, and the days of cheap fossil energy are over. In addition, the negative ecological and social consequences of corporate industrialization can no longer be ignored or even long endured.

In an ever-changing world, it seems logical to assume that changes in the food system over the next fifty years will be at least as great as in the past fifty years. With growing threats to ecological, social, and economic sustainability, including national and global food security, it is obvious that future changes must be in a direction fundamentally different from that of continuing industrialization. The sustainable-local food movement is at least as advanced today as the industrial food movement was fifty years ago. There is no logical reason to expect anything other than a continued relocalization of America’s food system.

It’s simply not possible to foretell with certainty, so no one can say with certainty what American farms will look like in 2050. However, farms of the future are far more likely to look like the small farms producing foods for local markets today than the large industrial farms producing agricultural commodities. The recent popularity of local foods provides a strong indication that consumers of the future are going to ensure the integrity of their foods by buying locally from people they know and trust. The large “industrial organic” farms of today will be just as obsolete as today’s industrial commodity producers. Local markets simply cannot support large-scale, specialized farming operations. Even if large farms could serve local markets, their economic efficiency is inherently dependent of cheap fossil energy. In addition, they will become increasingly condemned for their contribution to global climate change and economic inequity.

Since the population of 2050 will be larger and farms will be smaller, there will have to be more farmers, rather than fewer. This means that farming must sufficiently desirable as a way of life – economically and socially – to attract new farmers into the farming profession. Thus farming will return to being a honored, if not prestigious, occupation and farm families will move into at least the upper-middle class of American society. Rural communities will again flourish as part of the new knowledge-based post-industrial society.

In this new knowledge based society, the goals of survival, sufficiency, and security will take precedent over affluence and economic prosperity. The extractive, exploitative, industrial agriculture of today will have no place in such a world. People will have abandoned the obsessive and relentless pursuit of wealth of the 20^th Century and will have returned to the common sense pursuit of happiness instead. Certainly, some level of material well-being will be necessary for happiness, and the energy available from renewable sources – biological, wind, water, photovoltaic cells – will be more than adequate to meet the material needs of humanity. However, people of the future will depend more on personal relationships and a renewed sense of purpose and meaning in life for their overall well-being and happiness.

The changes we are experiencing in society today are not the usual, expected, or constant changes. We are experiencing the death of an old era and the birth of fundamentally different time in human history. Creating a new sustainable food economy is no longer an option; it is a necessity. The good news is that if we are willing to change our ways of thinking we can build a new sustainable society, and by the year 2050, the lives of Americans can be fundamentally better. Small farms will provide the foundation for a new food system and a new society and families on small farm in 2050 will make a better living and have an even better way of life.

End Notes:

[i] Prepared for presentation at the 2008 Small Farm Today Conference and Trade Show, Columbia, MO, November 8, 2008

[ii] John Ikerd is Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO – USA; Author of, Sustainable Capitalism, http://www.kpbooks.com , A Return to Common Sense, http://www.rtedwards.com/books/171/, Small Farms are Real Farms, Acres USA , http://www.acresusa.com/other/contact.htm,and Crisis and Opportunity: Sustainability in American Agriculture, University of Nebraska Press http://nebraskapress.unl.edu;

Email: JEIkerd@centurytel.net; Website: http://web.missouri.edu/~ikerdj/.