Progress 12/15/02 to 06/14/06
Outputs
More consideration has been given to causes of family farm failure rather than factors accounting for farms that succeed. Thus, researchers believe that relationships between families, farming and community remain under-theorized. This deficiency constrains understanding of family farms long-term survival and impoverishes debate about rural policy and quality of life. This gap in understanding inspired this research. To investigate success factors, we queried 40 Nebraska Century farm and ranch families. Century farms are certified for at least 100 years of single-family ownership. In some cases, long interviews were conducted with multiple family members. We used NVivo 7 qualitative data analysis software to uncover themes across interviews and observations. We identify four domains: individual, family, community, and policy that interact to produce long-term success. We elicited a number of perceived threats to Century farms, most well known to specialists and policy
makers. Success factors are listed alphabetically. Individual: Being a good neighbor; Careful management; Connecting to tradition; Engagement in community; Faith, Protestant ethic; Farm background; Felt obligation to the family to succeed; Frugality in consumption; Hard work; Jack-of-all-trades in farm work; Memories of the farm; the family; Practicality; Pride in farming, the farm. Family: Adaptability to changing economic environment; Appreciation for way of life; Communication about intergenerational land transfers; Conservative financial management; Creative strategies for intergenerational land transfer; Diversification Economic success; Off-farm income or insurance; Participation in community; Planning for intergenerational land transfer; Practicing stewardship of land; Re-investment in the farm/land; Self-sufficiency; Shared crisis management; Social capital investments in extended family, community; Ties to the land; Tradition of judicious innovation in production or
processes; Volunteering in local organizations. Community: Interpersonal connectors and social capital formation; Knowledgeable and sympathetic rural business partners; Local institutions facilitate values transfer and communication (4H/FFA; churches; county fairs; governance boards); Local schools; education is important (Grade schools; Vocational schools; University); Providing an emergency safety net Policy: Crop insurance; but many cannot afford it; CRP, that sustains the land; Homesteading provisions in the early days; Subsidies, but Century farmers do not like them; Tax policies; generally no longer work for family farmers Threats: Changing rural values that favor materialism; Complexity of farm policies; Farm policies that favor larger farms; Inflation of cash rents for farmland; Influx of owners from outside the local economy; Lack of health insurance; Lack of social life for young people in rural areas; No financial programs to enable young people to get a start farming; No
insurance to protect farms from consequences of management errors; Shrinking rural community size; Shrinking rural population base; Subsidies that favor larger farms; Tax policies that favor larger farms; Urban sprawl.
Impacts
Family farming represent an invaluable way of life to those who have experienced it, and a model of land management and agricultural production that is inclined toward good stewardship and innovative, efficient agricultural production. Key American values are nurtured on family farms and ranches. This way of life is under severe competitive pressure and is likely to further decline without effective new policy. Support to family farms should not be an economic policy decision only, but a social policy decision. Needed: Collaboration between state and county fair organizations to consolidate fairs in small counties and reinforce linkages between them and the state fair; Enhanced crop insurance programs targeted to family farms; Gradual reduction in farm subsidies and tax policies that favor very large farms over family farms; Greater emphasis on innovative and niche crops and cropping strategies in niche markets in agricultural extension and agricultural research;
Measures to provide low cost loans to young farmers; Measures to support vocational schools and community colleges; Programs to identify and match family farms without prospective heirs and qualified young farmers without adequate land and financial resources; Reform of Nebraska laws providing tax incentives for employment producing agribusinesses; Statewide health insurance programs for independent family farmers; Strengthen state commitment to limiting corporate farming; Zoning laws and taxation policies enacted to preserve rural counties and protect small towns from sprawl.
Publications
- Arnould, Eric J.; Linda L. Price, John C. Allen III and Peter Bleed (2005), Social and Cultural Dimensions of Continuity in Nebraska Century Farms, Proceedings of the 67th Annual Meeting of the Rural Sociology Society, Sacramento, California, August 12-15, 2004, available on-line at http://ruralsociology.org/annual-meeting/2004/proceedings.html.
- Pennington, Julie and Eric Arnould (2005), At the Top of the Food Value Chain: Understanding Century Farmer/Ranchers and their Supporting Communities, Paper presented at International Food & Agribusiness Management Association, Chicago, Illinois, June 2005.
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Progress 10/01/02 to 09/30/03
Outputs
Until now, successful, working century farms and ranches have received little empirical attention. But, century farms, that is,enterprises owned and worked by a multiple generations of a family for one hundred years or more, should be of central interest to farm policy makers and rural sociologists. They constitute a convenient and widely distributed living laboratory in which to find examples of long-term rural survival and durability. To abstract some lessons learned from their rich and varied experiences, over the past year we have conducted depth interviews with 30 century farm owners and managers. In several cases we have interviewed separately members of different generations of our farm families. Interviews have averaged over two hours in length. Our interviews have examined how and why some families and farms have survived for more than a century, as well as their meaning to the individuals, and families concerned. Specifically, the research has examined
reciprocal linkages between century farm continuity and community well being; interaction of multigenerational farming families with rural community networks; translation of family and community beliefs about production and consumption into strategies and practices for keeping farms in the family; and relationships between material farm culture, stories of farm and family, and land stewardship, tenure practices, and family and community well being. We have extracted preliminary results on each of these issues, organized thematically. We use a multidisciplinary research team consisting of four co-investigators combining expertise in ethnography, ethno-archeology, rural sociology and consumer studies. Interviews have been conducted by two of the four co-investigators assisted by an MBA student in our Agribusiness track and by two undergraduate students. One of these students received a UCARE grant from the University of Nebraska to participate in this project. Two MBA agribusiness
students have assisted the four co-investigators in data preparation, transcription and analysis. We currently have over 64 hours of videotaped interviews and over 597 pages of transcribed interview text. We will place researchers on several century farms for an extended period of participant observation data collection later this year. We will seek support in this activity from current respondents and additional century farm families we identify.
Impacts
We expect to develop a final report with recommendations for changes in rural farm policy directed to state and national audiences. We expect to develop presentations to be made to local audiences through various extension education channels based on lessons learned from successful century farms.
Publications
- Social and Cultural Dimensions of Continuity in Nebraska Century Farms Arnould, Eric J., Linda L. Price, Allen, John C. III, Peter Bleed, paper submitted for presentation to the Rural Sociocology Society Annual Meetings, August 2004.
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