Less than a million farmers survived Reaganomics, so their political influence is waning, even in states like Iowa, but I don't think that justifies an indifference regarding their decline and the surrendering of food policy to the ADMs, ConAgras and Tysons of the agribusiness world.
-- Jim Cullen ---------
While we can debate supports or not and the alliances that originally suppored them and those that have since undermined them, I think the real problem with small farming isn't a matter of supports. It reflects a completely flawed agriculture and social policy at the base.
Look at the what small farmers are or were growing: corn, soy beans, wheat, barely and other bulk products that form the foundation of giant agri-business. Even diary and beef fall into the same monster scale were industrialization of the process is the preferred method for sustaining the production and generating profit. Doesn't it make more sense to get out of that kind of production, if you are a small farmer?
For example most of the Bay Area is surrounded by much smaller scaled agriculture: truck farming fruits and vegetables in Salinas, walnuts, pecans, onions, and lettuce near Tracy, with some grapes, then north to the wine country with vinards and orchards, and smaller diary farming. Down further toward Fresno where it is warmer you run into citrus groves.
So it seems to me the best route for the small producer is human food crops with a concentration on quality and nutrition, and not bulk grain for animal feed and processed foods for the junk food industry.
For example, in Iowa City, the first time I went to the store I was appalled that there was nothing there to eat. I thought farms made food (stupid me, I was from LA). I discovered most of them don't. They produce bulk grain and feed. So, the only thing to eat in the store that was worth eating were the cheeses from Wisconsin, the pork roasts, chops, bacon, and some locally made sauage, called summer sauage. The rest of the stuff in the fruits and vegetables section were uneatable--the sweet corn was terrible, but the chard was okay. Thirty years later I was in State College, Pennsylvania and had the same experience, although things had improved a little but the water was so bad it made everything taste like shit anyway. Same experience in Lubbuck TX, McMinnville, OR, Great Falls IO, Hobart OK. The one place that was better was Plattsburg, NY.
So, the death of small farmers goes along with the disappearance of small towns and country life. But the way to turn that around isn't re-constructing the substidities so the small time entrepeneur can get back into the bulk grain game.
It seems to me, you need to completely re-plan what kind of country life and agricultural policy you want as a total package, and then fit small farming back into that.
The place I would start is the terrible food and diet in rural US, and plow down the mass junk food industry that lines all the strip malls in small town USA. These replaced the small town local dinner, chinese or italian restaurant, hardward store, clothing store, machinery repair, with the franchised joints who hire local teenagers for nothing, teach them nothing, and then get rid of them before they leave town anyway. It is all part of the same package deal.
We talk about trashing the rest of the world with our franchises and junk food industry, but we did it to ourselves first and then exported it. Walmart and McDonalds looks just as shitty and leads to just as shitty a life in rural Iowa, California, Pennsylvania as it does in Mexico, Russia, or England.
What suggested the complete overhaul of rural US life, with small farms as part of the deal, was reading a cookbook: Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, Marcella Hazan. According to Hazan while there are fundamentals in common, each region has its own characteristic cuisine. When you think about it, those differences naturally develop out of what was grown or found in different regions. So why not here? The variety of climates around SF bay has generated a related kind of agricultural diversity, egged on of course by the confluence of different peoples and their eating habits. For example the Chinese and other asians all go to the produce markets in downtown Oakland on Saturday morning where they can get fruits and vegetables that they can't find in regular supermarkets. I am sure the same thing goes on in SF and probably San Jose. Why starve in Iowa City?
I've been on an Italian kick lately (hence the cookbook), since I started riding my new Cinelli. I got a couple flats and had to get the store mechanic to teach me how to repair sew-ups. He showed me a trick way to do a series of X's with a sewing machine needle glued into a value stem cap. The technique criss crosses the stitch on top and underneath. Very cool.
Chuck Grimes