Farm (and Other F Words): The Rise and Fall of the Small Family Farm
reviewed by Kathryn Bertoni, herself a farmer
Farm (and Other F Words): The Rise and Fall of the Small Family Farm
by Sarah K. Mock
Sarah Mock’s book about farming is not a “political” book, in the traditional sense. But agriculture, being one of the foundations of human communal existence, and food production as an organizing principle for society, certainly makes farming a topic with massive political impacts. We are what we eat, and in many ways we are, as a body politic, HOW we grow what we eat.
As the subtitle suggests, this book focuses on the myths and failures surrounding the “small, family farm” ideal so entrenched in the American psyche. First, a bit of a disclaimer. I am an ex-farmer - or as I often say, a recovering farmer. My husband and I spent a decade raising a family and farming vegetables and berries, raising chickens for eggs, and selling produce via farmer’s markets and CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) shares. In many ways, we drank the Kool-Aid, so to speak, regarding the magic and mythos of small-holder farming, selling direct to consumer, and making a living on the land - in short, exactly the sort of farm that this book casts a critical eye on. (I will say, however, that we never fell hook, line, and sinker for certain farm celebrities that many folks seemed to idolize. Even then, I quite clearly recognized that a farmer-celeb saying “Anyone can do what I do” when they farm on inherited land and make quite a bit of money from books and speaking engagements rather than farming is making dubious claims.) After 10 years of rising early for markets that could easily be ruined by rain or extreme heat or wind, grinding day-in-day-out labor, massive amounts of driving, and barely able to make a decent living (let alone pay a true living wage to our workers) we decided we had had enough. Many small farms end in burn-out and divorce, and we didn’t want to get divorced, so we broke up with the farm instead.
It was this lived experience - my own rise and fall of a small, family farm - that brought me to this book. Mock clearly lays out the myths - going back to the founding of our nation - that have so permeated our society as to what constitutes a “good” farm. She does not shy away from the fact that at the base of our “American Family Farm” dream is the nightmare of both genocide and slavery. Our idealized version of the American Farmer - a rugged, hard-working hero producing food for his or her community while barely able to make ends meet, at the mercy of greedy global conglomerates and banks about to foreclose - is the same American Farmer that benefits (immensely, she explains) from owning one of the greatest tax shelters in the world - American Farmland. Part of the story we tell ourselves about the American Farm Hero is that he or she is always struggling and needs our help and support. But Mock lays bare the amount of money that farmers get sometimes by not growing anything at all. Tax-payers send billions of dollars to farmers every single year in the form of subsidies, crop protections, price guarantees, and more. Meanwhile, if they own their land their net worth is ever increasing with land values appreciating. Finally, farmers are the benefactors of numerous and varied tax and regulatory benefits which allow them to avoid or pay significantly less in real estate taxes and keep their labor costs extremely low (much to the detriment of farm worker communities - more on that below.) Many Americans balk at what they see as the “socialist” initiatives of the political left - universal healthcare, childcare and university subsidies, universal basic income, etc. - yet American agriculture is propped up by billions of dollars in government funding and most taxpayers don’t bat an eye. (I would argue there is some latent racism involved in that paradox, given that 95% of farmers are white.)
Returning to the topic of farm worker communities (as opposed to farm owners), this is where the idealized version of American Farm Hero really starts to fall apart. Farms are utterly reliant on ultra-cheap labor - they depend on it and the regulatory agencies of the United States are more than happy to give farms exemptions and loopholes in order to maintain that underpaid workforce. Much of that workforce is drawn from vulnerable immigrant, migrant, or undocumented communites. Mock explains how these communities are exploited through regulatory exemptions for farms (and to be clear, the word “farm” here is used loosely, and includes all agricultural operations including Confined Animal Feed Operations, slaughterhouses, meat packers, etc.) which are exempt from minimum wage standards, paying overtime, providing sick leave or medical insurance. All this despite the fact that the agriculture sector is one of the most hazardous industries for work-related injuries and many of those injuries involve young people, as farms are also exempt from minimum-age requirements for workers. (This treatment of farm workers as both “essential” and yet “expendable” was on full display during the Covid-19 pandemic. Thousands of agricultural workers contracted Covid and hundreds died, in order to keep our grocery store shelves stocked - most especially in the meat processing sector.)
At this point, the reader may say, OK, but these problems are only problems on big, corporate farms, right? Small, family-run farms are good farms.
Mock approaches this question systematically by asking what makes a farm a Good Farm? Good Farms are small - but what does that mean exactly? Small in acreage? Small in profit? Keeping in mind that many farm owners actually try to “lose” money on the farm so they can off-set their incomes from off-farm jobs (which the majority of farmers or farmer-partners have). This essentially makes many farms a hobby rather than a profession, and if that is the case, should taxpayers really be subsidizing people’s hobbies? Does being a small farm really benefit the larger food community? How can small farms leverage economies of scale to make food more accessible to more people? Or do only the well-off get to benefit from small-scale agriculture and the necessarily more expensive products produced on them? Does Small Farm necessarily equal Good Farm?
Small profits also means an inability to pay living wages to workers which leads many small farms to use “interns” or WWOOFers (Willing Workers on Organic Farms). These programs sound good in theory - interns work on the farm in exchange for an agricultural education, room and board - but essentially they are a way for farmers to extract free labor and keep their operating costs as low as possible. While some internships are run well and people enjoy their time on the farm, the system is rife with abuse with many interns ending up in substandard housing without access to clean water or adequate sanitation facilities while working long hours without pay or any discernible education.
OK, well, if size is not what makes a Good Farm, what about Family? Good Farms are Family Farms. It is easy to idealize farms like they are Little House on the Prairie Homesteads, but many of the biggest, multi-million dollar mega-farms are all, technically, family-run businesses. (Keep in mind, Koch Industries and the Sacklers run family businesses, too.) Being a family, especially when the tax benefits of owning farm land are so immense, doesn’t necessarily mean operating a Good Farm. (Many of those young people who are injured on farms are often working for their own families.) Farm land is actually an incredibly reliable way for already wealthy families to shelter their wealth from taxes and pass that wealth on to their heirs. While their land value grows, they get to benefit from tax-payer funded subsidy programs and crop protection payments, and they don’t even have to grow food necessarily - hay for horses, GMO-corn for ethanol production - or feed their local communities as most commodity grains end up overseas.
Well then, how about Environmental Stewardship? Good Farms are Sustainable Farms - but sustainable how? Economically sustainable? Environmentally sustainable? If you are operating a business shouldn’t it necessarily be able to sustain itself? The answer is, of course, yes - to run a business it must be economically sustainable in order to continue to operate. In order to sustain humanity on this planet, all businesses should at least consider the environmental impacts of their operations, but for farms this question of environmental sustainability is perhaps more directly pertinent. If a farm destroys its own soil and water resources, it will cease to be able to operate in a more immediate way than most other businesses. Mock adjusts this question a bit to ask, not IF farms should be sustainable (of course they should), but WHO is responsible for that sustainability? It may seem fairly obvious that the responsibility rests with the farmer - after all it is their business, their land, their resources - and yet, the prevailing attitude (and policy) is that the responsibility is ours - the taxpayer. We’ve come up with all sorts of schemes to basically allow farmers to abdicate their responsibility to use their resources wisely and sustainably and foist that burden on taxpayers. We pay farmers to build or maintain wetlands, to leave fields unplowed, to protect tree stands, to practice no-till or organic agriculture. Now we’re even paying farmers to sequester carbon - mostly by doing what they are already supposed to be doing: maintaining the health and productivity of THEIR OWN LAND. Businesses are not supposed to squander their capital, drain their resources (both human or otherwise), or fail to invest in their own infrastructure. We expect most business owners to take care of their own businesses or else fail, yet for some reason we have decided to do anything, pay literally any amount, to NOT let a farm fail. (Lest you think we do this to protect our food supply, I’ll remind the reader that we already produce WAY more food than is needed to feed ourselves and that the problem of hunger both domestically and internationally has much less to do with an adequate supply of calories and much more to do with distribution, infrastructure, and human caused disruptions such as war.) For reasons Mock lays out in the book, farmers now expect us to pay them to maintain the value of their greatest asset - their soil and water resources - even while that asset continues to grow their own net worth. But should we really have to pay a farmer to be a good steward of the land that sustains his business?
Mock’s conclusion is less a conclusion than a To Be Continued… (her second volume is due out early next year) and even she admits that this book ends somewhat negatively - her e-newsletter promises that the second book is more geared toward showing how agriculture should and could be and showcasing the work of many people and collectives that are making that vision a reality. I look forward to diving in when it is released. In the meantime, I think one of the most important lessons to be gleaned from Farm (and Other F Words) is that we need to stop thinking of farms as the idealized versions of themselves and see them for what they are - businesses. Farms need to care for their assets, care for their human resources, and grow as much food as they can without destroying their own resources. Farming should not be a vanity project for the wealthy or merely a way to hide wealth. It is definitely not just a cutesy backdrop for #farmlife Instagram pics. Perhaps the best thing we can do for the health of farms in America is, ironically, let them fail. If a farmer can’t maintain a farm without hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer cash infusions, perhaps he or she should not be a farmer. Perhaps some other person or persons should have access to that land who can actually grow food well, and sustainably, and feed more people more efficiently. Right now, you can be a failure as a farmer, produce little to no food for humans, and still receive enough government money and tax benefits to keep your land tied up and inaccessible to others who might be much better at farming. A truly Good Farm is a farm that can grow as a business - innovate, create good-paying jobs, build wealth not just for a landowner, but for all the stakeholders, and most importantly grow more food for more people. To that I say, F yeah!