It has been fashionable recently to observe that agriculture is
losing its uniqueness. If life-styles are the unit of measurement, this
is true. But it may be more useful for economic analysis to point
out that the production sectors within agriculture are becoming
more parcelized, fragmented, and specialized. Farm firms that could
in the past internalize many of the countervailing trends in com-
modity prices and market gyrations must now struggle with market-
induced external forces that leave them much more exposed to
unstable prices.
As a consequence, an agricultural structure is evolving that will
increase tension and conflict within agriculture, in both functional
and regional dimensions. Agriculture is not only losing its uniqueness;
more importantly, it is losing its cohesion.
The Lack of Balance in Popular Perceptions of
Structural Trends in Agriculture
The discussion of tenure, control, and concentration in agriculture
has been distorted by our taste for “false bad news”. For example:
1. The family farm labor force is declining but the proportion of
the labor force employed in regions where family-type farms
predominate is increasing. From 1965-67 to 1975-77, the hired
farm labor force in the North Central Region increased 27 percent,
while decreasing by 22 percent in the South and 13 percent in the
West. In the same 10-year period, the proportion of regular and
year round workers in the hired farm labor force increased, while
the proportion of seasonal and casual workers declined.1
2. Full-tenant operated farms have been declining, but the propor-
tion of farm land operated by part-owners has sharply increased.
The proportion of total farm land operated under lease has re-
mained relatively constant, but most of it is now operated by
individuals who also own land. The proportion of the nation’s
farm land that is under the managerial control of those who
approach their managerial decision-making with the orientation
of owner-operators is probably at an all-time high.
3. Data on concentration in farming based on the gross value of
products sold seriously over-state the degree of concentration
based on value-added. The data are even more misleading if they
lead to inferences with regard to concentration measured in land
use. The output from crop acres is still widely dispersed among
a population of family-type farms, although their size in acres
has been steadily increasing.
4. The loss of land from agriculture due to urbanization, while
serious, has been over-dramatized on the basis of statistics that
ɪɑene Rowe, The Hired Farm Working Force in 1977, U.S. Dept, of Agriculture, ESCS,
Agr. Economic Report No. 437, October 1979, pp. 15-16.
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