Idled laborers have continued to migrate in
response to opportunities for better lifestyles
in urban areas. Close behind them have been
the remaining members of the community in-
frastructure who depended upon rural
residents as customers or clientele for stores,
filling stations, schools, churches, post offices,
and governmental services of various sorts.
The result has been a dwindling rural popula-
tion that calls into question the justification of
subsidy programs that are revealed to be serv-
ing relatively sparce numbers of people.
The earlier waves of migrants from farms to
cities carried with them substantial sympathy
for agricultural causes. I doubt that the same
is true of the most recent wave of migrants and
I think there has been considerable erosion of
the support for farm causes among those who
left the rural scene in decades prior to the
1970s. As a consequence, if the urban residents
of the future are asked to decide whether to
spend tax dollars for the support of programs
in agriculture or for increased governmental
services in urban areas, the votes for continued
support of agriculture are likely to be in a
minority. More specifically, if the population
were to decide in the polling place whether it
prefers to have public support for agriculture,
including research, extension, and teaching, or
reduced tax levels, the votes in favor of agricul-
ture would be even more sparse.
Why does agriculture lack goodwill among
recent migrants from rural areas? Perhaps
most felt very little proprietary interest in, or
pride of association with, agriculture. Those of
us who have worked in teaching, research, and
extension must accept a share of the blame. It
has always been easier to work with people
who were most receptive of our contributions,
and it has been more gratifying, and probably
more financially rewarding, to serve those who
could utilize assistance on a large scale and
produce maximum results from it. Relatively
little concentrated effort has been spent in
reaching or solving problems for the poor, the
disadvantaged, or the more stand-offish mem-
bers of the rural communities. I wonder how
different the structure of rural areas might
now be if the goals of policies and programs in
agriculture had in practice struck a better
balance between equity and efficiency.
A product of reductions in farm numbers and
larger operations is organization of producers
into larger cooperative or corporate associa-
tions. Vertical and horizontal integration is
nothing new in itself. It’s spread from poultry
and vegetable production to other enterprises
and some aspects of its consequences are new
or not yet fully recongized.
These enlarged organizations of producers,
whether cooperative, corporate, or just com-
modity associations, have an impact on the
16
competitive environment. In most cases they
reduce competition among members while
enabling the membership to bargain more ef-
fectively with opposing forces in the marketing
system. Large farmer cooperatives become the
marketplace for both farmers’ products and
farm inputs. They perform research and educa-
tional functions for the benefit of their mem-
bers and they substitute for many of the ser-
vices traditionally provided to individual
farmers by the Land Grant College and the U.
S. Department of Agriculture research and
information systems. That role would not be
assumed if it were a higher cost, less efficient
alternative to the traditional offerings in the
area.
Large farm units have large credit demands
— demands so large, in fact, they often surpass
the lending expertise if not the lending limits
of local credit institutions. These large,
complex operations defy understanding by per-
sons who have not kept up with the rapid pace
of technological advances that have occurred
in nearly all phases of agriculture. Many lend-
ers who have not specialized in agricultural
finance find themselves ill-equipped to make
and manage loans of the size and the complex-
ity required by large farming operations.
Farmers in the South have looked more and
more to the specialized financial institutions
for credit needs. If farmers are linked to other
businesses through integration, credit needs
are often supplied through large financial insti-
tutions in urban centers. The loans flow
through corporate headquarters to the produc-
er level and typically escape detection as
agricultural credit altogether.
I contend that this phenomenon is an expres-
sion of the ongoing loss of identity that Breim-
yer characterizes as a diminishing of our place
in the sun. Though he avoids saying how much
identity loss has already occurred, his sub-
sequent comments about a time for soul
searching for agricultural economists and
various other members of the Land Grant-
USDA complex seem to indicate a conviction
that we may already be approaching the twi-
light zone.
Many people question whether there is a legi-
timate identity to preserve, and others are
already convinced that there is not. One need
only attend meetings of nonfarm groups or as-
sociate with people outside agriculture and
listen to the comments made when the subject
of agriculture arises to realize that we at least
have a communications problem. The gross
lack of understanding of our work can only
mean that we have not paid enough attention
to whether we are communicating in a
language that the public can or will even want
to understand.