Editorial

Life on the farm

With a cluck-cluck here and a moo-moo there, the perennial children's song "Old MacDonald's Farm" evoked an agrarian life that almost has disappeared in the United States.

Today's farms are businesses that depend on high-tech machinery and innovative marketing to survive. Agriculture has become agribusiness.

The transformation of the American farm has come at a price. One of the costs is the loss of thousands of family farms. The newest Census of Agriculture found that 60 percent of the country's agricultural goods are being produced by 3 percent of the farms. These are huge farms of 3,500 acres or more with sales of more than $500,000 a year. Some farms have sales of $1 million or more.

Smaller farmers still can make a living by discovering a niche, such as selling direct to consumers through farmers markets. But midsized farms are trying to grow bigger to cut production costs. Twenty-five percent of Scott County farms, for example, had sales over $100,000.

Tiny farms -- defined by the census as less than 10 acres -- are down to 179,000 of the total 2.1 million farms in the nation.

All this doesn't mean those who love farming are giving up. The number of people who call themselves full-time farmers actually increased by about 180,000 since the last census five years ago. The number of women who were principal operators of farms also increased -- by 27,000. But only 6 percent of farmers are younger than 35.

None of these numbers reflects how important farmers still are to our lives. We know they grow and raise our food and much of the raw materials for our clothing. They also grow crops that modern biosciences are finding new uses for every day.

Americans in big cities are so far removed from the farm that they hardly know or appreciate how their food is produced. That's not as true in Southeast Missouri, where 300 students -- more than one-fourth of the student body -- are enrolled in Jackson High School's agriculture program next school year.

Most natives in our area are only a generation or two removed from the farm. All we have to do is go to the SEMO District Fair or to the East Perry County Fair to remember where we came from.

Comments