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Willard Cochrane watched the dramatic decline in American family farming from a vantage point few can claim. He became one of the country's premier agricultural economists and carried the standard of liberalism for President Kennedy in the last serious fight to save the family farm. Then, for forty long years, he held to the principles while traditional agriculture faded into what he once called "family farms in form but not in spirit." This book is about the spirit of family farming: Thomas Jefferson's dream of an agrarian democracy. What should we do in the face of globalization, high technology, and corporate control of our food supply? Willard Cochrane and the American Family Farm recounts how one man faced these issues and where he would wish us to go in the twenty-first century.
Advisor to President Kennedy, consultant for foreign governments, and spokesman for family farmers everywhere, Willard W. Cochrane has been a leading expert on agriculture and its problems in the United States since the 1940s. In his straightforward style Cochrane analyzes the propensity for American agriculture to produce too much and the inability of our social and economic system to make effective use of that unending abundance. He then offers his vision for American agriculture in the twenty-first century. Cochrane looks at two periods in agricultural history: 195366 and 19972002. Structurally, technologically, and organizationally the two periods are as different as night and day, but in terms of the big economic picture--too much production pressing on a limited commercial demand with resulting low farm prices and incomes--they are mirror images of each other. With this understanding, Cochrane argues that Americans no longer need to farm fragile ecosystems with intensive chemical methods, make huge payments that result in fewer farms and higher farming costs, nor bear the environmental consequences of all-out production. Instead, he outlines a bold new strategy in which we can enjoy our abundance and focus our efforts on quality of life and protecting the environment in our rural areas. Willard W. Cochrane is the author of numerous books, including The Development of American Agriculture: A Historical Analysis, and coauthor of Reforming Farm Policy: Toward a National Agenda. Richard A. Levins is a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Minnesota and the author of Willard Cochrane and the American Family Farm (Nebraska 2003).
Urban sprawl has gained much national attention in recent years. Sprawl involves not only land-use issues but also legal, political, and social concerns. It affects our schools, the environment, and race relations. Comprehensive enough for high school students and also appropriate for college undergraduates, Remaking American Communities delves into the challenges of urban sprawl by turning to some of America's top thinkers on the problem, including Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association. Other cutting-edge essays include a foreword about the emergence of sprawl by nationally syndicated columnist Neal Peirce, views about race and class by former mayor of Albuquerque David Rusk, and a discussion of transportation dynamics by Curtis Johnson, president of the Citistates Group. ø The essays in this collection explore the core issues of sprawl and the agenda for dealing with it. Complete with a glossary, resources, and contact information for smart-growth alliances, this book is extremely user-friendly. David C. Soule offers an unbiased viewpoint of this national phenomenon in a way that will be accessible to students and those with little background in the issue.
Americans decry the decline of family farming but stand by helplessly as industrial agribusiness takes over. The prevailing sentiment is that family farms should survive for important social, ethical, and economic reasons. But will they? This timely book exposes the biases in American farm policies that irrationally encourage expansion, biases evident in federal commodity programs, income tax provisions, and subsidized credit services. Family Farming also exposes internal conflicts, particularly the conflict between the private interests of individual farmers and the public interest in family farming as a whole. It challenges the assumption that bigger is better, critiques the technological basis of modern agriculture, and calls for farming practices that are ethical, economical, and ecologically sound. The alternative policies discussed in this book could yet save the family farm, and the ways and means of saving it are argued here with special urgency. ø This Bison Books edition includes a new introduction by the author providing a more national perspective, underscoring the repetitive cycles of American agriculture over the decade, and assessing the major policy issues that have dominated agriculture in recent years.
"Examines Charles Brannan's agricultural plan, the farm policy debate, and Harry S. Truman's quest for a long-range agricultural program. Assesses Truman's relationships with farmers and with politicians and the search for a workable peacetime program, especially as it related to the parity price foundation and price supports"--Provided by publisher.
Examines the resurgence of interest in rebuilding the links between agricultural production and food consumption. With examples from Puerto Rico to Oregon to Quebec, this work offers a North American perspective attuned to trends toward globalization at the level of markets and governance and shows how globalization affects specific localities.
Integrating a focus on gender with Marx’s surplus-based notion of class, this book offers a one-of-a-kind analysis of family farms in the United States. The analysis shows how gender and class struggles developed during important moments in the history of these family farms shaped the trajectory of U.S. agricultural development. It also generates surprising insights about the family farm we thought we knew, as well as the food and agricultural system today. Elizabeth A. Ramey theorizes the family farm as a complex hybrid of mostly feudal and ancient class structures. This class-based definition of the family farm yields unique insights into three broad aspects of U.S. agricultural history. First, the analysis highlights the crucial, yet under-recognized role of farm women and children’s unpaid labor in subsidizing the family farm. Second, it allows for a new, class-based perspective on the roots of the twentieth century "miracle of productivity" in U.S. agriculture, and finally, the book demonstrates how the unique set of contradictions and circumstances facing family farmers during the early twentieth century, including class exploitation, was connected to concern for their ability to serve the needs of U.S. industrial capitalist development. The argument presented here highlights the significant costs associated with the intensification of exploitation in the transition to industrial agriculture in the U.S. When viewed through the lens of class, the hallowed family farm becomes an example of one of the most exploitative institutions in the U.S. economy. This book is suitable for students who study economic history, agricultural studies, and labor economics.
Focusing on the Great Plains states of Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota between 1929 and 1945, Down and Out on the Family Farm examines small familyøfarmers and the Rural Rehabilitation Program designed to help them. Historian Michael Johnston Grant reveals the tension between economic forces that favored large-scale agriculture and political pressure that championed family farms, and the results of that clash. ø The Great Depression and the drought of the 1930s lay bare the long-term economic instability of the rural Plains. The New Deal introduced the Rural Rehabilitation Program to assist lower- to middle-income farmers throughout the country. This program combined low-interest loans with managerial advice. However, these efforts were not enough to compete with the growing scale of agriculture or to counter the recurring drought of the era. Regional conservatism, environmental factors, and fiscal constraints limited the federal aid offered to thousands of families. ø Grant provides extensive primary source research from government documents, as well as letters, newspaper editorials, and case studies that focus on individual lives and fortunes. He examines who these families were and what their farms looked like, and he sheds light on the health problems and other personal concerns that interfered with the economic viability of many farms. The result is a provocative study that gives a human face to the hardships and triumphs of modern agriculture.
At nearly twenty tons per person, American carbon dioxide emissions are among the highest in the world. Not every American fits this statistic, however. Across the country there are urban neighborhoods, suburbs, rural areas, and commercial institutions that have drastically lower carbon footprints. These exceptional places, as it turns out, are neither "poor" nor technologically advanced. Their low emissions are due to culture. In The Five-Ton Life, Susan Subak uses previously untapped sources to discover and explore various low-carbon locations. In Washington DC, Chicago suburbs, lower Manhattan, and Amish settlements in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, she examines the built and social environment to discern the characteristics that contribute to lower greenhouse-gas emissions. The most decisive factors that decrease energy use are a commitment to small interiors and social cohesion, although each example exhibits its own dynamics and offers its own lessons for the rest of the country. Bringing a fresh approach to the quandary of American household consumption, Subak's groundbreaking research provides many pathways toward a future that is inspiring and rooted in America's own traditions.