Super Eco

Photo credit: sarah gilbert

The reports of monoculture farmer's wealth have been greatly exaggerated. So says Elanor at The Ethicurean, where she analyzes the 2007 farm census data to determine whether the rising commodity crop prices and the speculation in ethanol actually made farmers into "sheiks of the Midwest."

Umm, no, she concluded. Farmers aren't sheiks, at all. In fact, though the average farm income was fairly cushy, it's the non-farm sources of income that provide whatever excess (if any) farmers enjoy. Some farmers grow crops as a lifestyle choice (and make big bucks as doctors and software engineers in the city), but the rest of the bunch are having to get off-farm jobs to supplement their money-losing "business." While corn and soy prices were up by huge margins in 2007 (in 2003, corn was 87% lower; and soy was 91% less), a report from the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University showed that farmers—except for huge corporations like Archer Daniels Midland—were just as poor as ever. "One reason they didn’t pocket more money is that their crops weren’t the only commodities with rising prices. Input costs skyrocketed too, particularly for fertilizer and fuels, which increased 67% and 100%, respectively, from 2003 to 2007," the authors of the report said.

Elanor's conclusion, that farmers will be struggling mightily in this economic downturn, is a downer, but her advice for small- to mid-sized family farms gives me hope: "Things will improve if they can move toward generating a greater number of products on the farm and if they can retain ownership over the wealth-generating stages of production: the processing of dairy or meat or grain or produce, or direct sales to consumers." In other words, organic vegetables and meat, cheeses and preserves, farmer's markets, and CSAs.