Agricultural Change and Rural America

Abstract

Rural America is known worldwide for its productive farms and agricultural abundance. Less well-known are the rural businesses that service America's farms, supplying inputs, buying output, and providing consumer goods to rural families. Even less well-known are the 70,000 small and medium-sized industrial firms that are located in rural communities. These businesses have slowly increased in number over the past half century as the farm population has dropped by two-thirds, the rural nonfarm population has grown slightly, and the national population has almost doubled. This article examines the role of agricultural change in rural decline and recommends two possibilities for expanding economic activity in rural communities.

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References

1. A well-known agricultural economist of that era, Willard Cochrane of the University of Minnesota, labeled the economic pressure on farmers an agricultural treadmill. See Willard W. Cochrane , The City Man's Guide to the Farm Problem (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1965), p. 66.

2. A well-known agricultural journalist of that era wrote a book entitled An Embarrassment of Plenty in which he detailed the evolution of the American farm from subsistence levels of food output to commercial methods of food production that created chronic surpluses. See Lauren Soth , An Embarrassment of Plenty: Agriculture in Affluent America (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1965).

3. The Department of Agriculture report went on to note that “slow population growth and outmigration, though indicating decline in the performance of rural economies, do not necessarily mean that the remaining population is impoverished or that communities lack essential services and facilities. In fact, in some areas, those who stay behind may have improved income and wealth positions and the communities may have an oversupply, rather than a lack, of public facilities.” U.S., Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service , Rural Economic Development in the 1980s: Prospects for the Future, Rural Development Research Report no. 69 (Sept. 1988), p. ix.

4. The right to choose where to live is a strongly held value. A national survey conducted by the Roper Organization for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association found that 63 percent of those surveyed thought the American dream “was the freedom to live where you want to.” See U.S., General Accounting Office , Rural Development: Rural America Faces Many Challenges, GAO/RCED-93-35, Nov. 1992.