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Rebuilding Local Food Systems

The rise of industrial agriculture has lead to the death of local agriculture and food production systems and the ruraleconomies that revolved around them. The changes in ruralcommunities are getting harder to ignore. The average ageof American farmer operators, now at 57 years old, hasbeen steadily increasing over the last 30 years, as feweryounger people are getting into farming.1 Farmers cannotmake a living anymore selling their farm products, andmore than half of all farms in the United States depend onnon-farm income to cover farm expenses.2 

Regional food systems used to be the norm, with networksof producers, processors and distributors set up to sup-ply consumers with food produced in their region of thecountry. But in the last three decades, our food systemshave changed. Instead of regional networks, the systemsfor bringing food to markets became national. This changewasn’t simply the result of better logistical systems or thegrowth of interstate highways. The rise of agribusiness con-solidation and corporate mergers led to the loss of vital lo-cal infrastructure that was used to turn livestock and crops

into the foods we buy at the grocery store. When networksof small-scale, independent livestock auctions, grain mills,slaughterhouses and food processing plants disappeared,they often took the economic fortunes of rural communitieswith them.

Some foods like fruits and vegetables can be locally grownand distributed directly to consumers through farmers mar-kets and community-supported agriculture plans. But manyother crops, like grain, milk and livestock, need to be pro-cessed in some way before they are ready for consumers tobuy as bread, milk, butter, cheese or meat. Even fruits andvegetables need processing to be turned into “value-added”

products like frozen vegetables, sauces or jam. The infra-

structure that used to exist to allow smaller independent

producers to bring these products to nearby markets disap-peared when rapidly consolidating agribusiness companiesbought up processing facilities, closing those that wereduplicative or not “efcient” enough.

Meat and dairy may offer the starkest examples of how theconsolidation of agriculture has left producers with feweroptions for getting their products to market. The number of cattle and hog slaughter plants declined by about a third be-tween 1996 and 2006.3 Between 1972 and 1992, the num-ber of uid milk processing plants fell by 70 percent4 Thisconsolidation is not just a matter of how many facilities thereare to process food; the entire supply chain has changed. In-

stead of having multiple options for selling their agricultural

Not long ago, towns all over rural America had vibrant economies based onfarming and agriculture. There were independent grain mills and local dealers

for seeds, fertilizers and other inputs, as well as a slaughter facility to process farmers’livestock. The income from agriculture sources then circulated throughout thecommunity, providing steady jobs and stable income for a large portion of the town’s

population. But things have changed. Now many rural downtowns lay silent, withempty buildings where locally owned business once were.

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products, farmers are increasingly locked into a system witha few buyers or only one that buys in their area.

The rise in corporate consolidation in the food industryhas also led to the decline of independent, locally ownedinfrastructure. No longer are there independent suppliersof farm inputs like seed, feed or machinery. In their placeis most likely one corporation that supplies inputs throughcontracts with large farms, and a single mill or slaughter-house to process the grain and livestock for all of the farm-ers in surrounding towns.

The loss of these local meatpackers, poultry producers,milk processing plants and grain elevators can wipe outrural economies. Independent slaughterhouses, milk andmeat processing rms, locally owned grain elevators, andlocal feed and equipment dealers provide employment, in-vestment and stability to rural communities. Economicallyviable farms are the lifeblood of rural communities.5 Theearnings from locally owned and locally controlled farmsgenerate an economic “multiplier effect” when farmers buytheir supplies locally and the money stays within the com-munity.6 When these businesses disappear and are replacedby just a few larger facilities, rural economies suffer. Theearnings and prots from meatpacker-owned cattle feed-lots and hog production facilities are shipped to corporateheadquarters instead of invested locally.

It’s not just the loss of small agricultural businesses that hurtrural economies; when small farms fail and those remainingget bigger, rural economies continue to suffer. Several stud-ies have reported that large-scale livestock operations weremore likely than smaller livestock farms to bypass localsuppliers for inputs like feed and equipment.7 An Iowa studyfound that more than two-thirds of smaller livestock opera-

tions bought feed locally, but only two out of ve large-scale livestock operations bought local feed.8 The economicmultiplier effect is much lower with large corporate-ownedfactory farms than with smaller independent farms.9 

This change in the food system didn’t happen by accident.Decades of bad farm policy and misdirected economic de-velopment policy drove these changes in rural economies.It’s time to rebuild the links in the food chain that connectfarms and ranches with consumers, and to make sure thatindependent, locally owned businesses are part of thatrebuilding.

Every ve years, Congress passes a farm bill that createshundreds of millions of dollars of spending by the U.S. De-partment of Agriculture on rural development, ranging fromgrants to local governments and community organizationsto government-backed loans to businesses. Unfortunately,many past farm bills have focused funding only on largerprojects like broadband access or businesses that don’thelp rebuild food systems, like hotels or convenience storesselling processed food. Funding needs to be dedicated toreinvigorating the local economy by investing in small andmedium-sized agricultural enterprises. These investmentswould maximize returns to the local economy and allowsmaller regional food producers to process their products

and bring them to market.

The next farm bill needs to focus on leveling the playingeld for independent farmers, ranchers and food processors

and to redirect rural development programs to rebuild miss-ing infrastructure that can serve regional food systems, notcorporate supply chains.

For more, go to www.foodandwaterwatch.org/fairfarmbill

Endnotes

1 USDA Census of Agriculture 2007. Demographics Overview FactSheet.

2 Ibid.3 USDA Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration.

“Assessment of the Livestock and Poultry Industries: Fiscal Year 2007Report.” May 2008 at 9 and 11.4 Ollinger et al. (2005) at 16.5 Democratic Senate Agriculture Committee Staff Report (2004) at 2.

[Comment: See my questions above at clxxvii.)6 Pew Commission (2008) at 41.7 Abeles-Allison, M and L. Conner. Department of Agricultural

Economics. Michigan State University, East Lansing. “An Analysisof Local Benets and Costs of Michigan Hog Operation Experienc-ing Environmental Conicts.” 1990. Goméz, M.I. and L. Zhang.“Impacts of Concentration in Hog Production on Economic Growthin Rural Illinois: An Economic Analysis.” Presentation. AmericanAgricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting. Tampa, FloridaJuly 31-August 2, 2000. Folz, J.D., D. Jackson-Smith and L. Chen.“Do Purchasing Patterns Differ Between Large and Small DairyFarms? Economic Evidence from Three Wisconsin Communities.”

Agricultural Resource Economic Review . Vol. 31, Iss. 1 at 28-38.8 Lawrence, J., D. Otto, and S. Meyer. (1997, Spring). “Purchasing Pat-terns of Hog Producers: Implications for Rural Agribusiness.” Journalof Agribusiness 15(1), 1S18.

9 Pew Commission (2008) at 41.

For more information:web: www.foodandwaterwatch.orgemail: info@fwwatch.orgphone: (202) 683-2500 (DC) • (415) 293-9900 (CA)

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