Many people may envision the type of farms eligible for help from Farm Aid as small, organic operations or those not much larger than some backyards, but the actual definition for "family farmers" isn't that clear. Alicia Harvie, Farm Aid program manager and author of the recently-released report, "Rebuilding America’s Economy with Family-Farm Centered Food Systems," says that definition defies any type of one-size fits all description, reports Agri-Pulse, a subscription-only service.
"For us, ag in the middle is more about marketing of the middle," Karl Kuper, who helped found Shepard's Grain in Washington and is profiled in the report, told Agri-Pulse. He believes there is probably a better way to define the "middle" than by farm size or sales. "We are all family-owned and family-operated with direct links to consumers." One definition for a mid-size farm comes from the Agriculture of the Middle Project, which defines mid-sized farms as farm operations that "operate in the space between the vertically integrated commodity markets and the direct markets."
"While family ownership is an important part of the 'middle' distinction, it’s just one of several ways that politicians and think tanks are now defining mid-size operations---and trying to figure out how federal resources can help them grow," Agri-Pulse says. How mid-size farms are defined could have major impacts for the 2012 Farm Bill, but for now "Some say that identifying farmers 'in the middle' is a little like defining pornography: you’ll know it when you see it."
The Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service reports the number of mid-sized farms has been decreasing since 1982 while the number of large farms and very small farms has gone up. The number of farms with sales over $250,000 grew from 85,000 to 152,000 from 1982 to 2002, but most of that growth came from farms with sales over $500,000, which doubled, and over $999,999, which tripled, Agri-Pulse reports. (Read more)
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