Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T09:58:03.919Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Farm structure, market structure and agricultural sustainability goals: The case of New York State dairying

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2009

Rick Welsh  and
Thomas A. Lyson
Rick Welsh
Affiliation:
Director of the Southern Region SARE Program, 1109 Experiment St., University of Georgia, Griffin, GA 30223;
Thomas A. Lyson
Affiliation:
Professor, Department of Rural Sociology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853.
Get access

Abstract

This paper explores issues of agricultural sustainability in relation to arguments to sustain the family labor farm and the theoretical justification for the recent increase in smallerscale milk processors and differentiated dairy product markets. Using a population of New York State dairy farm households, we identified farm structural variables that influence farmers' use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers and their consideration of intensive rotational grazing. Milk sales, division of hired labor on the farm, and ownership arrangements are found to be interrelated and predict relative use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers within a “conventional” confinement feeding system. Marketing strategies predict production practices within a confinement feeding system less reliably but do predict whether the farm has considered adopting an intensive grazing system. Farms that have higher saks, that use hired labor more extensively, and that are not single family operations are more likely to use chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Farms that sell to differentiated markets are more likely to look favorably on an eventual switch to an intensive rotational grazing system.

Keywords

sustainable agriculturepesticidesniche marketscraft productionmass productionrotational grazing
Type
Articles
Information
American Journal of Alternative Agriculture , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 1997 , pp. 14 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Barlett, P.F. 1993. American Dreams, Rural Realities: Family Farms in Crisis. Univ. of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
2.Becker, R.B. 1973. Dairy Cattle Breeds: Origin and Development. Univ. of Florida Press, Gainesville.Google Scholar
3.Bolter, R.S.J. 1987. Farm management education today: A study of farm management courses in the U.K., their objectives, curricula and learning methods. Dept. of Agricultural Economics and Management, University of Reading, England.Google Scholar
4.Bowman, G. 1992. Bossie knows best. The New Farm 14(4):30–32.Google Scholar
5.Buttel, F.H., Larson, O., and Gillespie, G.W.. 1990. The Sociology of Agriculture. Greenwood Press, New York, N.Y.Google Scholar
6.Colman, G., and Elbert, S.. 1984. Farming families: The farm needs everyone. In Schwarzweiler, H. (ed). Research in Rural Sociology and Development. JAI Press, Greenwich, Connecticut, pp. 61–78.Google Scholar
7.Cramer, C. 1994. Take a pasture walk. The New Farm 16(1):29–32.Google Scholar
8.Crews, T.E., Mohler, C., and Power, A.G.. 1991. Energetics and ecosystem integrity: The defining principles of sustainable agriculture. Amer. J. Alternative Agric. 6:146–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9.Cruise, J., and Lyson, T.A.. 1991. Beyond the farm gate: Factors relating to agricultural performance in two dairy communities. Rural Sociology 56:41–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10.Doyle, J. 1985. Altered Harvest: Agricultural Genetics and the Fate of the World's Food Supply. Viking Penguin, New York, N.Y.Google Scholar
11.Dupuis, M.E. 1993. Sub-national state institutions and the organization of agricultural resource use: The case of the dairy industry. Rural Sociology 58:440–460.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12.Feldman, S., and Welsh, R.. 1995. Feminist knowledge claims, local knowledge and the gender divisions of agricultural labor: Constructing a successor science. Rural Sociology 60:23–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13.Foley, R.C., Bath, D.L., Dickinson, F.N., and Tucker, H.A.. 1972. Dairy Cattle: Principles, Practices, Problems, Profits. Lea and Febiger, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
14.Gilbert, J., and Akor, R.. 1988. Increasing structural divergence in U.S. dairying: California and Wisconsin since 1950. Rural Sociology 53:56–72.Google Scholar
15.Gillespie, G.W. 1995. Sustainable agriculture: Varying conceptions and the future of rural community development in the U.S. In Schwarzweller, H. (ed). Research in Rural Sociology and Development. JAI Press, Greenwich, Connecticut, pp. 167–191.Google Scholar
16.Hightower, J., and DeMarco, S.. 1978. The land grant complex. In Rodefeld, R., Flora, J., Voth, D., Fujimoto, I., and Converse, J. (eds). Change in Rural America: Causes, Consequences, and Alternatives. C.V. Mosby Co., St. Louis, Missouri, pp. 260–262.Google Scholar
17.Kloppenburg, J. Jr., 1991. Social theory and the de/reconstruction of agricultural science: Local knowledge for an alternative agriculture. Rural Sociology 56:519–548.Google Scholar
18.Leonard, N. 1995. Pro-dairy program helps grazing go mainstream. Farming Alternatives Program Newsletter 3(3):6. Cornell Univ., Ithaca, New York.Google Scholar
19.Liebhardt, W.C. (ed). 1993. The Dairy Debate: Consequences of Bovine Growth Hormone and Rotational Grazing Technologies. Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program. Univ. of California, Davis.Google Scholar
20.Lyson, T.A., and Geisler, C.. 1992. Toward a second agricultural divide: The restructuring of American agriculture. Sociologia Ruralis 23:248–263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
21.Lyson, T.A., and Gillespie, G.W.. 1995. Producing more milk on fewer farms: Neoclassical and neostructural explanations for changes in the dairy industry. Rural Sociology 60:493–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
22.Lyson, T.A., and Welsh, R.. 1993. The production function, crop diversity and the debate between conventional and alternative agriculturalists. Rural Sociology 58:424–439.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
23.Mann, S., and Dickinson, J.. 1978. Obstacles to the development of a capitalist agriculture. J. Peasant Studies 5:466–481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
24.Mooney, P.H. 1988. My Own Boss? Class, Rationality and the Family Farm. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado.Google Scholar
25.Mouillesseaux, H. 1994/1995. Too much government? Dairy farming entrepreneur questions milk marketing regulations. Farming Alternatives Program Newsletter 3(2):1–2. Cornell Univ., Ithaca, New York.Google Scholar
26.National Research Council. 1989. Alternative Agriculture. Board on Agriculture. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
27.New York Agricultural Statistics Service. 1993/1994. New York State Agricultural Statistics. Albany.Google Scholar
28.New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. 1994. List of Milk Plants and Dealers in New York State. Bull. 124. Albany.Google Scholar
29.Office of Technology Assessment. 1986. Technology, Public Policy and the Changing Structure of American Agriculture. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
30.Pirtle, R. 1926. History of the Dairy Industry. Mojonnier Bros. Co., Chicago, Illinois.Google Scholar
31.Salamon, S. 1985. Ethnic communities and the structure of agriculture. Rural Sociology 50:323–340.Google Scholar
32.Selitzer, R. 1976. The Dairy Industry in America. Dairy Field, New York, N.Y.Google Scholar
33.Shirley, C. 1993. Going seasonal. The New Farm, 15(4):28–31.Google Scholar
34.Strange, M. 1988. Family Farming: A New Economic Vision. Univ. of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.Google Scholar