Smallholder agriculture

“ In order to fight out poverty agriculture will not be sufficient for us. Without industry and commerce our poverty will never be removed. We had commerce though not on European lines. Time was when we earned our own bread and wove our own clothes. We had corn in our granaries; our cattle gave us milk; our tanks supplied us with fish; and the eye was smoothed and refreshed by the limpid blue of the sky and the green foliage of the trees. All day long the peasant toiled in the fields ”

“ More cash was needed to buy manufactured goods as the farm became less self-supporting, but prices for raw materials remained low during the agricultural slump of the 1920s and 1930s. "Agriculture was much less distressed when the farm was a self-supporting home," reflected the Washington Star:
But when factories began producing commodities in quantity the farmer could buy them easier than he could make them at home. ”

“ The farm is the basis of all industry, but for many years this country has made the mistake of unduly assisting manufacture, commerce, and other activities that center in cities, at the expense of the farm. The result is a neglected system of agriculture and the decline of the farming interest. But all these other activities are founded upon the agricultural growth of the nation and must continue to depend upon it. Every manufacturer, every merchant, every business man, and every good citizen is deeply interested in maintaining the growth and development of our agricultural resources. ”

“ The ordinary high-priced, manufactured, acidulated, so-called "complete" commercial fertilizers, in the small amounts that farmers can afford to use, and do use quite generally in the older states, serve in part as soil-stimulants and commonly leave the land poorer year by year; and if the farmers of the great Corn and Wheat Belts are ever to adopt systems of permanent agriculture, it must be done in the near future, or they too will awake to find their lands impoverished beyond self-redemption. ”

“ In the production of staple crops which can be freely carried across sea and continent, the natural tendency is to scatter a rural population with some approach to evenness over all the land available for such crops. Market gardening requires less land per man and the areas devoted to it are much more densely peopled; but even within this department of agriculture the law holds true that too much labor and capital must not be bestowed upon an acre of ground. In a general way agriculture diffuses population, while manufacturing concentrates it. ”

“ We can then free some three million hectares now devoted to marginal rice and corn growing to other uses -- to pasture, to aqua-culture and to high value crops. These efforts in agriculture must be matched by equally resolute efforts at agrarian reform. ”

“ Up to the present time, on account of the large profits made by those engaged in agriculture and stock-raising, and above all on account of the insufficiency of the population, which is the prime cause of which we have already spoken, the industry of fruit-farming has been practically ignored, and what little has been undertaken has followed no definite plan, such as the careful selection of stocks and slips and saplings, the preparation of the soil, and the efficient protection of the trees. ”

“ In like manner we may figure out a corresponding return from the hay-fields, from the root-crops, from two or three acres of potatoes, and from a patch of garden-truck for which the neighboring village will furnish a good market. Then the poultry will return a profitable income in eggs and in "broilers;" and altogether it is easy for an enthusiastic person to show how interest on invested capital and good compensation for labor are to be secured in agriculture. ”

“ Such a farm must be hand-tilled, and, if skilfully hand-tilled, would certainly produce as much food as a market-garden. It would employ an enormous amount of labour, and would at least pay its labour bill. I am not advocating that such [87] a farm should be used as a playground for the semi-criminal, semi-imbecile, and generally incompetent class who go to form the 'unemployed'; for the trade of agriculture, to be successful, demands both skill and energy. ”

“ If there were no other reason for practicing a somewhat diversified agriculture, the welfare of the [34] workman and his family should form a sufficient one. Happily, many large and demoralizing wheat ranches are being divided into small farms, upon which are being reared the roof-tree, children, fruits and flowers.
To secure a competence, no more activities should be entered into than can be prosecuted with vigor and at a profit. On the other hand, too few activities tend to stagnation and degeneration. ”

“ Fifty years ago, agriculture as a whole, comprised a vast collection of small farms and farmers. Then, the small farmer and his family, as the stable unit of suburban society, was financially and practically independent. Questions of over-production of food products, rise or fall in the price of exchange, panic in the money market, or an adverse balance of trade, disturbed them not. ”

“ Farming will never be carried on in America by trusts or syndicates. A combine can run fifty nail factories or breweries, but not fifty farms, at a profit, because farming is too difficult, requires too close supervision and frequent change of details and combinations, and new plans to meet the ever-changing conditions of climate and soil. The conditions which surround agriculture in America put a quietus forever on “bonanza farming,” and tend to the rearing of ideal homes and the accumulation of [37] modest incomes. ”

“ One hundred bushels of corn to an acre have been repeatedly produced, and other crops in like abundance. But this will not effect the proper ends of a judicious and profitable agriculture, unless we can so manage our husbandry that, by a judicious and proper succession of the crops, land will not only be restored after an exhausting crop, but gradually enriched by cultivation. It is of the highest importance that our farmers should increase their power of sustaining live stock, that they may obtain in that way the means of improving their farms. ”

“ For instance, in many developing countries the introduction or large-scale commercial agriculture may produce revenue rapidly, but may also dispossess a large number of small farmers and make
People have acquired, often for the first time in history, both an idea of their relative poverty and a desire to emerqe from it and improve the quality of their lives. ”

“ But, as population advances, and agriculture encroaches on the natural pasture-lands originally available for the rearing of cattle, still more as it becomes necessary to cultivate land for the purpose of pasture, the cost of meat constantly rises.” As population increases there will be an increased demand for dairy-products, eggs, small fruits, fresh vegetables, milk, etc., and thereby it becomes more profitable to employ land near populous centers for such perishable products than for the products of large farming. ”

“ It raises the price of animal food; because a great part of the land which produces it, being rendered fit for producing corn, must afford to the landlord anti farmer the rent and profit of corn land. It lowers the price of vegetable food; because, by increasing the fertility of the land, it increases its abundance. The improvements of agriculture, too, introduce many sorts of vegetable food, which requiring less land, and not more labour than corn, come much cheaper to market. ”

“ Little can be hoped for as to improvement in the condition of the poor peons of the country, until these immense estates are broken up and divided into small available farms, which may be owned and operated by them for their sole benefit. No lesson is more clearly or forcibly taught us by the light of experience than that the ownership of the soil by its cultivator is the only way to insure successful and profitable agriculture. ”

“ All these facts tend now to make the profits in agriculture decline, and the fact that farm life has certain attractions in establishing permanent homes for families and life-time associations, contributes to this tendency by holding people to their place as farmers for at least a generation. The possibility of independent enterprise, even with small profit, and the freedom of family life from interference of neighbors make large numbers of farmers willing to continue their business in spite of the reduced earnings. ”

“ But when in this way the issue is raised of tillage versus pasture, it is essential, if we are to discuss it rationally, that we should envisage it clearly as applying only to a limited portion of agricultural land, to the portion which lies somewhere near the margin of transference, as things are now, between the two forms of agriculture. It might be socially desirable to bring under the plow a field which the farmer finds it only slightly more profitable to lease under grass ”

“ In other words, as our social and industrial conditions approach those of Europe more closely, we may expect our agricultural methods to do so also. One of the most serious practical problems now confronting the American farmer is the change from the old, wasteful, extensive methods to the new, careful, intensive methods of farming. Those who cannot make the change will complain of the unprofitableness of agriculture, but to those who successfully meet [Pg 15] the new conditions the future offers much greater rewards than even the era of free land could produce. ”

“ A fact or two may serve an American farmer as a tangible measure whereby to estimate the extent of the operations thus conducted by one man. To come up to the standard of scientific and successful agriculture in England, it is deemed requisite that a tenant farmer, on renting an occupation, should have capital sufficient to invest £10, or $50, per acre in stocking it with cattle, sheep, horses, farming implements, fertilisers, etc. ”

“ Research should give early attention to the varied requirements of the mixed farming typical in subsistence agriculture. Extension and input supply systems must become more mobile to reach shifting cultivators and nomads and priority given to public investment to improve their cropland, grazing areas, and water sources.
5.3 Integrated Rural Development 98. Rural populations will continue to increase in many countries. With existing patterns of land distribution, the number of smallholders and landless households will increase by about 50 million, to nearly 220 million, by the year 2000. ”

“ Moreover, “agriculture” is often used in a too limited sense as confined to producing food alone (although even in that limited sense employing nearly one half of the total number of our laborers) . In a new country the natural field of employment is found in the “extractive industries,” which include the preparation for the market not only of food, but also of all ores, coal, minerals, oils, hides, leather, wool, lumber, and the industries intimately connected with them ”

“ Whatever objections may be suggested by the fastidiousness of amateur farmers, those whose daily bread depends on the profitableness of this calling will not hesitate about adopting such measures as may be clearly shown to be instrumental in producing large crops at small expense, and which will enable small capitalists to do a considerable amount of business without running into debt. ”

“ A decrease in the world supply of wheat has resulted in a very large increase in the price of that commodity. The position of all agricultural products indicates a better balanced supply, but we can not yet conclude that agriculture is recovered from the effects of the war period or that it is permanently on a prosperous basis. ”

“ Men of small capital are strongly advised to go in for “intensive” culture of a small farm, rather than to attempt to take a large piece of land or to devote themselves solely to fruit culture, for orchards in bearing are expensive, and to wait for returns till a newly-planted orchard becomes productive is also costly; but quick returns can be obtained from the keeping of poultry and pigs, and the growing of early vegetables for a town or mining camp. ”

“ Our arid lands will be made fertile by irrigation, but they will add only a small percentage to the amount already in quasi-cultivation. Our future food supplies must be drawn largely from the six million farms now under fences. These farms must be made to yield fourfold their present product, or they will fall short, not only of the demands made upon them, but also of their possibilities. That is why I preach the gospel of intensive farming, for grain, hay, market, and factory farm alike. ”

“ Sales off the Farm.—The day is now here when the major portion of human food must be provided in grain and vegetables and fruit, and the demand for hay and grain for animals off the farm is very large. Fiber products likewise must be supplied. The draft upon the soil is heavy, but it must be good farm practice to supply bread and vegetables and fruit to the 70 per cent of our population that is not on farms. The great majority of farmers do not feed all their crops to livestock, and the amount of food-stuffs, for human beings and animals, that is now going off the farms is none too great. ”

“ The establishment of any new manufacture, of any new branch of commerce, or of any new practice in agriculture, is always a speculation from which the projector promises himself extraordinary profits. These profits sometimes are very great, and sometimes, more frequently, perhaps, they are quite otherwise; but, in general, they bear no regular proportion to those of other old trades in the neighbourhood. If the project succeeds, they are commonly at first very high. ”