What Happens When the Middle Disappears? Family Farms and Rural Communities in a Changing America
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A Conversation with Fred Provenza About Family Farms and Rural Communities
By Buz Kloot
A few weeks ago, I sent out an email titled What Wendell Berry Taught Me About the Family Farm. Shortly afterward, my friend, behavioral ecologist Fred Provenza wrote to say how much he appreciated it.
That email sparked a new conversation between us.
Fred reminded me of an article he had shared earlier this year titled Town and Country: Linking Agriculture and the Nonfarm Rural Economies. In February, I had the opportunity to sit down with Fred and record a conversation about the changes he has witnessed during his lifetime in agriculture. As I revisited that discussion and reread the article, I began to see why it had resonated so strongly with him.
The article challenged one of the most deeply held assumptions in American agriculture. For generations, we have assumed that healthy farms create healthy rural communities. The authors suggest that, increasingly, the opposite may be true. Today, many farms depend on healthy rural economies to survive.
That observation caught Fred's attention. He described a pattern that researchers call the "barbell effect." The largest farms continue to grow larger. At the same time, the number of very small farms continues to increase. Meanwhile, many of the mid-sized farms and ranches that once formed the backbone of rural communities are disappearing.
"I worked on one of those ranches," Fred told me. As he reflected on the ranch where he spent so many years, he found himself thinking about how difficult it has become for young people to enter agriculture. Previous generations often had opportunities to build operations on land acquired through homesteading or inherited through family. Today, high land values and capital requirements create barriers that would have been unimaginable a century ago.
What struck Fred most was not simply the economics. It was what happens to communities when the middle disappears.
The Hollowing Out of the Middle
The article traces a dramatic shift in American agriculture. Since the mid-1900s, farms have become fewer and larger. At the same time, the number of very small farms has increased. The result is a hollowing out of the middle—a landscape dominated by a relatively small number of very large operations and a growing number of very small ones.
It was this disappearance of the middle that caught Fred's attention.
More Than a Story About Efficiency
For many people, this may sound like a story about efficiency. Fred sees something more. He sees a story about communities.
Researchers have long debated what is known as the Goldschmidt Hypothesis—the idea that communities supported by modest-sized family farms tend to enjoy stronger economic, social, and civic life than communities dominated by large-scale industrialized agriculture. While the evidence is mixed, there is little doubt that farms and ranches once played a central role in sustaining rural communities.
Fred remembers those communities. He also remembers a time when many producers had more control over their own economic destiny.
From Price Makers to Price Takers
Fred remembers a time when farmers and ranchers were often what one South African producer called "price makers, not price takers." As industries consolidated and supply chains centralized, many producers found themselves with less influence over the prices they received and fewer options available to them.
Why Healthy Farms Need Healthy Communities
Perhaps the most surprising finding in the article involves off-farm income.
Today, the average farm household receives roughly four out of every five dollars of household income from off-farm sources. For many small and intermediate-sized farms, off-farm employment is not supplemental income—it is what allows the farm to continue operating.
That reality has profound implications. If farm families depend on off-farm employment, then the health of the local economy becomes essential to the health of the farm.
The authors put it plainly: a viable farm increasingly requires a financially stable household, and a financially stable household often depends on a strong local economy beyond agriculture.
In other words, healthy farms now depend on healthy communities.
Broadening the Conversation
As Fred and I discussed these ideas, I found myself thinking about conversations I've had with farmers and ranchers across the country. Many are working harder than ever. Many are producing more than ever. Yet many feel trapped between rising costs, volatile markets, and shrinking margins.
The answer is not simple. But Fred believes we need to broaden the conversation.
For decades, agriculture has focused heavily on production and yield. Those things matter. But so do the health of rural communities, the vitality of local businesses, opportunities for young people, and the resilience of the landscapes that support agriculture.
Toward the end of our conversation, Fred shifted from economics to ecology. He reminded me that livestock can be more than a means of producing meat. Properly managed, they can help build healthy landscapes, increase biodiversity, improve water cycles, and support both wildlife and people.
That observation points toward a hopeful future. If the challenges facing agriculture are economic, social, and ecological, then the solutions must be as well.
The future of family farms may depend not only on what happens within the fence line, but also on the strength of the communities beyond it.
That may be the most important lesson Fred took from the article.
And it may be one of the most important conversations agriculture needs to have today.
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