Farming has always been a core industry in the U.S., yet in recent decades, agricultural careers have only been associated with strife and struggles. Our idea of a common family farmer is frequently said to be dead, dying or doomed.

Why is failure seemingly inevitable for small farmers? And more importantly, is there anything we can do about it?

Ultimately, massive agricultural businesses that exploit farmers for profit are the biggest threat to farmers of all kinds.

Brad Wilson, an activist for Family Farm Justice and researcher who grew up on a small farm, said the extent to which agribusinesses control the industry often goes unseen.

On the surface, it is easy to blame large farms for the industry’s problems. However, in 2017, 96% of farms in the U.S. were still family-owned. The largest 4% of farms owned 58% of total farmland, but many of these were still family farms that grew due to technological advances.

Wilson said these large farms focus on growing corn and soybeans and do not necessarily harm the entire industry. The larger enemies are the agribusiness companies that have a chokehold on farmers.

“Agribusiness” refers to the enormous companies involved in agriculture beyond farmers themselves, including food processors and manufacturers of fertilizer, pesticides and seeds. In the U.S., agribusinesses have consolidated greatly. A small handful of companies hold the vast majority of power, meaning farmers have little bargaining power for fair prices.

An example of an economic pattern observable across industries is that too much consolidation and too little competition lead to higher prices and fewer options.

For example, if you spend $2.99 on cranberries, only 86 cents goes to farmers because the agribusinesses who process the food can pay farmers unreasonably low prices without competition.

According to Wilson, agribusinesses hold so much power that they do not need to lobby the government to maintain it, unlike corn and soy farmers who lobby for subsidies.

“Agribusiness doesn’t have to lobby on these issues because there isn’t a significant movement that knows this is how you fix it,” Wilson said.

Today is a critical turning point for farmers. 

The advance of technology makes it inevitable that farms will continue to get larger, but we need to keep farms in the hands of families rather than let the industry as a whole succumb to agribusiness.

Farmers are the final sector of our food industry that is still held by the people. Losing them to agribusiness would make its already monopolistic power all-encompassing.

Currently, only 4% of farms are company-owned, according to the 2017 Farm Typology report. Family farms may still hold the upper hand, but we need to prevent agribusiness from gaining the power to infiltrate more ownership of farms themselves.

In order to compete, family farms will need to continue evolving with technology. Our traditional idea of small family farms continues to fade, but instead of letting corporations replace them, family farms are expanding and embracing new forms.

Marc Bellemare, a University of Minnesota professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in applied economics, said advances in agricultural technology place small farmers at a natural disadvantage.

“This is an industry characterized by increasing returns to scale,” Bellemare said. “There are still a lot of farms, but there are fewer of them because the technology has evolved in a way that pushes the industry towards consolidation. What we are seeing now is way fewer farms than we were seeing in, for instance, the 1930s or ‘40s. And there is no indication it is slowing down.”

The progression of agricultural technology over the past centuries is easy to follow, from steel plows to tractors to pesticides and combine harvesters. 

The newest development of the 2020s is artificial intelligence-powered agricultural technology, including self-driving tractors. Like all the past technology advancements, these devices are only affordable to larger farmers and work most efficiently on massive scales, according to Bellemare.

This prolongs a cycle where larger farms can sell crops at lower prices, so small farms struggle unless they manage to get bigger.

According to Wilson, the most important way to improve the agricultural industry is to recognize who to fight against. This is not a battle between family farms and large farms. Many family farms are already large farms, and many others will continue to grow to compete. 

The real enemies are the agribusiness companies that exploit everyone with unchecked power.

Take concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, for example. CAFOs, also sometimes called factory farms, are infamous for abusive treatment of animals and environmental damage. Yet, targeting one individual farm is useless when the entire system is broken.

According to Wilson, CAFOs exist because agribusiness companies like Smithfield Foods, a gigantic meat processor, hold all the power.

“The average CAFO raising hogs for Smithfield had only one fifteen-hundredth of the market share of Smithfield itself,” Wilson said. “They’re not comparable to these giant agribusiness firms.”

Countless ways exist to improve farms, including ending CAFOs, improving sustainability and expanding access to organic foods. 

Targeting farmers does not solve any of these problems, though. First, we need to deal with the abusive agribusiness companies that leave farmers without choices.

Some options exist for farmers who do not want to expand and embrace AI tractors. According to Bellemare, many consumers always hold strong desires to purchase from local small businesses, meaning hobby farms and farmers’ markets are sustainable on a smaller scale. 

Plus, organic and sustainable farms currently occupy a relatively small niche of the industry, so small farms usually have opportunities to fill it. However, this may change in the future with increased demand, according to Bellemare.

Family farmers are not dying — they are growing and evolving into new forms. Let’s help them face their common enemy.