New West Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
The Rocky Mountain West is not an agriculture region anymore.
The myth – perpetuated by generations of farmers, the media and state legislatures dominated by agricultural representatives – is that growing food and ag commodities is the backbone of our economy. But an impressive and comprehensive study of the region reports that agriculture counts for just 1 percent of it and the number of people who own or work on farms is just 2 percent of the population, down from 35 percent at its peak in 1920.
Colorado College’s 2010 State of the Rockies report, now in its eighth year of research and reporting on issues that define our lives in the mountain west, is focused on agriculture. The report provides the statistical overview of the region’s industry, but also delves deep into agricultural history, land and water use, demographics, production, finance, organization, and a “foodprint” of Rockies’ agriculture, according to project leaders.
States defined as part of the Rockies are Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and Idaho.
The average age of farm operators in the U.S. has increased from 52 to 57 years old, and only between 1 and 6 percent earn all their income from farming. In the Rockies, female farmers have increased by 257 percent. Ethnic diversity among farm owners and operators is also trending upward.
Other highlights from the report:
- The Rockies contain only 7 percent of the nation’s family farms.
- Continuing competition from corporate farms which produce huge crops to sell at lower prices, still threatens smaller operations. Just 4 percent of farms are responsible for 45 percent of sales.
- Organic crops, now counted as a separate and distinct category in the report, are grown on 678,000 acres, with another 37,000 being converted to organic.
- Rocky Mountain sales of livestock are higher than average, while sales of soybeans and corn are lower than average. Farmers are concerned with the futures and commodities markets and increased investment activity, which drives food prices up.
- Stressors to farmers also include bank failures, difficulty in getting loans from federal agencies, increases in property taxes, and rising costs of feed, fuel and contract labor.
The president of the National Farmers Union is quoted in the report: “Without a properly functioning and regulated futures market, a train wreck is headed straight for rural America that will jeopardize our ability to continue providing a safe, affordable and abundant food supply for this nation.”
You good old boys come across as some ignorant whiners. I’ve seen you both make interesting and worthwhile contributions on occasion, surely you can aim higher.
Thanks for the link to the interesting report Jill, and your summary of it. Fascinating compilation of statistics, and it sounds like the students who did the grunt work had a good experience. The finished product is impressive.
Note that the population of “the Rockies” (as they term the states between the 3 west coast states and the plains) is 7% of that of the US, so the “only” in the bullet item about family farms (in this summary) shouldn’t be too surprising.
On pg. 14, the table of 2008 employment by occupation tells us what the “other 99″ are doing:
34% “Management, professional and related”
18% “Service”
25% “Sales and office”
11% “Construction, extraction, maintenance and repair”
10% “Production, transportation, and Material Moving”
In the aggregate, pretty close to the same as the US overall, although states vary within the region. (Idaho has 3% Farming, fishing and forestry, Wyoming’s big in extraction, etc.)
One of the key findings (p. 20) was that the peak of the Rockies farm population was 35%, reached in 1920; today it is 2%.
Tom von Alten has slipped a very important point in amongst his other valuable tidbits. It’s a point that has been on my mind for a while. Tom points out that “the population of ‘the Rockies’ (as they term the states between the 3 west coast states and the plains) is 7% of that of the US…” Actually, it is just a bit shy of a full 7% of the total American population and this fact has a special relevance to so many of the discussions of land use and resource management that we see here in NewWest.
Debates over land use, particularly over what happens on public lands, are a pretty big issue in “the Rockies” and, in fact, most of the most acrimonious debates over the management of our public lands are centered in this region and the articles and commentary in NewWest reflect that situation. From logging and grazing to snowmobiles and endangered species, the “good old boys,” from bearbait to fotowarped to even Tommy “the KKKlown” Klumker, are pretty much unanimous in wanting those “others” from the cities and the east and the coast and the federal government to just butt out in favor of devolution to “local” control.
One of the points that is always absent from these discussions is that less than 7% of the actual “owners” of the public lands in “the Rockies” even live in the region and, since this region is the most urbanized in the country, the kinds of rural and small town hillbillies that call for this devolution to “local” control constitute far, far, far less than 7% (perhaps as little as 2% of that 7%) of the actual “owners” of the public lands they want to control. So, in essence, we have a tiny fraction of 7% of the population demanding to tell much more than 93% of the population what to do with public lands that overwhelmingly belong more to the more than 93% than to these bellicose “ignorant whiners” who actually have a less than 7% share in the ownership of the properties.
This analysis actually underestimates the imbalance in actual “ownership stakes” because, given the much lower average education levels and the resulting relatively smaller per capita share of overall tax revenues coming out of the rural and small town areas in this region, the more than 93% of the national population that actually owns these public lands actually pays a disproportionately higher share of their upkeep and management costs.
So, when you look at the facts, this push for devolution to “local” control actually flies right in the face of the property rights and open democracy talk being spewed by its proponents. When you take a good look at the facts, a tiny minority of loudmouthed “good old boys,” from bearbait to fotowarped to even Tommy “the KKKlown” Klumker, just want to confiscate the property rights of over 93% of the owners of the public lands in “the Rockies” and disenfranchise them from the democratic process as well.
Since Jill is a self-declared Idaho partisan (not a bad thing to be, if pursued with objectivity), she ought to take this same line of reasoning, add a little more specific research, and tell us how the “stakeholder” spread on those Snake River dams shakes out. Idaho might claim the water; but, do Idahoans even realize what percentage of the state population benefits from the dams versus what percentage would benefit from salmon in numbers that would shame the great bison herds of the past? Then, although Idaho might claim the water, the dams and the fish belong to that pesky other 93% of America. How does the percentage of people benefitting from the dams stack up against what the rest of the “stakeholders” want? America is already so obese that our inability to find fit recruits for our armed services is considered a national security threat. How many more cheap potatoes, irrigated with subsidized water at the expense of the salmon, do we need? How much more money does the Simplot gang need given their tiny share of the overall ownership stake? Yes, yes, I know. As soon as you make the water case, they’ll go on to the cheap power argument; but, take a crack at it, one argument at a time.
“Workers of the world unite against these bourgois elitists!” So now who’s the undemocratic socialist? Is it just as I’ve always thought? You rednecks talk a good game about values and principles; but, you’re really just all about your narcissistic self-centered selves and you’ll change your tune to whatever happens to fit your “it’s all about me” underlying selfishness at any given moment.
By the way… First, departments of agriculture are dominated by redneck weasels like you; they’re always going to use any self-promoting statistical gimmick possible, spin every possible statistic, to promote their own importance. The true picture across the region is still the same; agriculture in “the Rockies” doesn’t even pay for itself, much less compensate for the damage that ultimately gets picked up by those urbanites in Vermont.
Second, maybe farmers are buying 90% of the gas at that station in Harlowton; but, I’ll bet you can trace most of the dollars they’re using back to a government subsidy program paid for by that much better educated guy or gal stuck in that traffic in Vermont. Actually, Vermont has a relatively large agricultural base that, except for dairy, isn’t nearly as subsidized by the government as anything you see in “the Rockies” and, even without government subsidies, the folks in Vermont don’t whine about the government as much as the people in this region. To a much greater degree, they obey the law, tell the truth, pay their taxes, and figure it’s a citizen’s responsibility.
Third, I’m sure that most of those farmers trading at that station in Harlowton spew the same stuff about values and principles that you always do; but, I bet that most of the rest of the dollars they’re using, the ones that aren’t government subsidized, are off the books income that those highly principled folks don’t pay taxes on. In fact, “logger,” I bet you never in your entire life cut a tree that wasn’t government subsidized and I bet you went ahead and spewed whiny complaints about people on welfare all the while you were cutting it. I bet, if you ever did cut a tree that wasn’t government subsidized, you didn’t properly pay taxes on what you got for cutting it.
It is the 4th. So, just shut up, crawl off to get drunk someplace, and tell yourself and your slobbering friends that you’re all patriots.
Well. My. Goodness. All this venom over a few statistics, who knew that was possible?
I’d certainly entertain the various states’ Department of Agriculture analysis, keeping the understanding that they have a vested interest in drawing their sector as large as possible. Nevertheless, the mechanization of agriculture and the application of cheap energy has changed our way of life. I’d say “irrevocably” except for the fact that the end of the era of cheap energy is very likely upon us, with repercussions likely to surprise us all with their tempo and power.
The study is quite extensive, and while I’ve scanned and read parts of it, I’ll make this my last comment before I go through it more carefully.
I recommend that to others as well. This pissing match between whatever you want to call your two sides is rather pathetic, especially to the extent that you want to deny facts in evidence, or move right ahead to the name-calling.
There are economic stats in the report, and while they might not put ag’s production in the context of comparison to everything else, one could find that information without too much trouble (assuming you wanted to, rather than preferred to just make stuff up).
If anyone attacking the study’s observations wished to take the trouble, he’d also find that this survey is sympathetic to agriculture in general, and to its current problems in particular. That’s kind of what the whole thing is about, eh.
Interesting tidbit in this discussion (ignoring rampant ad hominems): that ag population peaked in the 1920s. I wonder how this relates to the economic value of water? The 1920s was the tail end of a “wet period” of western US climate. Its become gradually drier since then. How does the changing pattern of farm use and declining population relate to the underlying relative scarcity of water? If you grow low value crops with higher valued water, how does this effect the minimum farm size necessary to prosper? How is this different with agro-husbandry where a lot of water is needed to produce meat poundage? This is much more productive to talk about than the political twaddle bandied by some intelligent folks in this forum. Use your brains, folks, and quit wasting your smarts on non-productive discussions. There are some good points in most of these posts, but they get lost in the emotive babble. New West needs intelligent, thoughtful forums to prosper and draw interested eyeballs!