Family Farm or Factory Farm?

Overalls, a tractor, a few cattle, a pig or two, chickens roaming the front yard, a large garden, and a white picket fence. This is the image and stereotype that pops into many people’s heads when they hear the words FAMILY FARM. Dad, Mom, and a few kids raise livestock and crops to support themselves with a little extra to sell and make enough money to plant next year’s crop. This is what many Americans believe is the face of the family farm because that’s what it was, or at least what it used to be and if you googled it, the internet wouldn’t disagree.

So the flip side of having a family farm would be a FACTORY FARM. The term factory implies that crops and animals are grown through routine operation and that individual care is not provided. It also implies that it allows that a large quantity of product can be produced at once, so in farming terms a large number of acres harvested by one farm or a large number of livestock raised by the same farm. Google and other search engines such as Bing and Yahoo helped support this as well. It would only make logical sense that most of the animals raised for consumption would be raised on a factory farm where thousands  of animals can be raised versus the family farm that barely raises more than they need themselves.

BUT, neither of these stereotypes or facts hold to be true. FAO.org (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) can provide some statistics about agriculture around the globe that points to family farms, NOT factory farms providing us with our food to eat. The USDA (United State Department of Agriculture) backs them up as well, and in bold letters their website reports that “97% of All U.S. Farms are Family-Owned”. 

So how has everything gotten so twisted around, and who’s actually right? I’m going with the USDA and organizations that are actually involved in the agricultural industry. I’m going to also blame the agricultural industry itself for letting everything get so mixed around. As society moved further and further from the farm, we forgot to update them on what was going on in the industry.

For starters, as the population of The United States grew, the number of farmers did not. According to Farmersfeedus.org, in 1960, one farmer was responsible for feeding 25.8 or basically 26 people. Now, that same farmer has to feed 155 people. That wouldn’t be possible if that farmer kept the same methods and size farm that they had in 1960. So farms began to grow larger and advanced their technology like the rest of society, but no one kept up to date on the latest tractors when the new iPhone was coming out. Research and improvements were even made on animal handling by people like Dr. Temple Grandin, but not many people outside of the field of agriculture have heard of her and the improvements she’s made.

Just because the farms got larger doesn’t mean that they had to stop being family farms either. Those few kids grew up and got married and now Mom and Dad are really Grandma and Grandpa. The farm simply grew large enough to support everyone that wanted to remain part of it. Many farms are in their 4th or 5th generation and they didn’t become factories by utilizing new technology, the new technology just helped them be able to feed a growing number of people more efficiently. More acres of land weren’t converted to farm land when the population grew, farmers actually had to figure out how to feed more people with less land because the number of farm acres shrunk.

From the outside looking in, some of these things make it look like your food is coming from a factory, but with a little research it’s easy to find that in all reality, it’s a bunch of families do what they can to survive and help improve the industry and quality of food that gets put on your table. Still using all the care for animals and the environment the best that they can.

So to answer the question, Family Farm or Factory Farm? Family Farm. Your food isn’t being grown in a factory, it’s being grown by a family using the latest technology to feed even more people safety and efficiently.

 

Additional Resources:

FAO.org: http://www.fao.org/family-farming-2014/en/

USDA: https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/

Farmers Feed Us.org: http://www.farmersfeedus.org/fun-farm-facts/

More on how Farm Machinery and Technology has advanced: https://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timeline/farm_tech.htm

More on Dr. Temple Grandin: http://www.templegrandin.com/