Civic Agriculture

by Lyson, Thomas A.

• ISBN13: 9781584654148
• ISBN10: 1584654147
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-06-01
• Publisher: Univ Pr of New England

Summary

While the American agricultural and food systems follow a decades-old path of industrialization and globalization, a counter trend has appeared toward localizing some agricultural and food production. Thomas A. Lyson, a scholar-practitioner in the field of community-based food systems, calls this rebirth of locally based agriculture and food production civic agriculture because these activities are tightly linked to a community's social and economic development. Civic agriculture embraces innovative ways to produce, process, and distribute food, and it represents a sustainable alternative to the socially, economically, and environmentally destructive practices associated with conventional large-scale agriculture. Farmers' markets, community gardens, and community-supported agriculture are all forms of civic agriculture. Lyson describes how, in the course of a hundred years, a small-scale, diversified system of farming became an industrialized system of production and also how this industrialized system has gone global. He argues that farming in the United States was modernized by employing the same techniques and strategies that transformed the manufacturing sector from a system of craft production to one of mass production. Viewing agriculture as just another industrial sector led to transformations in both the production and the processing of food. As small farmers and food processors were forced to expand, merge with larger operations, or go out of business, they became increasingly disconnected from the surrounding communities. Lyson enumerates the shortcomings of the current agriculture and food systems as they relate to social, economic, and environmental sustainability. He then introduces the concept of community problem solving and offers empirical evidence and concrete examples to show that a re-localization of the food production system is underway.

Author Biography

THOMAS A. LYSON (d. 2007) was Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor, Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University. His most recent book, co-edited with Richard K. Olsen, was Under the Blade: The Conversion of Agricultural Landscapes (1998). A past editor of the journal Rural Sociology, Lyson was an Associate Editor of the Journal of Sustainable Agriculture.

Table of Contents

List of Tables	xi
Acknowledgments	xiii
1. Introduction: Community Agriculture and Local Food Systems	1	(7)
Civic Agriculture	1	(1)
Farming and Food Today	2	(4)
A Place for Civic Agriculture	6	(1)
Plan of the Book	7	(1)
2. From Subsistence to Production: How American Agriculture Was Made Modern	8	(22)
Agriculture and Rural Life	8	(4)
The Emergence of Modern Economic Forms	12	(3)
Early Agricultural Development	15	(4)
Three Agricultural Revolutions	19	(3)
The Social Construction of Modern
Economic Categories	22	(192)
Civic Economy, Economic Embeddedness, and the Informal Economy	214
The Civic/Embedded Economy in the United States	25	(5)
3. Going Global: The Industrialization and Consolidation of Agriculture and Food Production in the United States	30	(18)
From Craft Production to Mass Production	30	(1)
The Trend toward Concentration and Consolidation	31	(6)
Changing Geography of Production	37	(2)
Distancing: Separating Production and Consumption	39	(1)
Control of Farmland	40	(2)
Labor Intensification	42	(3)
Supply Chains	45	(3)
4. The Global Supply Chain	48	(13)
The Global Food System	48	(2)
The Jolly Green Giant as a Corporate Migrant	50	(2)
Grocery Wars	52	(2)
Corporate Reach: The Men and Women behind the Food System	54	(3)
Whither the Poor Consumer?	57	(4)
5. Toward a Civic Agriculture	61	(23)
Moving toward Civic Agriculture	61	(3)
Theoretical Underpinnings of Civic Agriculture	64	(2)
Walter Goldschmidt's Landmark Study	66	(2)
Production Districts	68	(2)
Two Models of Agricultural Development	70	(1)
Neoclassical Economics versus Pragmatism	71	(2)
Production versus Development Frameworks	73	(1)
Experimental Biology versus Ecological Biology	74	(1)
Corporate versus Community Orientation	75	(1)
Corporate Middle Class versus Independent Middle Class	76	(1)
Political Processes and Power	76	(1)
Motors for Change	77	(1)
Civic Agriculture and Sustainable Agriculture	78	(3)
Why Didn't Small Business Flourish?	81	(3)
6. Civic Agriculture and Community Agriculture Development	84	(15)
Profiling Civic Agriculture	84	(3)
Community-Supported Agriculture	87	(4)
Restaurant Agriculture	91	(1)
Farmers' Markets	91	(2)
Roadside Stands	93	(2)
Urban Agriculture, City Farming, Community Gardens	95	(2)
Measuring Civic Agriculture	97	(2)
7. From Commodity Agriculture to Civic Agriculture	99	(8)
Commodity Agriculture	99	(2)
Refashioning Farming to Fit the Marketplace	101	(2)
Reconnecting Farm, Food, and Community: Tools for Change	103	(2)
Civic Agriculture: Moving from the Marketplace to the Community	105	(2)
Notes	107	(14)
Bibliography	121	(12)
Index	133