Superfarms are grabbing most of the cash, leaving rural communities to fend for themselves - Entrepreneur Generations

A small minority of big farms are earning the majority of money, Patrik Jonsson reports for The Christian Science Monitor. "Farms that once generated wealth for entire communities are now creating a new class of superfarmers. . . . After a period of more equal wealth, the trend is clearly back toward greater inequality, with more money in the hands of the few. Automation has made farm jobs disappear, and at the bottom of the income ladder, many rural residents are still struggling to recover from the Great Recession."

In 2011, "the average midsize family farm was worth $2.6 million and earned $156,000 a year—two-thirds of that from farming," Jonsson notes. "Large family farms were worth $4.8 million and earning $413,000; very large farms, just under $10 million and earning $1.7 million. As this wealth accumulates, it is being spread to fewer and fewer people. The midsize to very large operations represent less than 8 percent of the 2.1 million farm households in the U.S., most of which rely on income outside agriculture for their livelihood."

"And as the big operations become more mechanized and efficient, they're not hiring droves of new farmhands," Jonsson adds. Jonathan Bryant, a history professor at Georgia Southern University, told Jonsson, “A typical (large) farmer is not going to admit that they’re making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, in part because nowadays … those who have traditionally performed jobs on the farm are left out of any sort of share in the wealth that’s being produced.”

David Peters, a rural sociologist who studies heartland inequality at Iowa State University, told Johnsson, “Communities that are waiting for either (Donald) Trump or (Hillary) Clinton to come into office and solve all their issues are being unrealistic. . . . Inequality works both ways: It’s not just concentration of wealth, but it’s also what happens at the bottom. The upshot is that the trend of the withering middle class has occurred in rural areas much further and quicker than in urban and metro communities in general.”

from The Rural Blog http://ift.tt/2b08B0L Superfarms are grabbing most of the cash, leaving rural communities to fend for themselves - Entrepreneur Generations

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