Copyrighted content, as first published in the October 2000 edition of TOP PRODUCER magazine.
I see many familiar faces at national farm organization meetings. In fact, too many. When you go to different annual events and run into the same guys you saw at last week’s meetings, a few observations pop into your mind.
Missing in action. First, it is reasonable to wonder why there are not more people involved in ag organizations. To be sure, the number of commercial farmers is dropping, but it would seem logical to have more than a few hundred working in the organizations of the profession.
My own completely unscientific estimate is about 3% of all farmers get involved in professional organizations--not just hold a membership. While the fraction is minuscule, it is not out of line with trends of civic involvement across the country.
In his book, Bowling Alone, researcher Robert Putnam tracks indicators for community participation as various as church attendance and bowling leagues. One overall trend has emerged from the last few decades: The peak for all forms of civic engagement was in the 1960s, and it has declined steadily for traditional groups (churches, clubs, professional organizations).
Agriculture is mirroring this larger social shift. Farmers don’t join farm groups readily, but then they don’t join any other groups either. This loss of connectedness may also have much to do with the undercurrent of dissatisfaction in rural America.
Secondly, meetings themselves are passé. All across the Farm Belt, energetic efforts by Cooperative Extension, for example, are playing to empty houses or the faithful few. Our farm population no longer socializes mainly within the occupational group, either. Farm Bureau, Grange and Cattlemen’s meetings served a crucial role in providing opportunities to just be together--a treat for isolated farm residents. Today we are far from isolated, thanks to technology and transportation advances. In fact, our relative isolation in the country is now something viewed with envy by many urban neighbors.
Minority rules. The result is meetings populated by a tiny number of producers who find some personal value in this type of activity. By simply attending, they essentially represent all of us. Accordingly, disproportionate power is available to this “Thin Green Line” of participants. As one observer put it, “Policy is made by those who show up.”
By bucking the trend, these volunteers are exploiting the apathy of the many. In near-empty halls of freedom created by our democracy, their words echo loudly, often uncontested. By default, they have control of the institutions of our profession.
The disenchantment with civic and professional responsibility cannot be explained by one cause, but it is made possible by the explosion of personal choice. For example, when there were few other social activities, going to church wasn’t such an odious thought. It is our inability to choose wisely from a wide range of activities (most notably TV viewing) that perhaps threatens our traditional social structure most.
The decline in participation is also linked to a rise in individual empowerment and a simultaneous loss of the “we’re all in this together” mentality. When some are doing markedly better than most, it becomes obvious that solidarity may not apply. Time in organizational meetings is time we aren’t helping ourselves, we reason. However, the risk of noninvolvement is about to increase dramatically.
For many corn and soybean farmers the dependence on government program subsidies has become absolute--often reaching the majority of net farm income. Compare the $22.7 billion from the government this year with net cash income of about $56 billion.
For better or worse, subsidies are our life. Meanwhile, organizations like Farm Bureau and National Corn Growers supply the voices that testify in hearings and visit legislative offices--essentially negotiating the next farm program for producers.
Luxury? The bottom line is that the Thin Green Line could determine the fate of many of our farms. Such representation-by-dereliction, regardless of the results, is a wholesale abandonment of professional accountability and self-responsibility.
Unlike much of the U.S. economy, agriculture is struggling. The fad of indolence is a luxury we farmers cannot afford.
Even with the stakes this high, I doubt a major shift in farmer involvement. However, I think those who make a commitment to work with their peers will reap larger benefits than at any time in our history. The rewards for participation in the Thin Green Line have never been greater on the personal or professional level.
John Phipps farms near Chrisman, Ill.
