Children and the Modern Farming Movement

• In Event: 4167 - Section on Children and Youth Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Children & Youth Roundtable 4: Social Policy

Abstract

In the 19th century, children were “economically useful” to the family farm economy; with industrialization, children exited productive roles in their families to become 20th century objects of sentiment and primary recipients of a family’s economic resources (Zelizer 1985). How do children today participate in family-based productive economies? In this paper, we draw from interviews with 86 members of 50 families that farm in one epicenter for the modern food movement: the capital region of upstate New York. Our data shows that families that farm are similar to those who have moved out of farming because they deemphasize children’s labor contributions and because they sentimentalize childhood. They differ, however, by reclaiming farms’ central roles as youth educators and by rejecting the privileging of consumption over production. In documenting the social value of children to modern families that farm, we show how families reconcile the logic of children as consumers with children’s active incorporation into productive enterprises. Understanding the centrality of children, and childhood, to these families helps explain the rise of the modern food movement and the persistence of family-based agriculture despite conditions that make it difficult to accomplish.

Authors

• Joanna Dreby, University at Albany, State University of New York

• Mairead Carr, University at Albany - SUNY