Is Small-scale Farming Financially Sustainable? The Challenges and Opportunities of Local Food

• In Event: Sustainability, Climate, and the Politics of Consumption

Abstract

A century ago, the organic farming movement emerged as a remedy to the already apparent ills of the industrialized food system. Mission driven from the beginning, early pioneers advocated for methods that produced food while also caring for the health of the soil and community. Interest in the movement waxed and waned largely outside of the mainstream over the ensuing decades until the passage of the U.S. Organic Food Productions Act in 1990. Since, organic farming and food have increased rapidly. In 1997, organic food accounted for 3.6 billion in sales nationwide. By 2023, it was 70 billion. Predictably, this incredible growth was accompanied by a fissure in the organic farming movement. Today, the bulk of organic production now occurs on large, often corporate-owned farms where the primary goal is to produce large quantities of food cheaply and efficiently. In contrast, and likely in response to this corporatization, a growing and relatively diverse collection of local, small-scale farms that have ostensibly stayed true to early organic principles of social justice and economic and environmental sustainability, have emerged. For this project, I studied small, local farmers who have pursued this “alternative” route. Based on 30 interviews with small-scale farmers and other participants in the local food scene in Northwestern Indiana and Southwestern Michigan, I examine the challenges and opportunities farmers face in maintaining viability. As the farmers I interviewed routinely mentioned, regardless of their primary motivations, which most often include environmental and social goals, they cannot continue growing and selling food unless their businesses stayed afloat. As a result, farmers spend considerable time and effort pursuing profitability. I will present findings on farming pathways and trajectories (e.g., staying small or scaling up) and the strategies farmers use to market and sell their products, as they relate to financial sustainability.

Author

• David Blouin, Indiana University South Bend