@article{Castle:134118,
      recid = {134118},
      author = {Castle, Emery N.},
      title = {Agricultural Industrialization in the American  Countryside},
      address = {1998},
      number = {889-2016-65155},
      series = {Policy Studies Report No. 11},
      pages = {53},
      year = {1998},
      abstract = {There is little that stirs more debate today in  the
countryside than the spread of large confined animal  facilities. At a recent
Congressional hearing, Dan  Glickman, Secretary of Agriculture, said that the
U.S.  Department of Agriculture gleans several stories on such  debates from
the nation's press every day. The stories tell  how divisive issues, such as air
and water pollution that  often accompany "industrialized" animal operations,
have  pitted farmer against farmer, rural neighbor against  farmer, rural townspeople
against immigrant farm laborers,  environmental advocates against
agribusiness, all of which  have stressed rural communities.
The industrialization of  agriculture has been underway for most of
this century, as  farms have specialized and grown larger. This  relentless
process has been pushed by a multitude of  technological developments from
the introduction of  mechanical cultivation and harvesting, hybrid seed,  synthetic
fertilizers and pesticides, and pulled by the  growth in food and fiber
needs of an expanding domestic and  world population. The benefits of
increased production,  principally lower cost food, and costs of adjustment  to
farm families and rural communities have been well  documented. The
Wallace Institute has published two studies  on this topic, The industrial
Reorganization if Agriculture  and Reorganizing u.s. Agriculture: The Rise
if industrial  Agriculture and Direct Marketing, by Rick Welsh.
As  agriculture enters an era of less government intervention  in
production, opening global markets, and dizzying  advances from the electronic
and biotechnology revolutions,  the industrialization process promises
to accelerate faster  and extend farther. Yet, it's clear that the public expects  more from farming than low cost food. These industrial  farms not only
share the countryside with other farms, but  must coexist with an increasingly
diverse array of rural  residents, businesses, and recreationists. That
diversity  has spawned conflict. For example, a robust public demand  for
environmental quality affected by farm practices has  prompted many state
legislatures to pass restrictive laws  pertaining to the perceived risks posed
by large scale  animal production. Meanwhile, rural communities are  searching
for ways to weigh and balance these competing  interests.
With such contentious problems confounding the  search for constructive
approaches, the Henry A. Wallace  Institute's Policy Studies Program
commissioned Professor  Emery Castle to review and analyze the process  of
agricultural industrialization in relation to rural  development. Professor Castle
chaired the National Rural  Studies Committee from 1986-96 (castle, 1997).
He has been  a student and teacher of agricultural development and  natural
resource management for nearly forty years, and has  earned distinguished
recognition in scientific and policy  circles.
The primary purpose of Professor Castle's report,  Agricultural
Industrialization in the American Countryside,  is to offer a conceptual
framework that all participants in  rural policy can use to assess and shape
the process of  agricultural industrialization for the greatest benefit to  their
communities. Those participants often are urged by  special interests to take
the extreme position of either  accepting industrial agriculture without modification
for  fear of losing economic benefits, or of banning all forms  of
industrial farming. Professor Castle rejects these  policy extremes as unwise
or unrealistic. Instead, he urges  communities to adopt a "monitor, manage,
and modifY where  necessary" approach to assure that new  agricultural
enterprises support the full set of rural  development objectives. He
advances the concept of "rural  capital stock," with manmade, natural,
human, and social  capital elements for use in measuring and evaluating  the
effects of industrialized farms. His presumption is  that rural communities
will wish to maintain or enhance  their total capital stock to assure  economic,
environmental, and social vibrancy well into the  future. Diligently considering
the full range of effects of  new forms of agricultural development is
integral to that  process. A few communities have practiced this  approach,
but it is by far the exception rather than the  rule. The Wallace Institute
views Professor Castle's report  as a vehicle for stimulating a constructive
policy dialogue  and process on agricultural industrialization that  recognizes
the interests of all participants.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/134118},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.134118},
}