On Shaky Ground: Farm Operator Turnover in California Agriculture
by Don Villarejo, California Institute for Rural Studies
In early August 1998 the California Department of Food and Agriculture announced that 1997 was yet another record-breaking year for the state's farm production. Paced by a remarkable combination of the highest harvested tonnage and prices for wine grapes ever recorded, California farmers received an estimated total of $26.8 billion from commodity sales. That amount is greater than the combined output of the next two highest ranked states: Texas and Iowa. California farmers have achieved four successive production record years.
But behind the announcement lies a little known fact documented in the California Institute for Rural Studies (CIRS) report On Shaky Ground: Farm Operator Turnover in California Agriculture. Sponsored and funded by SAREP and the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, the report finds business turnover among operators of California farms is quite high. Whether it is the difficulty experienced by older farmers facing retirement in finding a young family member to take over the operation, or the continuing financial stress that many small- and medium-scale farmers experience, a great many farm operators leave the business each year. At the same time, as demonstrated in the report, in nearly every case a new operator comes in and is willing to try their hand.
Most studies of farm sustainability today focus on production practices, especially issues pertaining to reliance on synthetic chemical pesticides and fertilizers. However, sustainability also refers to business longevity. If farmers are unable to earn a living, then no amount of environmental consciousness will be able to keep them in production.
The report documents the experience of crop, dairy and nursery farm operations in Fresno and Monterey counties in California over five consecutive years, 1990-94. Detailed records of farm operators were compiled, representing more than 7,300 individual farms in Fresno County and 1,200 in Monterey County.
The main findings were that the five-year rate of farm operator turnover in Fresno County was 38.5 percent and it was 54 percent in Monterey County. That is, of 5,512 Fresno County farm operators active in 1990, 2,269 had left farming by 1994, but 1,792 new ones had started up. Similarly, of 810 Monterey County farm operators active in 1990, 444 had discontinued and 414 had entered the business by 1994.
These are very high rates of farm operator turnover, suggesting that even in a relatively prosperous period for agriculture, economic pressures have been substantial. The study also found that economic factors may be at the heart of the matter: the larger the farm the lower was the likelihood of leaving the business. For the smallest Fresno County farms, the rate of attrition was more than two and one-half times larger than for the largest size farms.
The report recommends that: culturally appropriate outreach and support for new farmers be strengthened, lenders be prohibited from discriminating against new or small farmers, and land use strategies or environmental policies that disadvantage small farmers be re-examined from the perspective of mitigation of adverse impacts.
Copies of the 42-page, $10 report are available from CIRS at (530)
756-6555, ext. 13. An executive summary of the report is available on the CIRS
Web site at http://www.cirsinc.org
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