504 Modern Agricultural Reforms
Farming isn’t easy for the members of PFI either. There is still plenty of bucking
with the horses they ride as well. Some PFI members eventually wind up leaving
the rodeo of farming too. Despite all the environmental, economic, social and
possibly health benefits of what they do, the honest truth is that many of them fail.
In fact, several of the PFI farmers that appeared in earlier chapters are no longer
farming. Roger. Raelyne. Wendell and Terri. I don’t know of a survey comparing
the survival rates of sustainable and conventional farms, but my impression is that
it’s much the same for both, although possibly on average sustainable farms survive
somewhat longer. Several PFI members I asked about this agreed. If there is a dif-
ference in survival rates, it is not so significant that, without a statistical survey, it
jumps out at even those closely familiar with the matter.^3
Sustainable farmers face several disadvantages in the farming rodeo. To begin
with, they often start from a position of financial weakness. As we saw in Bell
(2004 Chapter 6), economic factors often act as the phenomenological shock that
opens farmers up to the possibility of sustainable farming. Such farmers may find
themselves just too banged up financially to regain a secure seat in the saddle,
although sustainable practices may enable them to stay ‘in’ farming a few more
years. Also, as sustainable farmers tend to farm fewer acres and buy fewer outside
inputs, such as machinery and chemicals, ironically they will be more likely to find
themselves beholden to banks and merchants, rather than having the banks and
merchants equally beholden to them. Because sustainable farmers spend less and
borrow less, the balance of beholden-ness is more often tipped against them, mak-
ing it more probable that the banks and merchants will call in their accounts.
Another disadvantage sustainable farmers face is with the structure of agricul-
tural subsidies. The average Iowa farmer does quite nicely in this respect, with that
annual subsidy cheque of $22,400 per farm between 1999 and 2001.^4 But averages
disguise a lot. Some 72 per cent of Iowa’s farm subsidies go to just 20 per cent of
the farmers.^5 Smaller farmers usually get a much smaller check, and big farmers a
bigger one. It might seem obvious that smaller farmers would receive less, but the
subsidy system is often defended as the saviour of small farms. Moreover, small
farms typically receive lower subsidies per farm acre than big farms, particularly
when the small farms produce something other than corn and soybeans, corn and
soybeans, and corn and soybeans, the two main subsidized commodities in Iowa.
Fewer acres and different products being two of their typical characteristics, sus-
tainable farms tend to lose out substantially on farm subsidies.
Take Jon and Heather, for example, small-scale beef farmers. They have been
getting about $6000 in annual subsidies recently, less than a third of the average
per-farm subsidy rate in Iowa.^6 But they have a 320-acre farm, which is near the
Iowa average of 344 acres. If they received the Iowa per-acre average, their farm
would have averaged about $20,837 in subsidies from 1999 to 2001. Jon and
Heather didn’t get that because they mostly grow grass and hay for their organic,
free-range beef herd – grass and hay because that’s essential for free-range production
and because they want to limit erosion-prone and chemical-hungry crops like corn
and soybeans. A few acres of their steepest land are enrolled in the Conservation