516 Modern Agricultural Reforms
research was conducted. Without Donna Bauer and Sue Jarnagin of Practical
Farmers of Iowa and their on-the-ground insights, and without Greg Peter’s mas-
ter’s thesis work, this book would have been not only less informed, less intelligent,
less relevant, less valid and reliable a witness of the conditions of farming today –
to the extent it has any of these good qualities – it would have been a whole lot less
fun. To them I owe the biggest thanks.
Notes
1 Dick describes this experience as follows in Thompson, Thompson and Thompson (2002, p1–3):
‘Several years ago while cleaning out a hog waterer, Dick heard a voice that said, “Get along but
don’t go along.” There was no other person around at the time. This concept is what we are sup-
posed to do. We don’t have to convict or convince anybody, just share when asked. This makes the
yoke easier and the burden lighter. This policy has left the door open to go to many land grant
universities in the United States and overseas during the last few years.’
2 This is also in keeping with what I have elsewhere termed the ‘dialogue of solidarities’ (Bell,
1998).
3 Three members I asked said they thought survival rates of sustainable and conventional farms
were about the same. A couple thought the rate was slightly higher for sustainable farms.
4 Environmental Working Group (2002) figures, divided by the 96,000 farms the US Agricultural
Statistics Service recorded for Iowa in 1999. Anthan (2001) reports considerably higher subsidy
figures, but the Environmental Working Group is more reliable.
5 Environmental Working Group (2002).
6 I looked up their subsidy on the internet, courtesy of the Environmental Working Group, http://www.
ewg.org, which has usefully posted the subsidy figures for every farmer in the US.
7 See, for example, the website of the Minnesota Project, a nonprofit Minnesota environmental
group, http://www.mnproject.org/csp/.
8 I make this observation with some caution, as I was myself involved in establishing this pro-
gramme. Thus readers should take into consideration that I may have some personal interest in
promoting its significance.
9 Figure for 1999 (United Nations Population Fund, 1999).
10 The precise figure of Iowa farms that raise livestock, as of the 1997 agricultural census, was 57 per
cent (National Agricultural Statistics Service, 1999, Table 2). However, the number is dropping
fast. Many thousands of hog farmers gave up during the steep price dip during the winter of
1998–1999, and thus the percentage of Iowa farms with livestock now is probably below 50 per
cent.
11 Based on dividing the number of farms in Iowa in 2002 (92,500, according to the Iowa Office of
the National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2003) by the size of the employed labour force in the
state (1,560,300, according to Iowa Workforce Development, 2003), one gets a higher figure than
the slightly less than 5 per cent I earlier derived from Otto, Swenson and Immerman (1997), to
which I have added a per cent or so for farm workers.
12 Friedland (2002, pp352, 368).
13 Blank (1998, pp1, 3, 193, 195).
14 I’m adapting a line here from the Iowa State University agricultural economist Mike Duffy (per-
sonal communication), who certainly is no fan of food as edible goo.
15 It is also the world’s largest food exporter, a point that Blank does not consider closely.
16 For examples of the Jeffersonian view that I wish to sidestep, see Comstock (1986).