Comments on: Michael Pollan on Agribusiness Populism http://ruralpopulist.org/2008/10/25/michael-pollan-on-agribusiness-populism/ Rural News and Views Mon, 21 May 2012 16:59:25 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.2 by: ruralhistorian http://ruralpopulist.org/2008/10/25/michael-pollan-on-agribusiness-populism/#comment-32615 Fri, 01 Jan 2010 16:48:57 +0000 http://ruralpopulist.org/2008/10/25/michael-pollan-on-agribusiness-populism/#comment-32615 I'm enjoying this blog. Re: Pollan's comments, I was struck, reading about the Country Life Movement and New Deal farm policy in the first decades of the 20th century, how there's this idea that "farmers learned how to play the game, and became beneficiaries of government programs." The idea is that these farmers, who had previously been populists (and self-reliant) all of a sudden shifted direction and became masters at "gaming" the system. My suspicion (and I'll probably do some research on this in the next year or so) is that there are two distinct groups of farmers. Between 1920 and 1930, America lost hundreds of thousands of medium sized farms, but gained thousands of really large farms. I think it was these early agribusinesses that learned to grab government money, and changed the rural game in ways we're only now recognizing. I’m enjoying this blog. Re: Pollan’s comments, I was struck, reading about the Country Life Movement and New Deal farm policy in the first decades of the 20th century, how there’s this idea that “farmers learned how to play the game, and became beneficiaries of government programs.” The idea is that these farmers, who had previously been populists (and self-reliant) all of a sudden shifted direction and became masters at “gaming” the system.

My suspicion (and I’ll probably do some research on this in the next year or so) is that there are two distinct groups of farmers. Between 1920 and 1930, America lost hundreds of thousands of medium sized farms, but gained thousands of really large farms. I think it was these early agribusinesses that learned to grab government money, and changed the rural game in ways we’re only now recognizing.

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