Rapporteur: Kendall M. Thu, Ph.D., The University of Iowa
Participants: Laura DeLind, Ph.D., Michigan State University
E. Paul Durrenberger, Ph.D., The University of Iowa
Cornelia Flora, Ph.D., Iowa State University
Jan Flora, Ph.D., Iowa State University
William Heffernan, Ph.D., University of Missouri
Steve Padgitt, Ph.D., Iowa State University
The social consequences of agricultural change and research in U.S. agriculture have either been ignored or occupied a peripheral position relative to mainstream agricultural science. This has resulted in producers and rural residents having minimal guidance to cope with the social consequences of the proliferation of large-scale swine production facilities. Social issues are personal, family, neighborhood, community, and group relationships, interactions, and values that influence behavior, perceptions, beliefs, quality of life, and adaptation to economic conditions in rural areas. Lack of research in this area exacerbates the frustration of producers, rural community members, and production oriented researchers in dealing with non-production facets of agricultural change.
1. The reported health and quality of life effects on people living in the vicinity of large-scale swine facilities.
Neighbors' complaints are facts. It is important to understand those facts and how they relate to one another. At issue are the reasons and warrants behind the complaints. That can be established through listening to peoples' reasons and reasonings. This is consistent with a 1985 National Science Foundation review of data quality. The validity of quantitative instruments depends on detailed qualitative understanding.
Reported problems listed in Table 1 below reveal a pattern of reported quality of life problems related but not confined to odor. These concerns are intertwined with core family and community social norms that emphasized "neighborliness." A core belief in being an ideal neighbor includes behaviors and attitudes of honesty, reciprocity, respect, and sharing an identity. The emergence of large-scale swine facilities has resulted in affronts to these core values. Such affronts trigger individual and collective responses.
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| Odor | Alteration of outdoor family activities, e.g., grilling, children playing, friends visiting. |
| Waste runoff | Contamination of private well drinking water. Contamination of public waterways; fish kills. |
| Facility presence | Decline in property values, traffic problems, flies. |
| Concentration of production | Loss of independent hog producers because of market control. |
| Economic | Job loss and control of economic conditions as the result of by-passing local economic systems. |
| Political control | Loss of political control and sense of violation of democratic principles and channels of redress. |
| Loss of community values | Loss of community values of neighborliness that include reciprocity, respect, honesty, and shared identity. |
| Health | Headaches, cough, plugged ears, watering eyes, runny nose, scratchy throat, tiredness, shortness of breath, nausea, dizziness, and tightness of chest. |
Isolation and treatment of each reported problem, e.g., odor, without data and understanding of its place, importance, and interrelationship in the actual daily lives of rural people results in an institutionalized and often politically volatile misunderstanding of the nature of complaints.
Underlying well-publicized odor issues is a more fundamental problem consisting of a pervasive frustration brought on by the lack of access to adequate means of remediation. This is also consistent with findings that loss of control may be an important contributing factor in the development of problems among neighbors living in the vicinity of large-scale swine production facilities.
Among a statewide representative sample of Iowa farmers with livestock enterprises, only 4 percent had ever received a complaint from neighbors because of odor, noise, or flies sometime in the past. Findings show that the presence of livestock operations receive farmers' attention, but do not presently reflect major problems. However, the possible arrival of new large-scale operations meets with considerable division of attitudes among Iowa farmers.
2. Large-scale swine production facilities and quality of life.
A. Access to political channels to redress problems.
Reluctance among scientists to focus on current political issues in the swine industry reflects a lack of scientific independence from political and special interest influence. Political involvement in scientific research influences the nature of information provided rural communities and feeds a concern among many farmers and other rural residents that they lack independent political and legal channels to redress their concerns. Evidence exists that local residents are disadvantaged when they seek to redress problems emanating from the operation of large-scale swine production facilities in their communities.
Based on existing data, several patterns emerge. First, the siting and construction of intensive swine facilities frequently occurs without widespread public knowledge or input. A second pattern that emerges is the practicality of seeking redress through the courts. As a solution to local conflict, a lawsuit is a formidable and expensive proposition, an avenue of redress not equally accessible to everyone. Furthermore, a lawsuit and the ensuing court "battle" overtly polarize the local population. This is a debilitating situation within a small community, one that can generate long-term resentment and little enduring social engagement, regardless of who "wins." Equally problematic is the fact that it is the nature of a lawsuit to repackage a controversy around a "winnable" issue. Third, it appears that the public controversy surrounding large-scale swine production has resulted in an elimination of, rather than an expansion of, political channels through which citizens can voice their concerns and influence official action.
B. Personal job satisfaction among new employees in swine facilities.
Most employees surveyed were satisfied with working conditions. Evaluation of the working environment did not differ across types of position, but was more positive as salaries improved. Most employees believe their wages and benefits are competitive with other job opportunities in the community and that employees feel their job provided good training to operate their own operation.
C. Sense of neighborhood identity, neighborliness, trust, and honesty.
Residents in areas with the most intense growth of large-scale swine operations indicate a sense of violation of core community and neighborhood values. When asked to describe what it means to be a good neighbor, rural residents indicate it means a sense of trust, reciprocity, honesty, and an understanding that you will help in times of need. Rural residents repeatedly voiced concern that violations were occurring across virtually all of these core values.
D. Social and ethnic divisions.
Conflicting reports make unclear the role of ethnicity and/or socioeconomic standing relative to large-scale swine production operations.
E. Community social, civic, and religious activity
The most widely known scientific approach for assessing community impacts of agricultural structure is the methodology used by Walter Goldschmidt (1978). The "Goldschmidt hypothesis" has spawned numerous scientific studies on the social impacts of farm size and other agricultural structural variables. A central finding of Goldschmidt's research was that measurable social problems are directly attributable to absentee-owned large-scale agriculture in which labor is largely provided by hired workers. As measured by virtually all types of civic activity, participation levels are higher in a community surrounded by family farms versus a community surrounded by operations with primarily hired labor.
Other research demonstrates that an agricultural laboring class is less likely to be actively involved in community affairs than are family farmers or other proprietors (where family producers are some combination of managers, workers, and usually part-owners). If agricultural laborers make up a substantial share of the local work force, there are negative implications for community life and the adequacy of community services. This lack of involvement of a particular social group and the social distance between it and the rest of the community can have a negative effect on the capacity of the community to address local issues.
F. The effects of lagoon closures on neighborhoods and communities.
Large-scale confinement facilities have appeared only recently on the rural landscape. It is not known how many have been closed or abandoned after operating for several years. According to one of the few case studies that exists, a local conflict and legal "battle" that surrounded the siting, operation and regulation of the facility was intense and did ultimately cause its closure. The residual anger created by the struggle dissuaded a community-minded owner-operator from purchasing the site.
3. Local resistance organizations.
Resistance organizations have emerged or are emerging to resist large-scale swine facilities in Iowa, North Carolina, Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Utah, Colorado, Ohio, and probably other states as well. Most of these are locally based organizations composed of farmers and rural residents in neighborhoods directly effected by a swine production facility in their area. The common denominator underlying the emergence of these local resistance organizations is a view that their rights to enjoy their property and family have been violated. The core of the problem for resistance groups is not a single isolated issue such as odor, property values, health concerns, or water contamination. More fundamental is a sense of frustration at the lack of official respect for their problems, and the resulting skepticism that their situation will be remedied through political and/or legal channels. This has resulted in an escalating social pathology.
4. Short- and long-term effects of conflict generated by large-scale swine production.
Several studies suggest that conflict itself may have a more enduring effect on the quality of life at the local level than the actual operation of a swine facility. There is a growing conviction that government selectively serves the interests of money and power and that no amount of citizen protest will affect meaningful change. A "we vs. them" mentality produces additional paranoia and distrust both within and beyond the community. The conflict polarizes community residents and tears at the fabric of community life, transforming neighbors into enemies, severely straining friendships and family relationships.
5. Social impacts of having more employed people in a community in place of family farmers.
Research on industrial-farm counties in California, Arizona, Texas, and Florida found that mean farm size (in acres), gross farm sales, as well as high levels of mechanization predict declining community conditions. On average, farm, non-farm, and even urban people in the more highly industrial-agriculture counties experienced worse conditions than residents in counties where agriculture was less heavily dominated by industrial agriculture. These patterns were especially pronounced when rural communities from which agricultural labor was drawn were compared with the nonmetropolitan population of the entire U.S. It is worth noting, however, that percent of farms with full-time hired labor was positively related to community conditions.
The following conclusions can be drawn:
· Scale itself may not be the key factor related to quality of life in the community or county where production is located. There is evidence that a shift to larger farms diminishes the forward and backward linkages to the local community in the industrialized agriculture counties of California, Arizona, Texas, Florida (CATF), and states in the Great Plains. In a study of farming dependent counties of the Great Plains, counties which had retained many of their moderate-sized farms were more successful at retaining non-farm population and total population than were counties which showed sharp gains in large farms.
· Labor force indicators of industrial agriculture affect individual/family and community quality of life in diverse ways. Within the industrial agriculture zone of CATF states, the greater the dominance of industrial agriculture in a county the more negative were indicators of family and community well-being. Studies of all non-metropolitan counties of the U.S. give mixed results, suggesting the patterns vary by region.
6. Data from the poultry industry used to assess the efficacy of swine industry contracts.
One of the major consequences of the contract poultry production was the alienation experienced by grower/workers who felt the work they did had little meaning and was not worthwhile because they had little decision-making opportunity. They had a sense of powerlessness and often experienced social isolation. Several conclusion can be drawn from studies of the poultry industry.
1) Workers in corporate farmhand operations are much less involved in the formal and political activities of the community than are the workers in family farm operations.
2) Owner-managers in corporate farmhand operations are much more involved in the formal and political aspects of the community than workers in the family farm operation.
3) The first two conclusions clearly suggest that the corporate farmhand operation, relative to the family farm operations, begins to emphasize the two extremes with regard to community political involvement. This type of agricultural structure suggests the development of two rather distinct classes for rural Americans which undermines the traditional American ideal of equality.
4) There is little difference between workers in the corporate-integrated operation and workers in the family farm operation with regard to community involvement.
An increasing number of poultry growers are joining the National Poultry Growers Association in an effort to equalize the power relationship between growers and the firms. The major inequity continues to stem from the fact that the duration of the loans on the poultry buildings exceeds by many years the period covered by the marketing contracts. A second issue is that during the early phase of the restructuring, competition existed between firms in the geographic areas. But over time, the older production areas are "sub-divided" into areas where only one company dominates. There is reason to believe the same will occur in pork production.
7. Privatization of information.
Typically, information generated for production and marketing in agriculture, including the swine industry, has been available through publicly supported institutions or associations of independent producers. Some discussions of privatization center on reducing the role of the public sector in dispersing information. Increased research investment by private firms contributes to the fear that products of proprietary investment will not be size neutral or equally accessible to all producers. If changes in the swine industry follow the poultry industry, markets might disappear, and independent producers would be become residual suppliers. In that context, reported market information would become meaningless because it would not take into account the bulk of pork production. Presently, there is little research on the effects, if any, on the privatization of information and whether it has placed independent producers at a disadvantage.
The swine industry is an important part of the U.S. agricultural economy and a critical part of the farm economy in Iowa and other midwestern states. However, as recent events amply demonstrate, an economy does not exist in a social vacuum. If agricultural research and the swine industry does not acknowledge, understand, and embrace social agricultural research, then problems will persist. However, if social impact assessments become components of swine industry change, and social factors are seriously considered, then social scientists can provide critical information to nurture a truly thriving swine industry.