Growing number of farmers aren’t relying on the harvest to make ends meet.
Research shows more farmers aren’t relying on the harvest to make ends meet, and the trend is changing the economic distance between rural and urban communities.
“I don’t want to paint this as challenge for agriculture,” Alan Spell, an assistant extension professor at the University of Missouri, said in an interview with The Center Square. “In many ways, it’s kind of the opposite. It’s just a story that hasn’t been told very much.”
Spell co-authored the report “The Importance of Off-Farm Income to the Agricultural Economy.” The research shows the growing interdependence of rural and urban economies over the decades. As productivity increased on the farm, farmers and other workers in rural areas began heading toward urban counties to work other jobs.
On average, 82% of farm household income is earned outside the farm. Spell said rural economic development programs would be more successful if they accounted for this trend.
“Farming is the ultimate story of productivity,” Spell said. “It’s become more and more productive where we just don’t need as many people on the farm as we did before. They can still get products to market, they just don’t need to spend all their time there.”