Community Influence on Farm Adaptation at the RUI: Urban Oriented Agriculture at the RUI

1
Community Influence on Farm Adaptation at the
RUI Urban Oriented Agriculture at the RUI

• Shoshanah Inwood, Jeff Sharp, Jill Clark
• Ohio State University
• Doug Jackson Smith and Lori Porreca
• Utah State University

2
Agricultural Change at the RUI Models
Literature

• Central Place Based Models
• Von Thunen
• Sinclair Model (1967)
• Farm Individual Level Models
• Johnston and Bryant(1987)
• Heimlich and Brooks (1989)
• Multi-Level Models
• Smithers and Johnson (2004)
• Ag Adaptation Models
• Lapping and Pfeffer (1995)
• Lockeretz (1997)

3
Does Agriculture Exist at the RUI?

• Assumption Agriculture will
• continue to decline at the RUI
• Empirical Reality Agriculture continues to
  persist at the RUI and is highly diverse
• Question How prevalent are
• urban oriented agricultural
• enterprises at the RUI

4
Significance of Agriculture at the RUI

5
Rural-Urban Interface Counties
6
Ag. Important Counties at RUI
7
Typology of Agriculture at the RUI

• Focus on Sales, Farms, and Farmland
• Total of 619 RUI-AI Counties
• Case Studies in 7 Counties

Typology Spectrum
n
8
Comparison and Focus on Types

• U.S. Census beginning to add new items that may
  be appropriate for study of RUI agricultural
  change
• Organic Sales (1997)
• Horses (expanded coverage in 2002)
• Sales Directly to Consumers (1997)
• Recreational Services (2002)
• Nursery Greenhouse Sales (longstanding)
• Questionhow useful are these for studying
  agriculture at the RUI?
• 2002 Census of Ag Data from 3068 counties
• Evidence from Case Study Counties

9
Analysis of Urban Oriented Census Data

• Two Basic Questions
• Q1 Are practices commonly thought of as urban
  oriented agricultural really more common in metro
  areas? Metro vs. NonMetro
• Q2 If these enterprises are more numerous at the
  RUI, are they more common in agriculturally
  important counties or in metro counties with more
  limited agricultural activity? AI vs. NAI

10
Nursery Greenhouse Sales (2002)
Q1 80.8 of greenhouse and nursery sales occur
in Metro counties compared to only 19.2 of
sales occurring in Non-Metro counties. Q2
Greenhouse and nursery sales are more predominant
in AI counties. Twice as many greenhouse sales
occur in AI counties vs. NAI counties.
11
Sales Directly to Consumers (2002)
Q1 Fifty three percent of direct sales are in
Metro counties (and when excluding California, it
is 63). Q2 Although direct sales are greater
in Metro-AI counties, 42.3 of direct sales are
occurring in NAI counties.
12
Horse Sales (2002)

• Q1 74.2 of horse sales occur in Metro counties
  compared to only 25.8 of sales occurring in
  NonMetro counties.
• Q2 Horse sales tend to disproportionally occur
  in NAI counties compared to what would be
  expected with total sales.

13
Organic Sales (2002)

Q1 Excluding California sales, 59.6 of sales
occur in NonMetro counties compared to 40.4 in
Metro. If CA were included, organic production
would appear to be a more Metro phenomena. Q2
Organic sales are higher in AI counties when
California is both included (84.5) and excluded
(68.7).
14
Recreational Service Income (2002)
Q1 Income from recreational services is
concentrated in NonMetro counties. 2.5 times
more recreational sales occur in NonMetro
counties compared to Metro. Q2 There is 3.5
times more sales generated in NAI counties
compared to AI counties.  
15
Analysis of Urban Oriented Case Study Data

• 7 Case Study Counties
• Frederick County, Maryland
• Yamhill County, Oregon
• Kent County, Michigan
• Shelby and Spencer Counties, Kentucky
• Hall and Forsythe Counties, Georgia
• Examine
• Census of Ag Quantitative Data
• Sales
• Farms
• Qualitative Data

16
Shifts in Commodity Mix Towards Higher Value
Commodities

17
Urban Oriented Agriculture Indicatorspercent of
Farms and Sales
18
Manifestations of Urban Oriented Agriculture in
Case Study Counties

• Nursery and Greenhouse
• Most rapidly increasing commodity
• Agro-ecology Influences
• Sales vs. Number of farms
• Direct Sales
• Increasing but highly variable
• Not enough farmers to fill demand But not enough
  customer demand
• Horses
• Some outlet for direct sales of hay- links into
  agritourism
• Historical split between horses and agriculture
• Organic Agriculture
• Few examples among small scale direct marketers
• Less than 0.00 of sales in any case study county
• Recreation
• Some agritourism, but perceived notion of
  competition

19
Some Conclusions

• Strategies that have been generically labeled as
  urban oriented do not always occur most
  frequently in metropolitan areas
• Direct sales, horse sales and greenhouse sales do
  correspond to indicators of urban oriented
  agriculture identified in the literature
• New USDA data might prove useful in long term
• But, amounts, are still quite modest in
  comparison to traditional commodity production
• Case Study Counties demonstrate the nuanced
  complexity of urban oriented production at the
  RUI
• Questions about the importance of local vs.
  non-local markets

20

• Special Thanks to the USDA-NRI for Funding
•   http//exurban.osu.edu/agadapt.htm

21
Definition of AI Counties

• Agriculturally Important Counties were defined
  as
• Either in the top quartile of sales in 1987 or
  2002, or second quartile of sales in 1987 or 2002
  
• AND top quartile of sales/farmland or
  sales/cropland in 1987 or 2002
• And had greater then 50 farms