increase prices, to produce other crops/products, to adopt labor-saving technology, or to go out of business or move production overseas. In crop agriculture, fruit, vegetable and horticultural producers have high farm costs and would be most affected by immigration reforms. In the United States, Hispanics were the principal operators of 51% of the farms and ranches in the 1997-2002 period (Dohm, 2005). This trend might become even stronger in the future.
Unemployment in rural areas is exacerbated by a trend for farms to be abandoned or sold for other purposes (EC, 2004, 2007). To realize an adequate income, farmers leave their farms or combine farming with another job. Women have a higher tendency than men to leave rural areas. Conversely, larger farms have difficulty finding enough qualified personnel. Better-educated and skilled persons seek other opportunities because the hard and dirty work of agriculture is unattractive. In the future, without sufficient labor, many farms will be forced out of business.
More than half of all farm holdings in EU-15 are owned by farmers above 55 years of age, and one out of three farms, by farmers above the age of 65. Less than one out of twelve farm holdings in EU-15 is owned by farmers under the age of 35 years. The economic transformation in countries of Central/Eastern Europe and Asia caused significant changes in agricultural labor use. Estonia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia all have an aging agricultural population. For the other countries, the relative importance of the oldest age group fell in the period up to 2000 (IAMO, 2003). The average agricultural labor force migration rate varies between approx. 8% in Estonia and 10% in Georgia (Herzfeld and Glauben, 2006).
Success in agriculture has been based on production skills for at least 10,000 years. Producers learned about crops and animals and understood seasonal cycles and the need to adapt to climate and pest unpredictability. Knowledge was transferred from parent to child and from neighbor to neighbor. Today's farmers need a larger range of skills. They need relationship skills to effectively cooperate with input and information suppliers. Farmers need knowledge and market skills, particularly to reach emerging markets. They frequently enter collaborative agreements with fellow producers in new models of cooperation. In addition to production skills, today's growers need mechanical/technical skills and financial management skills (Butler-Flora, 1998). But there are still many poorly educated farmers in North America and Europe. Most of the people living in rural Poland (aged 13 years and more) have no more than a secondary education (Central Statistical Office of Poland, 2007). On the other hand, in Estonia and Hungary, almost 10% of those active in agriculture have a university qualification or the equivalent (IAMO, 2003).
5.4.4.2 Organizations: ongoing trends
Farmer associations. Today in North America and Europe, most farms and ranches are still small (Dohm, 2005), but they are getting larger and more concentrated. Many farmers sign contracts with large businesses to secure outlets for their products. Others sell their products themselves elsewhere, such as on commodity exchanges but they have greater exposure to the risks and vagaries of the open market. There is great variation in the level of influence of farm- |
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ers' organizations. In North America and most of Western Europe, some groups (e.g., cotton or wheat in the USA) are well organized politically and have a platform to directly influence resources that support their commodity.
Inputs enterprises. These companies supply seed, fertilizers, pesticides and other components needed to produce crops. Within the last fifteen years, agricultural inputs have become highly concentrated within a small number of companies. Less than ten multinational companies control the lion's share of the global pesticide and the global seed market. These companies also control nearly all of the private sector agricultural research.
Processing/marketing enterprises. These companies buy agricultural products and process them for the marketplace or make them available to consumers without further processing. The largest of these companies are multinational in scope and wield tremendous influence on agriculture and AKST. For example, Frito-Lay which controls about 40% of the snack food market worldwide and is the largest snack food company in more than thirty countries. If the company needs a certain type of agriculture product or refuses a certain type of commodity, agriculture and AKST will be revised to accommodate them. Even though the genetically engineered NewLeaf potato was a valuable tool for pest management, potato farmers in the United States quit growing them largely because McDonald's corporation told their suppliers not to use NewLeaf potatoes in their french fries.
Media. The media has a powerful influence on consumer preferences; consumers reflect their desires in the marketplace and the polling booth. The tremendous growth of the organic market, for example, is largely driven by the media depiction of pesticide risks; whether or not the risks are accurately depicted is largely irrelevant. The marketplace determines what agricultural products will be produced and how they will be distributed. Elected officials determine resource allocation and a broad range of policies and regulations affecting agriculture and AKST.
Agricultural universities/colleges. Universities and colleges conduct most of the public-sector research. Researchers typically have a long career with a single institution. Hiring decisions by the university or college can have substantial implications for the direction and progress of AKST.
Although these actors have been presented individually, their influence is a much more complicated interaction. For example, a processing company may use the media to promote cotton as a clothing material. As consumer demand for cotton increases, cotton producers need to increase productivity. The university recognizes a need for a cotton AKST position to help cotton growers achieve production goals. The companies that provide inputs for cotton production introduce new plant varieties and chemicals that the cotton researcher incorporates into a more efficient production system. The cycle repeats as the media report that cotton production degrades the environment; the processing company demands more environmentally-friendly cotton; the university turns its attention to more sustainable produc- |