Abstract
Policies are set by governments in an attempt to bring about desired ends within a society. These ends are often vaguely put and phrased in terms of values. Agrarianism, as a value, has been used to justify current farm policy. Yet, that policy has also been used as a mechanism to solve a variety of problems for the United States: those of the rural sector, farmers themselves, and even the land upon which they farm. This paper tries to separate the problems that are part of the farm crisis and to show how policies designed to solve one of the problems for one set of actors, and frequently defended in the name of agrarianism, may actually exacerbate the problems for other actors. An overarching value, however, that may further inhibit problem solution and lead us further into an expensive and ineffectual farm program is the basic value that planning is somehow bad. Agrarianism and the value of spontaneity underlie some of the current decision-making or lack thereof in the farm program.
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Additional information
Notes 1. Contribution 87-235-J from the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station.
Cornelia Butler Flora is Professor of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work at Kansas State University. She has published extensively in the areas of agricultural development and community. She is on the Advisory Board of the Aspen Institute's Rural Economic Policy Program and participated in the study by the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress on Technology, Public Policy, and the Changing Structure of American Agriculture.
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Flora, C.B. Values and the agricultural crisis: Differential problems, solutions, and value constraints. Agric Hum Values 3, 16–23 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01535481
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01535481