Farm Systems Stressors. The farming population and the business of farming are affected by farming systems stressors from four areas of challenge: economic, environmental, social, and institutional (Meuissen et al., 2019). Farming systems are challenged to hold up to, adapt, and/or transform in response to increasingly complex impacts from all four areas. The interconnectedness, dynamics of change, and uncertainties arising from each area of challenge can lead to extraordinary stressors on farming systems.
Americans saw firsthand supply chain problems early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Milk is used to explain supply chain problems in this 10-minute video from June 2020 titled, “Why American Farmers are Throwing out Tons of Milk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MODobm9mW Ik
VIDEO
In this 9- minute video from NBC, “The Last Days of an American Dairy Farm: Hard to Believe It’s Over,” a corporate decision by Walmart led to dairy farmers no longer having contracts - a disruption in the production, processing, and distribution systems. In this video, the three-generation Coombs family dairy farming business shut down of their operations is documented.
VIDEO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEI6HbCZjRQ
Stress Varies across Farming Populations. Historically, and to some extent, in 2021, the word farmer is used to connote White males. An extensive review of the topic of women in agriculture is included in a 2016 thesis (Shisler, 2016). Over the years, agricultural census data were focused on males only. In more recent years, women were included, and Census questions were changed to better reflect the diversity of people in farming and agriculture production. The 2017 Census of Agriculture reported a 64% male; 36% female distribution of producers. Producers were defined as anyone involved in farm decision-making. This Census expanded data collection to include information data about young, new, and beginning (27%) and military service (11%) producers (for the first time). Producers were identified as: 95% White, 3% Hispanic; 1.7% American
22
Powered by FlippingBook