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New avenues of farm corporatization in the prairie grains sector: farm family entrepreneurs and the case of One Earth Farms

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Abstract

This paper addresses longstanding debates around changing patterns of farm ownership and structure on the North American plains. Over the last 150 years, the agrifood system has been transformed by a process of capitalist penetration through which non-farm capital has appropriated key links in the ‘food chain’. Today, large, often transnational corporations dominate in the provision of farm inputs, as well as in food processing, distribution, and retailing. The paradox for food system scholars has been that primary food production (i.e., farming) has generally remained in the hands of independent, family-based operations, especially in the grains sector. This paradox has generated a substantial literature on the barriers to capitalist penetration in agriculture. I revisit these debates in light of two recent trends. First, I highlight the emergence of a class of farm family entrepreneurs comprised of very large, albeit family-owned, grain farming operations, in Saskatchewan. I provide a case study of a vertically integrated, family-based mega-farm to illustrate. Second, I discuss the implications of the launch of One Earth Farms, a corporate farming entity embodying altogether new strategies of land use, labor, and ownership. Structured as a partnership between a Toronto-based investment firm and nine First Nations bands, One Earth Farms brings together the interests of private investors who increasingly view agriculture as a profitable resource sector, and aboriginal communities hoping to redress the historical marginalization of First Nations farming. I interpret the significance of these new avenues of corporatization for “family farms” and prairie agricultural development.

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Notes

  1. In Canada, the term First Nations is used to refer collectively to aboriginal peoples recognized in the constitution as Indians. It serves to distinguish First Nations peoples from Canada’s two other groups of aboriginal peoples, the Inuit and the Métis. Many aboriginal peoples use the term First Nation to refer to their communities (e.g., the Muskoday First Nation).

  2. In 2007, 27% of Saskatchewan farms reported a net loss from farming despite a positive total household income (Statistics Canada 2008).

  3. In 2006, there were a total of 28,012 field crop farms in Saskatchewan. If we assume the proportion of field crop farms in the “million dollar” category in Canada (1.5%) is the same as that in Saskatchewan, then there are approximately 420 “million dollar” field crop farms (1.5% of 28,012) in Saskatchewan. Using the same approach for other types of farms yields estimates of 38 “million dollar” hog and pig farms (18% of 211) and 34 “million dollar” poultry and egg operations (15% of 225) in Saskatchewan.

  4. After 1996, the Canadian Census of Agriculture replaced the category “individual or family farm” with “sole proprietorship.”

  5. Rates of farm incorporation are higher in Canada than in the U.S. In 2002, 3.5% of all U.S. farms were corporations, with 88 percent of these considered family-farm corporations (Lobao and Stofferahn 2008, p. 239).

  6. According to Gertler (2007), there are between 20 and 40 farming cooperatives in Saskatchewan, including both machinery cooperatives and production cooperatives, based on estimates produced by different researchers in 2000 and 2006.

  7. There are only approximately 500 First Nations farmers in the province, of which 100 are grain farmers and 250 are livestock producers (Pratt 2003).

  8. Both minimum till (sometimes called no-till or conservation tillage) practices (Hall 1998) and precision farming (Wolf and Wood 1997) have been constructed by industry actors and the farm press as “environmentally sustainable,” even though these methods still depend upon large-scale use of agro-chemicals and fossil fuels. Although they are less input-intensive than older methods, minimum till and precision farming nonetheless still rely on the “biophysical overrides” (Weis 2010) that mask the ecological contradictions of industrial agriculture.

  9. In a policy designed to restrict First Nations to a form of peasant agriculture, they were prohibited from using modern farming implements, restricted to very small holdings and prevented from selling agricultural produce without the permission of the Indian agent (Carter 1990).

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  1. Department of Sociology and Social Studies, University of Regina, Regina, Canada

    André Magnan

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Magnan, A. New avenues of farm corporatization in the prairie grains sector: farm family entrepreneurs and the case of One Earth Farms. Agric Hum Values 29, 161–175 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-011-9327-9

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