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W Chad Futrell Thesis for Thesis Advisor August 2 PDF

93 Pages·2005·0.72 MB·English
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Preview W Chad Futrell Thesis for Thesis Advisor August 2

DAIRY INDUSTRIALIZATION AND SPRAWL IN AN UPSTATE NEW YORK COUNTY A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science by William Chad Futrell August 2005 © 2005 William Chad Futrell ABSTRACT In this thesis I examine the interaction of agricultural industrialization and sprawl in an upstate New York county. A longitudinal representative case study of dairy farming in Ontario County, NY was conducted in order to evaluate the efficacy of the treadmill of technology and impermanence syndrome hypotheses in explaining dairy farm survival and expansion. According to the treadmill of technology hypothesis, larger farmers are more likely to adopt capital and management-intensive technology. They are then more likely to expand their operations in part to increase the returns on their investment. Those farmers that do not adopt these technologies are more likely to exit agricultural production. The impermanence syndrome hypothesis, on the other hand, holds that farms located in areas experiencing urban sprawl are likely to experience a number of negative externalities, including complaints about their operations. These farmers are less likely to continue investing in their farms because they foresee selling their land to developers. These farmers are thus more likely to exit agricultural production. The case study site, Ontario County, NY, was chosen because it has experienced many of the processes representative of the Northeast. Namely, the County is a traditional dairy farming area where the number of farms has been declining and the size of farms increasing. Also, the traditionally rural County is experiencing increasing urban sprawl emanating from Rochester. I collected primary and secondary qualitative and quantitative data on the County in order to build the case study. Qualitative data included numerous site visits and interviews with community leaders and residents in order to understand the historical and socio-economic context. Quantitative data included Census of Agriculture data on the County’s agricultural sector, with particular emphasis on dairy farming. I also used national Census data and tax parcel data to chart population and housing flows as well as the conversion of farmland to non-agricultural uses. Finally, the case study hinges upon surveys conducted on a group of Ontario County dairy farmers in 1993, 1998, and 2002. While the original intention of the study was to follow 50 dairy farmers over a 10 year period, the high number of farm exits among the group made this impossible. As such, my thesis discusses the results of the initial survey along with the farmers still dairy farming in 1998 and 2002. Employing the analytic technique of pattern matching, the case study produced contradictory findings in terms of the two hypotheses examined. In terms of the treadmill of technology hypothesis, the on-farm panel surveys showed that adopting capital-intensive technologies increased the likelihood of expanding production to become a very large dairy farm but did not necessarily ensure that the farm would continue dairy farming. In terms of the impermanence syndrome hypothesis, the results show that scholars must be more precise when operationalizing their studies. While scholars have generally used the perception of sprawl as a proxy for objectively measured sprawl, the perception of sprawl was strongly associated with farm exit in the 1993 survey with objective sprawl being a stronger indicator in the 1998 survey. Likewise, complaints from neighbors were more associated with the size of the dairy farm than the existence of urban sprawl. I showed that the treadmill of technology and impermanence syndrome hypotheses should not necessarily be seen as rival hypotheses but rather complement one another. That is, farms located in more rural areas are more likely to expand their production than those located in sprawl areas. Also, larger farms are more likely to perceive sprawl, in part because they are more likely to receive complaints. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH W. Chad Futrell was raised on a mixed-crop farm in Southeastern North Carolina. Attending local schools until the age of 16, Chad left his hometown to attend the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. Chad then attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he studied religious studies and economics. He also spent his junior year abroad at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom where he focused on European philosophy, particularly existentialism and postmodernism. During his time at UNC and Sussex, Chad participated and led several student environmental and social justice groups, including the Student Environmental Action Coalition. After graduating from UNC, Chad used a Frances B. Philips Travel Scholarship to study the interaction of Buddhism and Daoism at a temple in South Korea. At the conclusion of the scholarship Chad began volunteering at the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement and teaching English. After three years in Korea, Chad entered Cornell University in order to study Environmental Management in the Department of Applied Economics and Management through a joint program with the Peace Corps. Upon meeting several of the professors in the Department of Development Sociology, however, Chad transferred in order to pursue an M.S. and Ph. D in that department. In preparation for dissertation research Chad returned to Korea during the summers for intensive Korean instruction at Yonsei University and is currently enrolled in advanced Korean classes at Sogang University in Seoul. Chad also spent the 2003-2004 academic year studying in Cornell’s Department of Asian Studies’ intensive Chinese FALCON program, receiving a Certificate for advanced Mandarin after the Spring semester at Tsinghua University in Beijing. iii I would like to dedicate this thesis to the farmers of southeastern North Carolina, especially those farmers who lost their farms because of factors beyond their control. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As is always the case in projects as large and time-consuming as a Master’s thesis, there are many people without whose help I would not have been able to complete this thesis. I would like to first thank my committee of Thomas Lyson, Max Pfeffer, and Gilbert Gillespie. Their guidance and patience in commenting on successive drafts helped me write a much clearer and more focused thesis. Gil especially went beyond the call of duty in giving feedback throughout the research process and did a lot of the little things necessary to carry the project through to fruition. I would also like to thank the scholars involved in the USDA NE-177 project on the Structural Transformation of the Dairy Industry, without whose research support I would not have been able to make the numerous site visits necessary to fully understand the processes examined. This research project was important to me both academically and personally because of my own farming background. Courses and conversations with Tom, Gil, and Phil McMichael helped me understand the local and global processes that transformed my hometown of Duplin County, NC from a mixed- farm agricultural area to one of the hubs of industrial hog farming. I would like to thank Hannah Witman and Rachel Bezner-Kerr for comments on early drafts as well as Megan Pile-Spellman, Mike Craig, and Gayatri Menon for similar help on later iterations. Also, taking and later TAing quantitative methods courses with Joe Francis helped me understand logistical regression and other multivariate methods. While I learned an immense amount through writing this thesis, I must admit that much of what I have learned during my time at Cornell had little to do with dairy farming or sprawl. I transferred from Applied Economics to Development Sociology because I was immensely stimulated by my conversations with Development Sociology faculty and students. I have never regretted my transferring, and believe that Development Sociology and Cornell are the best places in the world to study my v passions; namely agriculture, the environment, social movements, and East Asia. Indeed, from my first class in the department, Tom, Phil, Chuck Geisler and others constantly challenged my thinking on these and other topics. In terms of intellectual stimulation as well as friendship, I would be remiss if I did not mention Rajeev Patel, Andreas Hernandez, and Malinda Seneviratne. I consider all three of these amazingly unique individuals to be brothers, their intellectual creativity and sheer passion for both life and social justice a constant reminder to continually strive to make things even a little bit better. Likewise, Kelly Dietz, Hannah, Anna Zalik, and Hyun-ok Lee are sisters whose commitment to activism both local and global continually inspires me. I transferred to Development Sociology in part because of the engaged academic activism pursued by Raj, Kelly, and others, and will always look back fondly and with pride at the seminal role of our grad students in starting both the Ithaca Coalition for Social Justice and The Cobbler Newspaper. I would thus like to thank groups involved with my study of Korea and China, starting with the inspiring activists at the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement. Conversations with and TAing for Prof. Chul-Kyoo Kim, a department alum and Korea University professor, helped me understand Korea’s recent history more fully. The amazing Chinese teachers at Cornell’s FALCON program and Tsinghua University’s IUP program, and the Korean teachers at Sogang University deserve special mention for dragging me towards fluency. I truly did not believe I could learn these brutally difficulty languages, but having given academic talks in both, I am now a believer. I will always be especially indebted to Stephanie Hoare-Divo (He Laoshi) for selecting me for the summer and AY FALCON FLAS fellowships. Likewise, the staff at Cornell’s East Asia program deserve praise for continually securing funding so that I could spend every summer either in Korea or China. vi Cornell is a special place because of the strength of its various programs as well being located in Ithaca. I have probably explored the various communities nestled in these settings more than the average graduate student, and have benefited enormously by doing so. I would like to thank Brenda Wickes for hiring me to be a Graduate Community Assistant at Hasbrouck Apartments. The Hasbrouck staff and community were wonderful diversions from my studies, and I will always appreciate the residents being patient with my faulty Korean and Mandarin. Also, some of my most engaging and stimulating conversations were in Sibley Hall with the architecture students. I especially thank Justin Cipriani and Joseph Beneviste for helping me conceptualize space in new ways as we explored the forests and gorges around the Finger Lakes. I would like to thank Aaron Kofner and the Ithaca College crew for introducing me to a lot of amazing music. Likewise, Andreas introduced me to Nathan Newman and the rest of the Chateau, a place full of laughter and goodwill. Finally, I would like to thank Anna, Hannah, Hyun-ok, Gayatri, and Kyungwoon Chang for many delicious meals and for letting me crash at their places more often than was polite. Kyungwoon in particular supported me as much as she possibly could. All of my achievements, including this thesis, would not have been possible without the unwavering love and support of my family. My brother Marty has always inspired me by his dedication and hard work. Likewise, my mother, Brenda, has supported me through thick and thin, and has been more than understanding of my spending most of my adult life in Asia. I would like to end these acknowledgements by thanking my father Jimmy, grandfather James, and great uncle Mort for teaching me about farming, both its good and bad aspects, and for raising me to treat all people with respect and kindness. I truly believe that it is my family and farming background that have enabled me to connect so easily with the farmers and activists of Korea and China. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH iii DEDICATION iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v LIST OF FIGURES ix LIST OF TABLES x CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION, RESEARCH QUESTIONS, LITERATURE 1 REVIEW, AND STUDY RATIONALE CHAPTER 2 RESEARCH DESIGN, METHODS OF ANALYSIS, AND 18 CONCEPTS CHAPTER 3 ONTARIO COUNTY, NY 33 CHAPTER 4 DAIRY FARM SURVEYS: RESULTS AND ANALYSIS 52 CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 70 REFERENCES 75 viii

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dairy farming in Ontario County, NY was conducted in order to evaluate the efficacy . farm agricultural area to one of the hubs of industrial hog farming CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION, RESEARCH QUESTIONS, LITERATURE.
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