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- Title
Ethnic Communities and the Structure of Agriculture.
- Authors
Salamon, Sonya
- Abstract
An implicit assumption is generally made regarding farmers; they organize their operations to optimize returns. This paper describes field studies of two ethnic farming communities, one of German-Catholic ancestry and the other of Yankee ancestry, whose origin prior to following the U.S. frontier west was in the non-Catholic British Isles. Despite similar farm soils and separation by only 20 miles, significant differences exist between the communities in farm size and organization. German farms are smaller and diversified with dairy, hogs and beef, and grain in contrast to the larger Yankee monoculture grain operations. Farming strategies are demonstrated as selected within a context of ethnically derived family and farming goals, more complex than short-run profit optimization. Germans are motivated to replicate family farm and family land ownership in each generation, while Yankees are driven by more entrepreneurial motives. These contrasting farming strategies, it is argued, represent persistent parallel patterns in midwestern agriculture. Each pattern is shown to have differing implications for local land tenure and integenerational succession.
- Publication
Rural Sociology, 1985, Vol 50, Issue 3, p323
- ISSN
0036-0112
- Publication type
Academic Journal