The explicit foci should be enabling family farmers and ranchers to capture a larger share of food system profit. Proposals should receive additional credit in the competitive funding process for demonstrating environmental benefits. Funding could be secured in part by directing existing research and market development programs toward these objectives, and in part by redirecting a portion of the federal funding baseline currently committed to direct farm income support payments. Rural Entrepreneurship Initiative One of the core strengths of the nation's farm and ranched based communities is the entrepreneurial bent of their people. Self employment rates in the farm based communities of the Dakotas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota and Nebraska are double those of other counties in the same states.
Public policy does little to nurture that strength, either on the farm or off.
The initiative should restore funding for federal beginning farmer credit programs that have long been the sole federal approach to new farm establishment. The greatest future opportunity for family farms is in high value markets. But in the mean time, most family farmers must survive in raw commodity markets. Those markets are increasingly biased against small producers, especially in livestock production. For example, large corporate hog producers use their market power to gain price premiums from meat packers not available to small producers of hogs of identical quality.