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In recent years, the long-standing questions of why, how, and which farm families continue farming in the face of ongoing changes have increasingly been studied through the resilience lens. While this body of work is providing updated and novel insights, two limitations, a focus on macro-level challenges faced by the farm operation and a mismatch between the scale of challenges and resilience measures, likely limit our understanding of the factors at play. We use the example of medical economic vulnerability, a micro-level challenge traditionally confined to the household sphere of the agri-family system, as a way to call attention to these limitations. Focusing on United States (U.S.) farm households, we assess: (1) To what extent are they experiencing medical economic vulnerability when using objective and subjective outcome measures? (2) Which demographic and farm characteristics are associated with experiencing medical economic vulnerability? (3) What is the association between institutional arrangements and medical economic vulnerability? Our analysis of over 900 surveys coupled with a conceptual framework merging complementary insights from three bodies of literature revealed seemingly large differences in the prevalence of medical economic vulnerability across the objective and subjective measures with the subjective measure indicating a general sentiment of medical economic vulnerability in a majority of respondents. Conversely, limited variations were noted in who experiences medical vulnerability on the basis of demographic and farm characteristics, with stronger associations being connected to the households' health insurance arrangements. We conclude with three implications of our findings for the farm resilience literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some farm scholars have contended that agricultural policies are seldom designed with the well-being and social needs of farm households in mind, even though the challenges experienced in the farm sector directly impact the farm household. Surprisingly little is known about how farm households meet their social needs and the role of social policy in the agricultural sector. As a first step towards a holistic understanding of the interactions between social policy, farm viability, and farm persistence, we conducted a cross-national comparative document review of government-sponsored social safety net programs available to farm households in two countries on opposite sides of the social policy continuum: France and the United States. In particular, we developed a foundational framework of social safety net programs to be used in future empirical work, identified four factors that may shape farm households' use of social safety net programs and potential consequences on family farms, and propose a research agenda to move the literature forward. By grounding our article in the farm persistence theoretical tradition, our article offers an opportunity to reframe and broaden approaches to study family farms by highlighting the critical need for understanding the ways in which institutional social supports may play a role in supporting them. • Article extend family farm literature by considering household level difficulties. • Propose a bridge between the family farm and social policy literatures. • Reframe the debate on farm families by highlighting the role institutional supports may play in farm persistence. • Develop a foundational framework of institutionalized social supports. • Outline a research agenda to study the interactions between social needs, social policy, and farm persistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite population growth and development at the rural-urban interface (RUI), agriculture continues to persist there. This resilience is partially a reflection of land use policies and market support programs designed to protect farm and ranch land that is vulnerable to nonfarm development. Studies examining the RUI primarily focus on the diversity of production and markets and do not discuss the diversity of operators. As the farmland protection and food systems movements continue to refine policy objectives and decide how to allocate scarce resources, it is critical to have up-to-date statistics on the health and vitality of agriculture at the RUI. Using the 2007 Census of Agriculture statistics, we examine (1) the spatial distribution by county of high-value production and marketing practices assumed to play a role in the persistence and vitality of agriculture at the RUI; and (2) the demographic characteristics of farmers in these counties. We find that only some types of high-value production and marketing systems are more prevalent in metropolitan regions, including horses, nursery-greenhouse, and direct sales, while organic production, recreation sales, CSA farms, and value-added farms are more likely to be concentrated in nonmetropolitan counties. We also find that farmers at the RUI are extremely diverse and that a substantial number of beginning and women farmers are found in nonmetropolitan counties, along with a small but notable number of African American, Hispanic and Native American farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Despite assumptions that agriculture will automatically go into a mode of decline at the Rural Urban Interface (RUI), official statistics suggest that agriculture as a whole remains a strong (and in some cases a growing) industry in many U.S. RUI counties. RUI scholars have acknowledged internal family dynamics can significantly influence farm persistence and adaptation strategies, however, few studies have sought to document the specific role succession has on farm structure at the RUI. Building off rural geography models of farm organization at the RUI and succession research embedded in rural studies we analyze interviews from 33 U.S. farm families to 1) explore the relationship between farm adaptation and succession at the RUI, and 2) examine how succession is related to the different types of enterprises found at the RUI (direct marketers vs. commodity producers) and the types of growth strategies these farm families implement. We find that families who can not identify an heir either disinvest or enter a static management mode. Among farm families who can identify an heir we identify a variety of horizontal and vertical growth strategies (expanding, intensifying, and entrepreneurial stacking) designed to achieve farm reproduction goals. We discuss the theoretical and policy related implications of this research. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]