Debate endures about consolidation among farmers in Kansas By EMILY BEHLMAN The Garden City Telegram Brian Mitchell has been around farming his entire life. His grandfather arrived in the Elkhart area in the 1950s and established the operation where Brian and his father, Kenneth Mitchell, now work. While his father is the kind of farmer "who loves to smell the dirt," Mitchell said, it is neither desirable nor advisable for Mitchell to be out in the fields every day. Instead, he spends his time in the office just south of the Kansas-Oklahoma line, managing operations of the 33,000-acre farm that sprawls across the state line. The growth has come gradually as opportunities arise to purchase land, though technological advancements have allowed the family to farm more land with the same inputs of equipment and personnel, Mitchell said. Getting big is one way established farmers find success. And those who have big farms benefit most from the commodities title of the far-reaching farm bill, legislation revised every five years that is up for reauthorization in September, said Mary Fund, communications director at the Kansas Rural Center. Both direct and countercyclical payments from the federal government are based on the number of acres of a commodity -- mostly wheat, corn, cotton, rice or soybeans -- a farmer planted on average in the past years. Despite the success of these large operations, Fund points out the conclusion of a 2005 study by economist Mark Drabenstott, former director of the Kansas City Federal Reserve's Center for the Study of Rural America: Many of the counties whose farmers receive the most in subsidy payments are those where growth in employment and new businesses is the weakest, because, as Drabenstott put it, "commodity programs wed regions to an ongoing pattern of economic consolidation." Getting different is another -- and perhaps more sustainable -- route to success that smaller, non-commodity farm bill programs attempt to address, Fund said. Getting different is what Jack Geiger has tried to do. Farming has been in his family for six generations, ever since his ancestors moved to Robinson in 1856, and he has grown his operation to 500 acres. Geiger has been farming organically since 1986. At first, it was a matter of necessity because the chemicals he had been using were too expensive in the wake of the Midwest farm depression in the early 1980s. Now, however, organic products are an asset that help him compete with his larger neighbors. And as his neighbors grow horizontally, by adding acres, Geiger's farm slowly grows, too, but mostly vertically, through an economic concept known as "vertical integration" in which different steps in the creation of a product are owned by the same person. He sells some straight commodities, but he also takes some a step further, such as by cleaning wheat to milling standards and controlling its shipping, which he said gives him an edge. "You do whatever it takes to survive." Geiger is enrolled in the federal subsidy programs, but he said his benefits are "nominal" (about $5,000 total from 2003 to 2005, according to the Environmental Working Group's database obtained from the U.S. Department of Agriculture), and that, despite his efforts in 2002 to advocate for reform in Washington, the farm bill now in effect is just "a warmed-over version of what we already had." Payments mostly go to large operations, which can bid up land prices until it's tough for small farmers to compete, he said. The challenges to current farmers and the obstacles for new ones gradually are emptying out Kansas communities, Geiger said, in a state where towns are playing a "numbers game" and trying to hold on to the few families they have. "Every time we lose a farmer, we lose a family, we lose children in the local schools," he said. Mitchell, who receives greater government benefits (about $720,000 total from 2003 to 2005, according to the Environmental Working Group) is happier with the current version of the bill, saying it's one of the best yet since government regulation of agriculture began during the Great Depression. The counter-cyclical payments help farmers when times are tough by paying the difference between the prevailing market price and a target price established in the Farm Bill. And the direct payments, lump sums based on past production regardless of current prices or yields, grant farmers the freedom to fluctuate between crops and respond to the marketplace. Mitchell treats farming as a business, albeit a risky one helped by subsidies, because it is mostly dependent on Mother Nature. And although he agrees government payments have contributed to higher land prices, he points out farming isn't the only business seeing consolidation. "To have a successful farm, most profitable farms are having to get bigger," he said about a trend he calls the "Wal-Martization of agriculture. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. "This is just what's happening. In most businesses, it's just considered a natural occurrence. But in farming, there's some element -- people say, 'That's not right.' ... People have this 'American Gothic' picture of farming." Robert Mulch, president of the Kansas Rural Center and a retired Scott County farmer who now rents out his 800 acres, is one of those who dislikes what he sees in the consolidation of agriculture. He raised his two sons on the family farm, and the experience was valuable, he said. They developed the kind of work ethic that prompted them at ages 10 and 11 to take out a loan from the bank and form a successful mowing business. They later founded a disc jockey business that helped pay their way through college. That's the intangible benefit of family farms, Mulch said. "I equate that with a sense of community," he said. "We're killing our communities." Mitchell, who serves on the Elkhart school board, doesn't see it that way, though. When he looks at his farm, he sees a business that employs 10 to 12 people all year -- community members who serve on area co-op boards while their children attend local schools and join 4-H clubs. A farm like his, he said, has a big effect also because of the volume of its purchases. With the Internet he can shop around for good prices, but he said he also pays a little extra to buy from local businesses. Geiger, a township trustee in the northeast Kansas community of Robinson, shops locally, too, though he has fewer inputs. He also tries to sell locally, supplying to the local bakery, but many of his products go elsewhere, such as to the organic Heartland Mill Inc. in Marienthal near the Colorado line. He and Mulch support programs that would help the small farms and limit payments to the big ones. Mulch said large farms eventually should be able to sustain themselves, but small ones need help to survive. Survival of small farms is essential to rural communities, he said, because their loss leads to further depopulation and concentration of wealth into fewer hands. "That's what's wrong with true capitalism," Mulch said. "Capitalism keeps pushing people out until you have no competition. Socialism looks more toward the community and what's best for the community." He said help is needed for the up-and-coming farmers trying to break into what Mitchell calls a "business of limited entry," like a system that would set young people up with small farms and break up consolidating corporations. Geiger advocates payment caps, which he said would "solve everything and level the playing field" by only providing a safety net to keep farmers from falling below federal poverty level. Other voices, however, say size is not so much the issue. They point to reforms they contend would promote long-term sustainability and would be of equal assistance to farms of any size. Mark Nightengale, general manager of Heartland Mill Inc., talks about the need of farm policy that listens to the market -- a market that, more and more, is crying out for organic foods from farms of any size. "What we've got to stop and remember is that organic demand is outstripping supply," he said. "Large and small are welcome, but we need more organics. ... If that growth isn't produced here, it will have to be imported, and that's embarrassing in the Wheat State if we have to import wheat." Fund, at the Rural Center, supports expansion of things that promote environmental sustainability such as Conservation Security Programs, which provide payments (currently, about $260 million annually) to farmers implementing conservation practices. The changes people want to see in the Farm Bill depend on where they are coming from, Mitchell said. From his point of view, he wouldn't change much at all.