Black and Reeve working with farmers in New South Wales, Australia. A few ... sons why more Canadian farmers are purchasing fewer fertilizers, herbicides ..... While 80% of Ontario farmers agreed that introducing compulsory safety ..... study were developed by Ian Reeve and Alan Black at the University of New England,.
C o m p a r a t i v e D i f f e r e n c e s in Ontario Farmers' Environmental Attitudes GLEN C. FILSON Rural Extension Studies University of Guelph Guelph, Ontario Canada N1G 2Wl
This paper provides an analysis of a 1991 survey of the views of a stratified r a n d o m sample of 1,105 Ontario farmers. Factor analysis, Kruskal--Wallis one-way ANOVA, chi-square and correlations were used to identify differences in farmers' attitudes toward rural environmental issues as a function of their demographic and farm characteristics. Younger, well-educated farmers, especially if female, were most concerned about the seriousness of rural environmental degradation. The largest operators expressed the greatest support for the use of agricultural chemicals, were most opposed to government conservation regulations and were least environmentally oriented. Such differences between Australian and Ontario farmers as the former's greater cautiousness about governmental regulation and receptivity to the Green Movement are a function of differing demographic and farm characteristics between Australia and Ontario. Abstract
K e y w o r d s : land degradation, Ontario farmers' attitudes, environ-
mentalism, conservation orientation, agricultural sustainability. Preface
This paper describes the results from Ontario of a comparative survey of farmers' attitudes toward the rural environment conducted in conjunction with Alan Black and Ian Reeve of Australia. Questions about the rural environmental issues component of the agricultural sustainability survey were developed by Black a n d Reeve working with farmers in New South Wales, Australia. A few of their questions were dropped due to lack of relevance to Ontario. Pollution Probe was substituted for Australian Conservation Foundation and Ontario farmers were also asked to react to the statement that "Modern agriculture transforms fossil fuels into energy." Assuming that these questions were appropriate with respect to the determination of environmental attitudes, the findings and conclusions which follow provide a sense of some of the differences and Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 1993, 6(2), 165-184.
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similarities between Australian and Ontario farmers, on the one hand, and among different types of Ontario farmers on the other. Introduction I
Growing environmental concerns (Reid, 1990) and increasing dissatisfaction with expensive cash outlays for inputs (Buttel et al., 1986) are important reasons why more Canadian farmers are purchasing fewer fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides (Statistics Canada, 1992). 2 There has also been a noticeable shift toward the adoption of increased crop rotation, greater use of clover, alfalfa, winter cover crops and grassed waterways (Statistics Canada, 1992: p. 7). Still, 69% of Canadian farms practice conventional tillage, 24% use conservation tillage and 7% use no till (Statistics Canada, 1992). Policy makers still know little about the demographic and social factors influencing farmers to become concerned about environmental degradation (Van Liere and Dunlap, 1980; Reeve and Black, 1991). Buttel et al. (1990: p. 515) have also pointed out that little attention has been devoted to understanding the degree to which rank-and-file [North] American farmers now prefer or can, at some future point, be motivated to prefer lower input, more sustainable agricultural production systems. This study attempted to analyze demographic and economic factors associated with Ontario farmers' views about rural environmental degradation. It is based on a survey of 1,105 Ontario farmers conducted during 1991. The survey examined differences in farmers' attitudes as a function of their age, education, sex, social class, farm size, income, and the commodities they produce. Factor analysis was used to subdivide the issues into their principal components and the degrees of their association with demographic and farm characteristics were determined. Framework While farmers' environmental orientation has been increasing, rural people are usually less environmentally inclined than urbanites (Lowe and Pinhey, 1982) and are "among the most anti-environmental of major social groups in the U.S. (Buttel et al., 1981; Buttel and Murdock, in press)" (Buttel et al., 1986). Recent surveys of Canadian farmers have shown that most farmers are much more concerned about their economic survival than they are about the environment (Reid, 1990; Filson, 1992). Buttel et al. (1990) found that among New York farmers' preference for low input production practices was inversely correlated with total acreage, number of hired workers, farm income, assets, net worth, age, profit orientation, support for commodity programs and agricultural research~ Positive correlations
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existed between part-time farming, concern with soil erosion and especially concern with agricultural pollution. Farmers' level of education, age and sex make a difference with respect to their views regarding agricultural sustainability. In southwestern Ontario, age and farm acreage were inversely correlated with concern about protecting the environment, whereas educational level was positively correlated with this concern. Environmental consciousness was higher among farm women than men in southwestern Ontario (Filson, 1991). There are also differences between farmers as a function of the kinds of commodities they produce. A Survey of Canadian Farmers conducted by the Angus Reid Group in 1990 found that most producers placed economic viability ahead of protecting the environment while red meat and horticulturalists considered them of equal importance. But dairy producers reported the fewest changes (38%) "in their farming practices in response to concern over the environment". In terms of the top two priorities among the different farm types, only poultry farmers (heavily concentrated in Manitoba) excluded "protecting the environment"... Farmers with the highest gross sales were also the only f a r m e r s by sales class to exclude "protecting the e n v i r o n m e n t " (Angus Reid Group, 1990; 74). In a study of New York State farmers Gillespie and Buttel (1989: p. 405) concluded "that increased farm size and agricultural research have promoted agricultural practices which increase soil erosion". Specialization of production, increased dependence on heavy soft-compacting machinery, the use of chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides often intensify with the growth of largescale commercial agricultural production on sizeable land units. Martinez-Alier (1987) and Redclift (1987) also observed that the concentration and centralization which has accompanied modern agriculture has also led to an increasing transformation of fossil fuels into food. But Buttel et al. (1986: p. 353) caution that While an inverse relationship between farm size and use of reduced-input practices has been consistently observed and while reduced-input practices may be especially well-suited to small farm operations, large organic farms do exist. The tendency toward fewer (down by 4.5%), larger farms in Canada continued from 1986 to 1991 to the point where 25% of farms produce 76% of the output and the top 10% produce 53% (Statistics Canada, 1992). "As the overall number of farms decreased, the number of larger farms (gross receipts of $50,000 or more in constant 1990 dollars) increased 6 percent" (Statistics Canada, 1992: p. 2). Even though the number of farms with sales over $50,000 decreased by 1% in Ontario, those farms with sales over $100,000 increased by 7%. Throughout Canada there were more animals per farm, more round balers, bigger tractors and a g r e a t e r a v e r a g e levels of both capital v a l u a t i o n and i n d e b t e d n e s s
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(Statistics Canada, 1992). This study employs class analysis to assess the equitable component of some of the social, environmental and economic aspects of sustainable agriculture as perceived by farmers. 8 The reason for using farm classes is because such factors as farmer's income and size of operation are often more ambiguously related to agricultural sensitivities than social class (Friedland and Pugliese, 1989). There is a growing body of literature which seeks to identify farmers' discrete class locations (Friedmann, 1979; Mooney, 1983; Ghorayshi, 1986) instead of simply identifying them as upper, middle and lower class. Unfortunately, as parttime farming has become more widespread, both at the level of the individual and the family, it has become increasingly difficult to define a family's class position. Family members may actually be located in several different classes because of multiple occupations; what Tony Fuller and other rural sociologists now call pluriactivity (Gasson, 1986; Friedland and Pugliese, 1989; MacKinnon et al., 1991). In this study capitalist farmers were defined as those who own their own farms and regularly employ two or more "farm hands" who sell their labour to the capitalists for a wage. The agriculturally based capitalist class is much less concentrated than within industry so terms like "monopoly or oligopoly simply do not apply" (Friedland and Pugliese, 1989). Nevertheless, like its urban counterpart, the rural capitalist class usually pursues a class-conscious set of behaviours, accumulating capital and supporting government policies which are consistent with its private interests (Friedland and Pugliese, 1989). The subjective consciousness of agricultural farm hands with respect to their acceptance or rejection of the terms offered to them by their employers is much less unified. Whether because of the dispersed character of the agriculturally based proletariat or its continual mobility between a home base in one country and its labour in another or for other reasons, the degree of consciousness that has developed is primitive or nonexistent (Friedland and Pugliese, 1989: p. 155). Farmers who own their farms but rarely employ farm hands were referred to as farmers without employees. 4 This class was the largest numerically of all of the classes though the basis of its production is not capitalist but petty commodity household production (see Friedmann, 1979). The fact that many managerial functions once conducted by farmers without employees are now done by food processors and input suppliers suggests that their autonomy in decision making is being further eroded (Winson, 1990). In light of the fact that close to half of Ontario farmers own their own farms but also sell their labour for a wage I created a separate class category of worker-farmers. 5 To acknowledge the ambiguous class of unpaid household labourers I distinguished between worker--farm homemakers, who sell their labour off the farm and homemaker--farm managers, who divide their time between
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b o o k k e e p i n g a n d o t h e r m a n a g e r i a l f u n c t i o n s as well as h o m e m a k i n g . Homemakers are primarily homemakers and are only occasionally involved in agricultural activities on the farm. Retirees with more than 25 acres were identified as a separate social class whether or not they rented their land to others or maintained some managerial control of their children's operations.
Methods For the Ontario-wide sample, approximately 3,000 farmers were randomly sampled from municipal assessment records in two townships within each of four counties of the five regions (north, central, east, west and south). Similar numbers of females and males within farm households were sent 10-page questionnaires about sustainable agriculture. This provided relatively equal numbers of each sex of farmers from each of the five areas. Though the response rate (37%) is somewhat low, this is typical for mail surveys of farmers, especially of this length (see, for example, Acock and Deseran (1986) and Coughler (1992)). The results were more representative of each of the five regions of the province than for the province as a whole because relatively equal numbers of farmers were randomly selected from each area of the province. 6 Due to nonresponse bias, the sample was skewed slightly toward those who usually had relatively more formal education and were somewhat younger than the average Ontario farmer. Nevertheless, the relatively large sample size minimized sampling error. To put these Ontario farmers' attitudes into comparative perspective, the means of their responses were compared with the Australia-wide random sample of 2,044 conducted by Ian Reeve and Alan Black. For this comparison, the means of responses refer to a Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree). T-tests are employed to identify those means which are statistically different at the 0.05 level. Of the 1,105, 39% are female and 61% are male. Formal education is inversely correlated with age (n=1048; Pearson Cor.= -0.351; P
