Small Farm Republic: Why Conservatives Must Embrace Local Agriculture, Reject Climate Alarmism, and Lead an Environmental Revival by John Klar
One of the many reasons we at Acres U.S.A. try to focus simply on farming is that we know that our readers are on every point of the political spectrum. This diversity of opinion is reflected on our team as well. We break the ice at our weekly meetings talking about sports rather than whatever’s happening (or not) in Washington.
So, it is with some degree of trepidation that this month’s review is of John Klar’s Small Farm Republic: Why Conservatives Must Embrace Local Agriculture, Reject Climate Alarmism, and Lead an Environmental Revival. Please trust that we seek to write this in the spirit of what we feel is the best type of commentary: supporting, and likewise critiquing, ideas on their merits, regardless of whether our own political side or the other is more likely to support that idea.
John Klar is a lawyer turned farmer who ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for the Vermont State Senate in 2022. He argues that to reach younger voters, conservatives need to embrace a better environmental strategy. This strategy should be centered on local agriculture and small farms. “Local farms,” he writes, “are supportive of local economies, but also of community, culture, environmental stewardship, individual liberties, and national security. All of these benefits align with conservative values.”
Klar argues for a form of federalism: the idea that problems are best solved at the lowest level possible and that higher levels of government should only interfere in a limited matter for specific functions. Progressives — and increasingly those on the right — oppose this idea when they try to get the federal government involved in any number of issues, including of course agricultural policy. Klar lambasts the left for its climate alarmism (although in the title of the book he tells conservatives that they’re the ones who need to reject it) and those on the “Mitch McConnell Right” for supporting corporatism that’s caused environmental damage. He has a point that these are two sides of the same coin: the capitalism of corporatism is really crony capitalism, in which big government policies enable big business by installing regulatory barriers to entry (often via environmental regulation) and by offering preferential treatment to large corporations.
On its face, Klar’s vision is one that many on the left, right and center can buy into. Few of us want more government intrusion — at least in our own lives — and most feel that large corporations hold too much sway. Klar does an admirable job of highlighting how so few conservatives care about the environment and why they should do so.
Klar’s solution — somewhat of a silver bullet — is small farms. We wholeheartedly agree with him that limits in farming — as in all aspects of life — are vital. Smaller operations certainly enable growers to focus more on managing the complex ecosystem relationships that are a key part of ecological farming. We certainly need to do more to support small farms.
However, we feel that it would be a mistake to support small farms exclusively, as Klar seems to imply. While small farms are certainly a good way for ecological farming to become more prevalent, truly moving the needle on reducing the use of harmful synthetic chemicals, reducing largescale soil erosion and improving soil health on a broad basis is going to require all farms — regardless of size — to implement better farming practices. The centrality of smallness is problematic for several reasons.
First is labor. While Klar acknowledges that very few people want to actually live agrarian lifestyles, he thinks that there are many young people ready to begin farming in local and regional food systems if they only had the chance. This is likely an overly optimistic assessment. While many young people say they want to farm, few have tried, and there are much easier ways of making money today. If many of the large farms in America somehow were broken up into smaller operations, do we really think there would be enough people willing to do the physical labor required on those small farms?
Another reason for skepticism about the viability of a largescale increase in the number of small farms is that if that happened, the premiums from direct marketing would disappear due to increased supply — or everyone would have to pay more for their food. And any solution that assumes that people will pay more for food is, unfortunately, naïve. Yes, some will, but the vast majority of the population — and thus our populist politicians — will never agree to this. They will say yes to industrial farming and CAFOs and any biotechnology that will allow us to continue to have cheap food.
Klar also seems to discount the ability — and desire — of larger farms to adopt regenerative practices. Many are already doing so out of necessity — reducing tillage, using cover crops and getting nutrition for their crops through biology and precision nutrient management rather than conventional NPK sources. Technology is only going to continue to advance and will enable more land to be worked by fewer farmers — using, very conceivably, more environmentally friendly methods.
Truly implementing a small farm revolution would require the large-scale reformation of the administrative state, which props up larger operations and sets up barriers to entry for newcomers. While some small adjustments could go a long way (loosening regulations that currently limit on-farm livestock processing, for example), everyone should realize by now that in our current political environment there is very little appetite for actually making the compromises necessary to affect largescale change.
It’s also almost impossible to imagine the amount of food in a single grocery store — multiplied roughly 60,000 times for the number of grocery stores in the U.S. — being resourced locally. Yes, if people were willing to totally change their diets by consuming fewer different types of food — many only available seasonally — it would be possible to have local foods in much of the country. But not in hot and dry places — at least at current population levels. This would require people to give up comforts they’ve enjoyed for decades — a nonstarter.
Klar also argues that Republicans should support small farms because they are in favor of limited government. This idea is questionable at the moment, however. Many Republicans today advocate protectionist industrial policies and dovish foreign policy positions that would have been anathema to them only a decade ago. Appealing to their desire for fiscal restraint seems a questionable endeavor. Klar does appeal, though, for the division of the food aid and farm subsidy sides of the Farm Bill — to move food aid out of USDA and into a different agency of the federal government. This association has given the Farm Bill bipartisan support over the decades and is probably the only reason it has kept being passed. Separation would be chaotic, but it could lead to real reforms in how the government supports (and skews incentives for) farmers.
While we support the principles of Klar’s argument — we’d love it if everyone embraced local agriculture and supported small farms — a more realistic solution is to advocate for farmers of all sizes to replace the toxic chemicals they currently use with biologicals and targeted nutrient management and to implement ecological management practices. There are huge incentives for large farms as well as small to do this. Small farms are wonderful, but if we’re truly concerned with moving the needle on the largescale environmental effects of postwar industrial farming, advocating smallness seems unrealistic.
It’s easy to agree with Klar in a “yes, this is what we should do” manner. But conservatives — as well as progressives and moderates — should focus more on simply choosing wiser leaders for our parties and for our country. We should elect men and women who will advocate wise environmental and farming policies that enable operations of all sizes to thrive and to protect our soil.
But, in politics as in much of life, we get what we deserve. People want bread and circuses. They want cheap food, and they want political entertainment. Individuals should — and many do — eat more local, healthy food and elect better leaders. But most won’t. The most prescient thing to push for, then — rather than wholesale transformation of the food system — is implementation of ecological farming practices on operations of all scales.
Restoring Soil Vitality
Looking for a concise explainer on soil health? Joe Scrimger’s six-part audio series, “Restoring Soil Vitality,” is available for free at farmsfortomorrow.org/season-3. Joe is a longtime farmer, consultant and Acres U.S.A. supporter in Michigan
