Conflict in the Countryside?

A New Assessment

By Thomas T. Stout and Chia-Yu Yeh

In 1982-83, again in 1990, and then again in 1996 we surveyed the same seven Ohio counties, using the same methods and mostly the same questions, in search of conflict in the countryside. We were looking for trouble, you might say. Do farmers and rural nonfarm residents get along well, or do farming realities disappoint the expectations of those who moved to the country to enjoy it as a consumer good, and this becomes a source of conflict?

There are no address lists for this sort of thing; you don't know what you'll find or where you'll find it. So we followed randomized routes on the country roads, distributing 100 farm questionnaires and 150 rural nonfarm questionnaires in every county. We traveled five metropolitan counties (full of nonfarm commuters)--Delaware, Franklin, and Madison around Columbus, and Fulton and Wood on each side of Toledo. Also, we surveyed Holmes and Mercer counties to see if the absence of nearby cities made any difference. We used doorknob bags containing the questionnaire, an introductory letter, and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to return the questionnaire. Postal regulations prohibit communications like our bags to be put inside a mailbox, but they can be attached somewhere outside; usually we used the advertiser's hook.

Now, within all this randomized arrangement we put a little spin on our approach: we looked for conflict. We expected conflict to be scarce, so we wanted to be sure it had a chance to express itself. We wanted to be able to say that conflict was not more frequent than we had found. (We might, for example, drive by a new nonfarm residence just across the fence from a bunch of cows switching flies in the shade of a tree by the road--an observation worth a doorknob bag on the mailbox post.)

In a 1992 issue of Ohio's Challenge we shared some of the results of our 1990 survey. Now we would like to share some results from the 1996 survey and show you some numbers to compare. You expect there ought to be some conflict, and you may see things we've missed in what the data have to say. So we'd like to launch you into the numbers with a couple thoughts and a question that had not occurred to us before:

• Most Ohio farms are not sharply focused bottom-line operations. Most Ohio farm households, in fact, live off income from nonfarm jobs. So in this respect, their motives for living in the country are not really different from those of the nonfarmers: in each case it's a matter of preference.
• Most rural households, farm and nonfarm alike, report that they like their community the way it is, and they do not want it threatened by unexpected, big-time change. So we leave you with a question: Is there conflict between farmers and nonfarmers? Or do the numbers say the conflict is between insiders (farmers and nonfarmers alike) and outsiders; between status-quo and anything that would threaten it, regardless whether it's an egg factory, a steel mill, a shopping center, or a landfill?

Nonfarm Residents Enjoy the Agriculture Around Them

We asked the nonfarm households how they felt about being located in an agricultural setting. We asked for both their likes and dislikes about the surrounding agriculture. We started by asking them to rank (1-2-3) the things they liked, and offered several response categories. Then we indexed their responses. Table 1 compares the 1990 and 1996 results. When the questionnaires came back in 1990, we had 3.6 votes per respondent (a total of 1,696 ranked items). The returned questionnaires in 1996 gave us 5.8 ranked items per respondent and a total of 2,187. The indexed results look similar except for an increased admiration for the character of farm people, and perhaps an increased indifference (last item) to the agriculture around them as these commuters become more accustomed to their rural surroundings.

Farming Causes Some Concerns, and Farmers Realize This

Then we asked both farmers and nonfarmers what each supposed would be the most objectionable aspects of farming to the nonfarm neighbors. Table 2 indexes the responses, as was done in Table 1. You see in Table 2, that in both 1990 and 1996, farmers supposed that animal odor would be the most objectionable feature to the nonfarm neighbors, but in both years the nonfarm residents were more concerned about toxic sprays. Still, both sides agreed on the top three items, but there were some big changes in the others. Farmers, in both years, were more concerned about being accused of inconsiderate timing of farm work than the nonfarmers were, and both gave this matter more weight in 1996 than in 1990. Perhaps the biggest change was the tempering of farmer attitudes that nothing about agriculture would be objectionable to nonfarmers. This tempering appears to have been timely; nonfarmers were less inclined to be forgiving in 1996 than in 1900. Look how improved the understanding between the two parties on this matter was in 1996 compared to 1990. Might changes like this be related to changes in Table 1, where nonfarmers report on increasing admiration for farm people?

Relationships Between the Farm and Nonfarm Neighbors

We asked each set of respondents how they would characterize the relationship between the two groups. Table 3 compares the 1990 and 1996 results. There is a consistency to the responses, and conflict in both years has been scarce or absent. Notice that nonfarmers report a somewhat warmer, closer relationship in 1996 but farmers report a cooler one, and farmers appear more inclined to protect their privacy than do the nonfarmers. Why is this? Is it perhaps that nonfarmers are the new arrivals and they want acceptance, legitimacy? Perhaps. But the neighborhoods are changing, as we shall see, and as the new arrivals increase, fewer of them have rural roots, and farmers identify with them less readily; they are concerned or cautious about the changing complexion of the community they regard as theirs. Still, the main message in this table is that farmers and nonfarmers render similar judgments about the community, they are consistent about this over time, understanding between them appears to be improving rather than deteriorating, and conflict is almost absent.

What Causes Conflict?

Both sides denied conflict. Were they being polite? We pushed them about this, asked about the reasons why conflict occurred, but left them the opportunity to contradict us. Table 4 summarizes the results. "No Conflict!" they said, again. But there are interesting differences between 1990 and 1996. Farmers have run into some conflicts caused by farming, although the nonfarm community at large seems unaware of this. Maybe complaints were registered privately, quietly, one-on-one. The table reminds us that there are other sources of conflict, of course, unspecified, and about the same in 1990 and 1996. We suppose these are ordinary difficulties not much different than in other neighborhoods: kids, trespass, mailboxes, schools, cars, etc. We kept feeling pushed toward the conclusion that farm/nonfarm conflict was not as big a problem as we had supposed at the outset that it might be.

A Realization

From another piece of research ongoing in the department we came upon some startling information: in Ohio (in 1990) the average farm operator household received 75 percent of its household income from nonfarm sources! Also, when farms were size-classified on the basis of sales of farm products, farms with annual sales under $40,000 accounted for 67 percent of all Ohio farms but, on average, none of them net profit: they lost money. Numbers like these can affect your way of thinking about what's going on in the country. They remind us that while household income is important, farm income does not need to be an important contributor to it, even for most farm households. Most farm households, just like the nonfarm neighbors, commute to town for their income. Farm households, just like their nonfarm neighbors, live where they live because they want to, not because they have to. These two groups are not farm/nonfarm antagonists; they are all rural residents living out their preferences, all of them accommodated by a traditional, family farm rural culture. Whatever the basis for these preferences, their support requires some stability in the neighborhood where people have decided to put down roots; change ought to be minimal--and no nasty surprises. These thoughts help us interpret Table 5.

Antagonists or Allies?

In Table 5 we are looking at percent agree/disagree responses to 26 questions that reflect rural farm/nonfarm attitudes. We see only two response categories here; there were originally five. Respondents could: strongly agree-agree-undecided-disagree-strongly disagree. We have in Table 5 the first two responses versus the last two; undecided (or indifferent, or don't know) has been left out and this is the residual.

You can tell how black and white an issue is, or how strongly felt, by how close the agree/disagree percentage comes to 100, as in Question 1. All the respondents are there. Notice how definite the responses are in Questions 12 and 24. But in Question 9, the nonfarmers have only judgments, and lots of uncertainty; 46 percent of them don't know or don't care. On this matter farmers are more certain, less indifferent (Question 24).

"Farming is more a business than a way of life," says Question 3 and Question 13. You sense that both farmers and nonfarmers are reluctant to agree, but each had drifted toward agreement from 1990 to 1996. A measure of nostalgia appears in Question 4 and Question 14, and some ambiguity as well. Nonfarmers appear to be letting go of a nostalgic dream at the same time that farmers are grasping it tighter. But each response seems to fit into an emerging realization that the neighborhood is becoming more of a consumer good and less purely farming as a business. The nonfarmers acknowledge that farm activities can be annoying, but these annoyances cause few people to want to leave (Questions 7 and 8).

Recall in Table 3 that farmers reported a slight cooling in relationships with nonfarmers. Here in Table 5 we see some supporting trends in Question 17 and Question 22. Compared to 1990, by 1996 farmers reported a general atmosphere in which there was somewhat more trouble with nonfarm neighbors, less friendliness toward farmers and farming, less helpfulness, fewer rural backgrounds among the nonfarmers and less of an understanding of agriculture. Trends like these make the traditional rural culture in the neighborhood look more secure in 1996 than in 1990.

But the responses to some new questions that show up only in 1996 help to identify a basis for strong alliances (as opposed to conflict) between farmers and nonfarm residents in any community.

A New Assessment

We began these surveys expecting there might be conflict based on different use priorities for the rural environment--a difference between producers and consumers in their use of rural resources. We found compatibility rather than conflict, and a similarity of answers that supported our initial expectations but taught us something we had not expected; there are more consumers of the rural environment than we had supposed; it appears that most of the farmers, as well as the nonfarmers, see their rural setting more as a consumer good than as a producer good. This produces an alliance, rather than antagonism, among most of the members of a community; they all want neighborhood stability, a preservation of its present character, and above all, no nasty surprises, whether they come from agricultural or nonagricultural sources. Still, to survive, agriculture must change, and in Ohio this change must occur in neighborhoods where both the farm and the nonfarm neighbors have expectations of their own.

Ohio's Challenge, the magazine of agricultural economics, in conjunction with the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center and Ohio State University Extension, is distributed throughout agricultural industry to growers, agribusiness leaders, legislators, education facilities, and mass media. Published fall, winter/spring, and summer by the Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics, College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, The Ohio State University, Copyright © 1998, The Ohio State University.

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