Contemporary Agriculture and Rural Land Use

The Contemporary Agriculture and Rural Land Use (CARLU) Specialty Group was organized in 1985 (Napton 1989) to provide a forum for researchers who identify, describe, and explain the geographical patterns of agricultural activity and rural land use. Indeed, rural and agricultural geographers study many aspects of rural land use, including rural settlement, rural environmental management, the globalization of primary industries (i.e. agriculture, forestry, and mining), and also utilize spatial technologies for rural systems analysis. The various dimensions, consequences and policy implications of long-term sustainability of rural landscapes in industrialized, capitalist countries and particularly in North America, have been matters of special attention (Pierce 1994; Troughton 1995; Ilbery 1998). The early Jeffersonian ideal of a nation populated predominately by rural freeholders remains a popular and persistent theme in American culture. The country craft motifs of cows, chickens, and apples adorn many urban kitchens. Nearly all children know Laura Ingalls Wilder’s popular stories about a Farmer Boy (Wilder 1933) or a Little House on the Prairie (Wilder 1935). But the agrarian conditions Wilder describes in these stories near the start of the twentieth century bear little resemblance to the conditions faced by farmers in rural areas at the start of the twenty-first century due to social and agricultural change (Bell 1989; Baltensperger 1991; Roberts 1996; Lang et al. 1997; Lawrence 1997). Likewise, the quaint scenes of chickens and pigs printed on paper towels do not hint at current environmental and social concerns with large-scale livestock production in the US (Furuseth 1997; Hart and Mayda 1997). In many ways these historically imbedded ideals clash with the current reality of rural areas. Rural and agricultural researchers provide insight into how rural North America evolved to look like it does today. Their research helps describe the cultural, economic, environmental, political, and social forces that influenced and continue to influence rural places. This research often suggests what alternatives are available for rural areas in the future. Following the introduction, this chapter is organized according to four main research themes: rural regions, agricultural location theory, rural land-use change, and agricultural sustainability.