We talk constantly about how disconnected consumers have become from agriculture. Most Americans are now several generations removed from the farm. Many of us couldn't name a farmer in our own family tree, much less the person who grew the food on our plate, the cotton in our clothes, the flowers on our table or the crops that contribute to countless products we use every day.
But lately, I've been wondering if distance is really the problem.
In many of the communities where I work, people aren't moving farther away from farms. They're moving right next door to them. New neighborhoods are appearing beside working farms. Subdivisions are being built on land that was once agricultural. Metropolitan growth is pushing farther into communities that have historically been rural, while many rural communities are simultaneously looking for ways to attract new residents and investment.
South Carolina offers a striking example. Between 1982 and 2017, the state lost approximately 2,126 square miles of rural land to urban development, according to an analysis based on USDA Natural Resources Inventory data. That's roughly 1.36 million acres, an area larger than the state of Delaware. Among the 49 states included in the analysis, South Carolina ranked 11th for the amount of rural land converted during that period.
Those numbers are usually discussed as a story about urban sprawl and land loss. They are. But I think they also reveal another story about the changing relationship between people and agriculture.
We may be more culturally disconnected from agriculture at the exact moment we're becoming physically closer to it.
You Can Live Two Miles From a Farm and Still Not Know It Exists
I see versions of this contradiction all the time in my work.
Black's Peaches in York, South Carolina, is one example. The Black family's roots on that land date to 1718, and the current farm is roughly 100 years old. Generations of people have farmed there. This isn't a new business tucked away somewhere waiting to establish itself in the community. It is part of the history of the community.
And yet, after I shared a Facebook video about Black's Peaches through The Farmer's Feed, people who lived in the area commented that they had never heard of it.
I've heard similar stories directly from farmers. One recently told me about someone who had discovered their farm despite living only two miles down the road. They had been neighbors, at least geographically, without the resident ever knowing the farm was there.
That story has stayed with me because two miles is hardly a distance problem. It's a discovery problem, and I think it complicates what we mean when we say consumers have become disconnected from agriculture.
We often talk about agricultural education and consumer engagement as though the goal is to somehow bring people back to the farm. But in many growing communities, consumers are already there. They drive past farms on their way to work. Their children attend school with farm families. Their subdivision may border a pasture or sit on land that was farmed a generation ago.
Physical proximity, it turns out, doesn't automatically create a relationship.
Rural America Is Changing, and So Is the Farm Customer
There is another side to this story that I think deserves more attention. Population growth and development unquestionably create challenges for agriculture, particularly when rising land values make it increasingly difficult for farming to compete with other uses. But new residents also represent potential customers.
One farmer recently told me that they are seeing more couples move into their rural community from urban areas. Rather than viewing those newcomers only as evidence of the community changing around them, the farm has started thinking intentionally about how to reach them as customers.
I think that's an important shift in perspective.
When people move somewhere new, they aren't simply buying a house. They're learning how to belong to a place. They need a new favorite restaurant, somewhere to take their children on Saturday morning, places to shop, things to do when friends visit and traditions that eventually make the community feel like home.
Agriculture can be part of all of that.
A farmstand can become where a family buys peaches every summer. An orchard can become their fall tradition. A flower farm can become a date night or girls' day out. A farmers market can introduce newcomers to the growers, food makers and small businesses that shape their new community. A farm dinner can introduce someone to the farmer, chef and landscape behind the food they are eating.
Over time, those transactions can become something more significant. The farm someone used to drive past now has a name. The person driving the tractor becomes someone they recognize. The field beside their neighborhood isn't simply open land awaiting development. It is part of a business, a family's livelihood and the agricultural economy of the place they now call home.
In that sense, customer acquisition can also become community building.
Proximity Doesn't Automatically Create Understanding
Of course, bringing more people without agricultural backgrounds into farming communities can create friction too. The ordinary realities of operating a farm can be unfamiliar to someone experiencing them for the first time. Farm equipment travels on public roads. Livestock make noise. Farming creates smells. Work happens early in the morning and sometimes late at night. Fields can be dusty. Agricultural land doesn't always look, smell or operate the way someone imagines the countryside should.
Those tensions become more likely when people move into an agricultural community without understanding that they have moved into an agricultural community.
If someone's first meaningful interaction with the farm next door is getting stuck behind a tractor or smelling manure from a neighboring field, we've missed an opportunity that started long before that moment.
That's why I think rapidly growing agricultural communities have to think beyond preserving farmland. We also have to think about preserving and building agricultural culture.
Land can remain in agriculture while the surrounding community becomes increasingly disconnected from what happens on it. Conversely, a community experiencing tremendous growth can still choose to make agriculture visible, understood and valued as part of its evolving identity.
Growth and Agriculture Don't Have to Be Opposing Forces
None of this is an argument against growth. People need places to live. Rural communities need businesses, workers, entrepreneurs, tax revenue and investment. Farmers themselves need customers and functioning local economies.
The more useful question isn't whether communities should choose development or agriculture. It's how they grow while making room for both.
That requires thinking about farms as more than undeveloped acreage. A working farm is a business. It can be an employer, food source, tourism asset, customer for other local businesses and part of a region's identity. Some farms may welcome visitors and diversify through agritourism, events or direct-to-consumer sales. Others may have no interest in doing so, but still contribute to the agricultural economy and character of the community.
This is where I think economic development, tourism, local government and other community organizations have a much larger role to play.
If communities are intentionally attracting new residents, agriculture should be part of how those residents are introduced to the place. Economic developers should know the farms in their communities and understand the pressures they face. Tourism organizations can help residents and visitors discover local food and farm experiences. Chambers and small-business organizations can recognize farmers as entrepreneurs. Restaurants can introduce customers to local producers. Schools can help children understand the agricultural landscape surrounding them. Local governments and developers can help people understand when they're moving into active agricultural areas.
Most importantly, farms need ways to become discoverable to people who may live five minutes away but have no idea they exist.
The question shouldn't simply be how we protect agriculture from growth. It should also be how agriculture becomes part of the community we're building.
Agriculture Has a Customer Succession Problem, Too
Agriculture already spends considerable time talking about succession. Who will take over the family farm? Who will be able to afford the land? Who will become the next generation of farmers?
Those questions are critical. But I think there's another succession question we need to ask: Who will become the next generation of farm customers?
The people moving into rural and agricultural communities could be part of the answer.
Many are searching for the very things farms are uniquely positioned to provide: local food, outdoor experiences, community, traditions, a connection to nature and a stronger sense of place. But living near a farm doesn't automatically turn someone into a farm customer or an advocate for agriculture.
That relationship has to be built.
And perhaps that's where our understanding of consumer disconnection needs to change. For years, we've described Americans as becoming farther and farther removed from agriculture. Historically and culturally, that's true. Geographically, the story may be more complicated.
Someone can live two miles from a farm and never know it exists. Someone can buy a home on former farmland without understanding the agricultural community surrounding it. And someone can move from a city into a rural community and become one of a local farm's most loyal customers.
All three things can be true at the same time.
Maybe the distance between farmers and consumers is no longer best measured in miles. Maybe it's measured in awareness, relationships and culture.
As development pushes more people into historically agricultural communities, the challenge isn't simply keeping farms physically close to us.
It's making sure we don't continue growing culturally farther away from them.