Scale of agricultural production, civic engagement, and community welfare

Using data from the Census of Agriculture and other secondary sources, we e xamine the relationship between scale of farm operations in a comity and th e well-being of local residents. Following earlier work by C. Wright Mills and Walter Goldschmidt, we hypothesize that in agriculture dependent counti es that are dominated by a small handful of very large farms, the level of community tw fare will be significantly lower than in counties in which agr iculture is organized around smaller-scale farm operations. Findings show t hat scale of farm operations is related to well-being. However, this relati onship is mediated by the level of civic engagement and the strength of the economically independent middle class. A theory of civic community is prop osed to account for these findings.