By Roberto A. Ferdman
"Today’s farms are fewer and bigger." (click here)
That's how the United States Department of Agriculture put it in the agency's new Agriculture and Food Statistics report. It's also, pretty clearly, what the chart above — which was included in the report (p. 6) — shows.
Peak farm, as it happens, happened almost 80 years ago in the United States. The number of farms in the country has fallen by some 4 million between then and now — from more than 6 million in 1935 to roughly 2 million in 2012. Meanwhile, the average farm size has more than doubled, and the amount of total land being farmed has, more or less, remained the same....
The facts are very clear and have been very clear for decades; the moderate size farm of the USA is disappearing if not already gone. The large corporate farms have taken over that land. Interestingly though, the small family farm catering to consumers, including the Non-GMO, have grown and continue to grow in number. Below an accounting by "Dakotafire Media:"
July 14, 2012
By Heidi Marttila-Losure
The tractors and planting rigs that were out in the fields this spring were double the size they were a generation ago; a farmer can cover hundreds of acres in a day. The rows of emerging corn, planted very accurately with GPS, stretch far into the distance. The majority of the farmsteads that housed the families that settled on the land in the late 1800s and early 1900s have long been vacant, and some are being cleared to give a few more acres of farmland.
Simply put, there are bigger farms, and fewer farmers.
The percentage of the workforce employed in agriculture in the United States declined from 22 percent to 2 percent from 1930 to 2002, and since then it’s fallen still further, to something less than 1 percent. Through about 2000, the trendlines of farm size and the number over farms over the last century neatly mirror one another: As the number farms went down, the size of the average farm went up.
Another trend starting in 2007 is not as obvious in the rural Dakotas: Nationwide, the number of very small farms has also increased. Many of these farms are located closer to urban markets and do not support a family just on the farmwork; the people living there also have off-farm jobs elsewhere....
...The larger farms tend to be vertically integrated, growing bulk commodities for vast supply chains, and the small farms have found a niche selling their products directly to consumers. That leaves the mid-sized farms without an obvious role: “They are too small to compete in the highly consolidated commodity markets and too large and commoditized to sell in the direct markets,” according to the Ag of the Middle white paper....
So, the issue is about "The Death Tax." The Trump Death Tax has nothing to do with the American Family Farm. NOTHING. The corporate farm doesn't care about The Death Tax and the smaller family farm just doesn't meet the requirement for The Death Tax.
I will say this, there are many smaller family farms that have found great success in the Non-GMO markets, including, consumer LOYALTY. These farmers do little more than farm. They don't work off the farm. They are very conscience of the fact their products are valued because they are overseen understand by their consumers.
I don't doubt some of the smaller farmers might have an income from off-farm activities, but, I that model is shrinking. As a matter of fact, there are some of the small family farms that have gotten rid of the tractors and plows and use horses and a sixteen inch bottom plow. These families find the lack of diesel and engines make their enterprise far more profitable. I don't want to hear from PETA the farmers are mean to the horses. That would be a lie. These farm families treat their animals, especially working horses, as part of the family. Oddly enough, horses are very good at work and do not suffer doing that. It is interesting to see the farmer and his plow team taking a break together under a healthy, big tree with plenty of water and hay if green grass is not readily available.
The Death Tax is not going to save any farms. The damage is mostly already done. Interestingly, the radical farm movement of the 1970s predicted it. No one listened because the Nixon administration was telling farmers to plant fence post to fence post. Oh, and make it corn. The USA government promised all the corn would sell for the production of "High Fructose Corn Syrup."
