Family Farming

Farming is a declining occupation as the number of farms and number of farmers continue to decline.

Certainly industrial farming is still producing but the family farm is becoming a thing of the past.

Number of Farms

The article draws its own conclusions but I think there is a story behind the numbers.  Competitive commercial farming is being taken over by the industrial farms as you see the larger family owned farms shrink, but small, possibly organic, possibly part time farms increase.

This is more a trend to a more faddish food culture and those farms will never be able to feed everybody, but they can peddle their goods at local farmers markets or sell to local groceries.

This isn't a bad thing for them, its a healthy and possibly lucrative hobby.  Its one step up from having a vegetable garden and many may have even evolved from there.

What it does show is that the great American heartland where we produce the staples of our diets in wheat, corn, etc. is becoming a big factory with workers and corporate interests.

Much of the American mythos revolves around the family farm.

Its becoming more and more inaccurate.