Any Farming is Good Farming

Any Farming is Good Farming

In the future you will go to the grocery store and pay $15 a pound for Pork, and $20 a pound for Beef. World hunger outside the United States will be running rampant because of an inadequate food supply. Houses will start to pop up on all of the United States prime farmland. If we continue to bash corporate farming, this is the world we would be looking at. Family farms would thrive because there is little competition. The world as a whole would suffer because the small farms in the United States could no longer supply the world, let alone its own citizens, with food.

The farming industry as a whole is failing and that is why we see family farms disappearing from the landscape of America. America has lost 300,000 farmers since 1979 (Wilkinson). Dr. Hudson, a professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Illinois, stated in the Chicago Tribune, "As an overall industry, farming presents little chance for growth." He then went on to state, "Farming itself is not a growth area… The challenge for farmers is to be good managers" (Gunset). People have to be good farm managers to be successful no matter how large the farm may be.

People against the corporate farming system want to say that large farms are putting the small farms out of business. This is absolutely not true. The main reason I feel family farms are struggling is because farming is labor- intensive industry. You never have a break from it. Everyday farmers have to feed the animals, maintain their crops, and maintain their facilities, all while worrying about the weather and their finances. People don’t want to work as hard as necessary to run a farm on a family level.

I have to say that any farming is good farming. Farming...

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...should rise up and keep the United States the agricultural power in the world.

Works Cited

Cristison, Bill, Family Farmers Express Strong Opposition to 2002 Farm Bill. June 2002. 20 Oct. 2003 http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/ra02/bcfb02.html

Gunset, George, "More ways to Keep ‘em in farming," Chicago Tribune 1 Jan. 1989, pg.49. Employment. Proquest Online. 16 Oct. 2003

Cristison, Bill, "Statement of Bill Cristison at press conference rally for rural America," 20 March. 2000. 20 Oct. 2003 http://www.nffc.net/press1.htm

Welsh, Rick, "Anti- Corporate Farming Laws, the "Goldschmidt Hypothesis" and Rural Community Welfare," Friends of the Constitution. 16 Oct. 2003 http://www.i300.org/anti_corp_farming.htm

Wilkinson, Todd, "An agrarian revolt on the hard plains of South Dakota," Christian Science Monitor. 2 Nov. 1999. Pg.1. Proquest Online. 16 Oct. 2003.