In 1900, 95% of the people worked on a farm for a living. In 2011, 99% of the people live in the streets of New York.
Might want to blame Monsanto for that one, and the Federal government. You either use the GMO seeds that Monsanto has patented or they sue you and claim that you are stealing their seeds. They might lose but you'll spend millions fighting them in courts. It has become very difficult for someone to start and run a farm these days because of the huge corporations running the show, and it is because of our government that they were allowed to do it. Up until the last twenty years or so, it was not allowed to patent life (IE seeds). Unfortunately corporate greed and political corruption forced through a decision that has given corporations like Monsanto the ability to patent life, and they have virtually taken over the agriculture industry.
Many farmers sold out as they could get more money from selling their land than farming it. Slack land use laws (like that initiative in Oregon) made it easy. As someone from Pendleton & Klamath Falls, I've seen friends sell off their land that has been in the family for generations to have big bucks now. Add to that, larger farms have squeezed out smaller ones with their ability to consolidate costs. Like Maris, I also am concerned about the disappearance of our farm land.
I belong to a year round CSA and have been to upick farms at least a half dozen times in the last month... what are you doing to help solve the problem?
I think ADM and Monsanto and a few other really big companies own the vast majority of the land. A lot of farms were turned into subdivisions over the years, too. Those big farming companies grow enough food on all the land we have to feed much of the world.
Only because the government subsidizes it. Food would be MUCH more expensive if the government didn't pay a large chunk of the costs to grow it.
Micheal Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma" should be required reading for everybody who's interested in food.
I think you have it backwards. The govt. pays them NOT to grow too much of one thing, which would drive down the price too far.
If all government subsidies of food disappeared, what would change? What would cost more or less? What would be grown more or less? Which crops would be industrialized more or less? Which would be outsourced to other countries and imported and which be exported more?
I also belonged to a CSA when I lived in the Seattle area. Totally anecdotal, but when I asked about other farms I was told that a couple of the larger farmCorps undersold the locals, and then bought them up when they became unprofitable. I heard that from both my CSA farm's owner and the local dairy farm. That might be one reason for the drop in number, but I don't know.
