USDA Chief: Rural America Becoming Less Relevant

[bhikkhu]

6. There's a bunch of reason, but its been going on for 140 years or so

the "family farm" went into a downward spiral in the 20's, when the homestead act began to close up, and all those family farms proved to be much easier to get started than to run at a profit. In a cash economy, simply put, its extremely hard to make things work. Industrial agriculture grew out of the huge mess of the 30's, when bad weather brought utter poverty and starvation to whole countrysides.

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Farms have been getting bigger and fewer for a long time, but the numbers of farmworkers have been shrinking faster. Rural America shrinks, as the rest gets bigger, so of course there's less influence. Mostly that's mechanization, which has taken over hand labor for obvious reasons - machines don't need a paycheck, and then you can sell the products cheaper, which is what most people want.