Big Business and Big Government have Family Farmers in their Sights.

American family farms and the country's food supply are in danger as never before. During the next 20 years, 400,000,000 acres of US farmland - nearly half the total - will be for sale. And Wall Street is ready to snap up the opportunity like a fox in a henhouse, states a new report by the Oakland Institude entitled "Down on the farm." In addition, corporate big agriculture and it's government lackeys press ahead with other efforts, which endanger the continued existence of small and medium sized Farms.

 Since the 1940s, the number of farms in this country has collapsed by 85%, although the general population has doubled, according to the advocacy group Farm Forward. Prior to that time, 40-80 acres produced sufficient income to raise a large family. Now, thanks to predatory banking and commodities trading practices, the cost of technology and government intrusion, it requires nearly 1200 acres to accomplish that goal. An estimated 99% of US livestock is raised on factory farms, often in cruel, unsanitary conditions, which produce inferior meat and also pollute the local environment. Several states have passed unconstitutional "ag-gag" laws, which criminalize whistle-blowing efforts to expose livestock abuse. 

Today, the majority of farmers are over 55 years of age. That is a demographic death knell. While many of the younger generation would like to enter or remain in farming, they have no access to the massive capital now required. When the older generation quits, sells out or dies, so may most family farms.

Presently, corporate farms and ranches compromise only about 1% of all agricultural operations, but Wall Street investment firms like UBS Agrivest and TIAA-CREF (a massive teachers' pension fund) are greedily eyeing the 15% - 25% of farmland that is considered "institutional quality." This land speculation, more of capital gains than anything else, is driving up the land and food prices.

The amount of land in tillage is dropping. Corporate owners are converting a part of that land to non-food uses, like wind farms and "fracking" for oil and gas, without regard for protecting fragile water resources, such as the Ogallala Aquifer.  There is the additional problem of diverting increasing amounts of grain to fuel in animal feed uses rather than feeding human beings. And corporations are "absentee landlords" who's lack of knowledge and concern for the land leads to serious labor and environmental abuses by management companies.

Elsewhere, says Mother Earth News, the department of agriculture is poised to deregulate completely new strains of genetically modified corn and soybeans designed to tolerate increased application of the dangerous herbicide 2, 4-D. Many crops and fruits can be killed by wind drifts of the poison. Australia recently banned the chemical due to its serious adverse health effects. 

But there are small signs of hope. Advocacy groups continue to form in defense of family farming, since the Farm Bureau long ago sold its soul to Bing Ag. And organizations like the Agrarian Trust work to assist young and aspiring farmers in obtaining financing to achieve their dream of a sustainable family farm, helping to feed the world - or at least a small corner of it. 

It is time to consider a new Homestead Act, one that would provide some of this newly available farmland to resident family farmers at low cost and establish a stable "back to the land" movement.