… rural America’s biggest assets – the food supply, recreational areas and energy, for example – can be overlooked by people elsewhere as the U.S. population shifts more to cities, their suburbs and exurbs.
“Why is it that we don’t have a farm bill?” said Vilsack. “It isn’t just the differences of policy. It’s the fact that rural America with a shrinking population is becoming less and less relevant to the politics of this country, and we had better recognize that and we better begin to reverse it.”
For the first time in recent memory, farm-state lawmakers were not able to push a farm bill through Congress in an election year, evidence of lost clout in farm states…” via Associated Press.
farm bill
The Family Farm Is Being Systematically Wiped Out Of Existence In America | The ECB
An entire way of life is rapidly dying right in front of our eyes. The family farm is being systematically wiped out of existence in America, and big agribusiness and the federal government both have blood all over their hands. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of farms in the United States has fallen from about 6.8 million in 1935 to only about 2 million today. That doesn’t mean that there is less farming going on. U.S. farms are producing more than ever. But what it does mean is that farming is increasingly becoming dominated by the big boys…
via The Family Farm
The Grey Enigma 