Economists agree that some farm families will continue to live in Iowa's countryside. They will be fewer, and the way they work the land will be different. Their farms will be bigger. Increasingly, the farmers will work under contract for agribusiness companies. Others will find niches to keep their independent operations alive.
Agriculture pumps tens of billions of dollars into Iowa's economy every year.
Iowa leads the country in efficiency and production of hogs, corn and soybeans. And, although commodity prices have been depressed over the past two years and most likely will stay low for the next two years, the 1990s were a more prosperous decade than the 1980s. Small farmers, though, are steeped in bushels of gloom. Many of them have not shared in the prosperity, even with the help of the federal government. The latest slump in commodity prices has led to a wave of independent farmers leaving the land at a pace unmatched since the 1980s farm crisis.