Nonetheless, the decline continues. Many young people who would be the inheritors of their families' land and profession are opting for safer careers, and consequently, land continues to be transferred into the control of corporations and wealthy, large scale farm owners. The fact that many of the young people who would be the inheritors of family farms witnessed the problems their parents faced during the 80s is yet another reason, as are further obstacles created by pro-business legislation. The result of the decline remains largely the same. Creeks, churches, what have you, are systematically eliminated because they are deemed obstacles which lessen productivity more difficult and because their elimination makes way for harvestable land.
Homogenization is more efficient.
Emphasis on efficiency often produces a blindness to ethical concerns, and this holds true for corporate farming. The appropriation of smaller, family owned farms into larger farms owned by investors and overly wealthy individuals has a number of negative consequences. Most obvious of all, though, is the the fact that the rise of the corporate farm and the decline of the family farm are yet another part of the trend in this nation toward a greater concentration of wealth and resources in the higher economic classes. Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann has done some very good work on biblical attitudes regarding monopolization, attitudes which clearly indicate that the Old Testament condemns the appropriation of smaller farms by corporations and the wealthy. The practice condemned here is essentially the same as the one we witness today.