Either they change the way they've been doing business for generations or they change their occupations. Now, an unprecedented coalition of farmers, academicians, and public officials has been gathered by the US Department of Agriculture to recommend changes to public policy that would aid family farms and to publicize ways that small farmers themselves are figuring out how to compete in an economy increasingly dominated by huge corporations. The results of the National Commission on Small Farms are expected next month. While the oil crisis of the late 1970s marked one of the worst periods for the family farm, in some ways today's challenges are almost as daunting, experts say. Prices are less fixed since Congress partially dismantled the farm-subsidy system.
Land is harder to come by with the spread of suburbs.
Commission members say this trend can be reversed by teaching farmers a new way to manage and revamping policy. Commission members say agricultural research has long focused on large-scale farming. As a result, it has favored capital-intensive farming rather than seeking inexpensive methods to help small farmers. For small farmers to succeed, they can't compete directly with megafarms, members say. They must create specialty niches.