People who are retiring or have jobs in the county will live on small tracts and pursue some farm activity like a cow-calf operation. Farmers and farming communities will have to do the adjusting, he noted. Some stay, some go, but each group has adjustments to make. Ultimately, he emphasizes, consumers are the ones who truly benefit from all the changes on the farm. Never before has food been so safe and plentiful and cost so little as a percentage of disposable income.
Farmers benefit from the higher yields that a new hybrid seed, for instance, can bring.
Ultimately, as supply goes up, prices for the consumer go down. Food demand stays about the same, regardless of price and people's income. As those services are built into the price of the food, the farmer's part of the revenue tends to decline as a percentage of the whole.