This shows there are more hogs in Missouri today, but they are being raised on fewer farms. There has been a lot of attention lately to a shift in thinking about the agricultural community. The industrialization of agriculture has led to the development of fewer, larger farms, sometimes at the expense of the independent family farm. Today, local cooperatives are gaining momentum as the way of the future. These cooperatives allow for economies of scale on shared resources, but also allow farmers to retain some independence.
Profitability keeps the smaller independent farms in operation.
Many of today's farmers want to remain independent of large company farms but are struggling financially to do so. According to John Ikerd, professor of agricultural economics at the University of Missouri-Columbia, fewer than 2 percent of Americans are called farmers today and less than half of that number view farming as their primary occupation. The average American spends little more than a dime of each earned dollar on food, and the farmer receives only a penny of that dime, according to Ikerd. The remainder pays for processing and marketing costs. Many people are unaware of the importance of agriculture in our society.