And a recent survey found that consumers trust family farmers far more than big corporations or the government to keep their food supply plentiful and safe. The crisis in agriculture is twofold. The immediate struggle for farmers is to figure out if there's enough money to pay this year's bills and stay in business. The changing face of farming Longer term, however, the struggle is over what farming will look like in the future as fewer and bigger farms grow our food and the control over the direction of agriculture shifts increasingly to a handful of large corporations. It's easy to make the case that certain segments of the nation's populace care a great deal about what's happening on the farm.
Rural communities care.
For many of them, especially in the sparsely populated Plains, farming is still the backbone of the economy. It keeps Main Street businesses and schools open. Neb. Some industries and their workers care. The companies that build tractors, combines and farm implements have laid off thousands of employees in the past two years. And many city dwellers have more of a stake in this than their neighbors and co-workers might think.