The eight recommendations ask the USDA to take various actions to support small farms. The commission also found strong evidence for widespread public benefits from small-scale farming. The dominant belief in agriculture is that large farms are more efficient than small farms. However, Professor Willis L. Peterson from the University of Minnesota found that factors other than size influence the unit costs in agriculture. Peterson asserts that 'small family and part-time farms are at least as efficient as larger commercial operations.
Small farms contribute more than farm production to our society.
Small farms embody a diversity of ownership, cropping systems, landscapes, biological organization, culture, and traditions. . . . Decentralized land ownership produces more equitable economic opportunity for people in rural communities, and offers self-employment and business management opportunities. In Indiana CAC is trying to get the state of Indiana to respond to the economic, social and environmental justice goals established by the National Commission on Family Farms, and to the economic justice vision of CAC leaders such as Bradley, by working to educate the public and to raise these issues with governmental leaders. Meaningful regulations are necessary to prevent the environmental, public health and economic problems caused by massive factory hog farms. Both have been faced with the spectre of hog factories in their districts.