If we truly believe in traditional family values, shouldn't we support the forms of enterprise that embody those values, including the
family farm?
The best aspects of the book are the "responses" the authors make about each other, the contradictory views expressed (as limited as they are), and the conclusion, in which Comstock outlines his moral (Christian) arguments for saving
family farms: emotional attachment, efficiency, stewardship, and cultural identity.
"The decline of rural life goes hand in hand with the decline of the small
family farm."
Environmentally friendly Internet sites such as sustainabletable.org contend the demise of the traditional
family farm is continuing, citing now-familiar statistics such as 3,000 acres of productive farmland is lost to development every day.
Family farms cannot continue being propped up at all corners by various forms of payments.
In the southern Appalachians, we still have many
family farms that are eager to grow food for local communities.
The U.S.-based National
Family Farm Coalition invited them to visit Midwestern farmers this summer.
Anne's father, Hannah's grandfather, is near death in a hospital near the
family farm. Anne's lover drives them to his bedside.
What happens to a
family farm when the parents die?
Their titles, McMurry's Transforming Rural Life and Neth's Preserving the
Family Farm, reveal their differences.
And how about that incubator of hard work, thrift, and other Bennett-touted virtues--the
family farm? The view of today's conservatives: plow it under.
(The Hacienda Luisita sugar estate in Tarlac province, which is owned by the Cojuangco family, is not a
family farm, he said, because "it is operated by a corporation.")
