Word: ebbersons
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...hard to start big, which is why agriculture has the kind of demographics that cancels sitcoms: only 6% of farmers are younger than 35, while 26% are over 65. "It's damn near impossible to get started today," Craig Ebberson says during a tour of the endless rows of corn and soybeans he farms with his sons near Randolph, Neb. "Farms are getting bigger and more efficient, and that's not going to stop." The Environmental Working Group's farm-subsidy database shows that Ebbersons in the area collected $3 million in crop aid over the past decade. Craig used...
What's happened is, some farm families got big, but more got out. Subsidies have helped finance the expansion plans of the big guys while inflating the rents of the little guys. Ebberson's neighbor Mike Korth has a 1,000-acre (400 hectare) corn and soybean spread that would have been considered enormous a century ago but is now about average for the area. His township has only 39 families on 36 sq. mi. (94 sq km), a frontier-level population density. No wonder a Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City study found the rural counties most dependent...
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