Small family farms are an important part of America’s landscape. Without them we would not be the nation we are today. My own background includes growing up on a family farm that has been in my family for over a century.

It’s kind of like that family heirloom your mother never let you play near as a kid because she was sure you would break it. It’s been in your family so long you feel strongly attached to it. It is my hope that some day I will see my brothers farm this piece of land. However, the way that farming is quickly changing, it is hard to tell what will happen.

Family farms are becoming a thing of the past. What used to be a vast nation of various family-owned-and-operated farms has now become an entirely corporate-run farmland. Corporations buy up plots of land with offers the farmer can literally not pass up or they slap contracts in the faces of producers to get the number of animals they need out of the deal.

All the while, they’re jerking the farmer around. Hold out until the end, you might say. Well, in most cases these people have already gone so far into debt they must sell in order to satisfy their bankers. It is well known that farming is not always a lucrative way to make a living.

So at this point you’re probably thinking “It’s those darn bankers and corporations that are pushing the small farmers out.” Get rid of them and go back to two-horse plows and threshing. Go back to one producer turning out forty head of cows and one hundred acres of row crop.

Aha, but it is not just the banker and corporations who are at fault here. Then whom do we place the blame on? Ordinary, everyday people. People like you and me.

When college students go to the grocery store rarely do they think “hmmm . I wonder if this pork is home-raised, or did those Nazis at Cargill turn this out of their factory-like confinement?”

At the risk of totally ticking off anyone who does business with Cargill, I would like to point out that it’s not Cargill’s fault they are making money and pushing out the small farmer. Actually, to a certain degree it is; cold, heartless corporations do a lot of backhanded things to the farmers.

However, corporations just give Americans what they want – cheap food. Without corporations you wouldn’t be able to go to your local fast food restaurant and get your favorite greaseball fare at the low, low price of 89 cents. Corporations make meat and grain prices affordable for the consumer.

Hate to admit it, but they are a very big part of our economy. Regular consumers do not stop to think about what they are eating. It does not occur to them where the chicken from their chicken a la king recipes comes from.

Nobody ever stops in the middle of drinking a tall glass of milk to think “I wonder if this was brought in by some huge dairy or if a nice little family-owned dairy produced it.”

What can be done, you might ask? It is sad to say that corporations, most likely, are here to stay.

They have the capability to mass-produce what American and foreign consumers want and need. So those of us who wish to work in the field of agriculture must either leave or join them.

Most of the students today in the ag industry find jobs with large corporations when they graduate. The only thing you can possibly do is attempt to buy local.

So the next time you venture to the grocery store, stop and think about what you are buying when you pick up that package of ground beef or that bag of bread.

Did the farmer down the road produce it or was it some money-grubbing corporation?

Danelle Zellmer is a sophomore in public service and administration in agriculture from Atlantic.