Communities suffer not only financially, but also in terms of the quality of education,

health care, and other essential services (Swenson, 1999). Christenson and Robinson

(1989) state that "since the early '80's, communities, especially rural communities have

confronted a social, economic, political, and demographic environment substantively

different from that of the first part of the century" (p. 197).

 The agricultural sector of America is changing. In the 2002 Census of

Agriculture, there were 2.13 million farms in the United States, up 0.1% from 2001. The

increase in farms occurred primarily in agricultural operations with $1,000 to $9,999 a

year in sales. The total land in farms in 2002 was 939.5 million acres, which increased

170,000 acres from 2001. A farm is defined as any place from which $1000 or more of

agricultural products were produced and sold during the year (United States Department

of Agriculture [USDA], 2004).

 The average farm size in the United States is 441 acres. The largest number of

 farms 658,804 are those, which are 50 to 179 acres in size (USDA, 2004). Figure 1-1

 represents the distribution of farm size (in acres) in the United States.


 700000
 600000
 500000-
 0
 S400000
 5 300000
 200000-

 100000
 0
 1 to9 10to 50 to 180to 500to 1000to 2000+
 49 179 499 999 1999
 Size of Farm (in acres)
 Figure 1-1. Distributions of Farms by Size (USDA, 2004)