Reasons to save the family farm

•  The nation's long-term food supply depends on sustainable practices today
• Sustainable farming requires a small farmer to land ratio because farmers need to have a "relationship" with the land in order to know how to preserve it.
• True family farms (those intended to be in the family for generations) have an incentive to preserve the health of the land.
• Family farms preserve democracy.  Huge agri-businesses result in the population being subject to a few producers for a basic need (food) similar to the population be subject to a few members of a monarchy.
• Small farms (and small businesses in general) preserve the dignity of people.  "Division of labor reduces the activity of labor to dismembered gestures." - Robert Heilbroner
• Good small farmers preserve product quality: "When workers' minds are degraded by loss of responsibility for what is being made, they cannot use judgment; they have no use for their critical faculties; they have no occasions for the exercise of workmanship, of workmanly pride ... this is why we must now buy our clothes and immediately resew the buttons" - Home Economics, Wendell Berry, p. 166
• Small farms have the potential to strengthen community ties since they cannot be completely independent due to their size (they must rely on others for certain things, e.g., a farmer will hire a seed cleaner).  If small farms depend on their community then this strengthens the community.  Large businesses/farms have no need to depend on anyone.  Thus, they do not strengthen communities.