Some interesting statistics from the 2002 USDA Census of Agriculture:

"Ninety percent of farms are operated by an individual or family. The number of corporate farms declined by 18.4 percent from 1997 to 2002, which reverses a trend that has continued without interruption since 1974.

Direct sales to consumers increased 37 percent from 1997, totaling $812.2 million in 2002.

The value of organically produced commodities reached $392.8 million in 2002. "

I have been thinking a lot lately about agriculture (call it a side effect of my trip to Iowa), and specifically about sustainable agriculture. I started wondering whether recent moves toward organic farming, and greater publicity of CSAs and farmers' markets, were making an impact on agriculture trends of the past decade. Reading Fast Food Nation a few times certainly instilled in me the desire to know better where my food is coming from. And after eating locally-grown organic produce, and realizing that the difference really is tremendous, I thought a transition away from corporate farms was inevitable.

It looks like maybe, for once, I was right.

(The USDA website is kind of interesting. But maybe only t0 me...)