"katy" wrote
That's such baloney. In West Michigan, .....

Good! But west Michigan (all Michigan?) is economically depressed. Elsewhere,
the land has become so valuable it makes more economic sense to sell out and
live on the $$$ from investing the sale price - unless you have kept refinancing
the mortgage every year to get cash to live on. I think we are argueing
semantics. To me "family farm" means about a quarter section - the amount of
land a family can farm independently without modern "industrial" machinery. But
with modern machinery one man (never mind the "family") can easily farm a setion
or more. In fact, he must to make his investment in those machines pay off.

I'm glad (though dubious) that "family farms" are surviving up there. To the
casual observer, they are here too. There's mom and pop and the kids living on
200 acres. They may have an orchard and garden where they grow their own fruit
and veggies for little more than the "industial" ones in the supermarket. The
daughter has a hobby horse and a few, perhaps one in ten, raise a steer and/or
hog every year. Each spring and fall dad hires a "custom picker" to come with
his industrial machines to plant then harvest a crop. Is that a "family farm"
to you?? If so, no wonder you are so nostalgic about it.