US Betting on Energy Shift to Stem Decades of Disappearing Farms
US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Image: Getty
The US is betting the transition to cleaner energy combined with massive infrastructure investments will reverse a persistent decline in family farms, creating new revenue opportunities for growers while boosting their ability to compete overseas.
More than half a million farms across America's landscape have vanished over the last four decades as policies favoured consolidation. While the resulting industrial heft has bolstered the US's status as an agriculture juggernaut feeding the world, it's wreaked havoc on smaller and mid-sized producers and the rural economies that rely on them.
