American farms continue to be passed down from generation to generation, so there's no reason to believe that farms are disappearing or being taken over by giant corporations, one agriculture specialist says.
There's a grain of truth in some of the misunderstandings about farms in Texas, but the business of growing food is not threatened with extinction.
That's according to Gary Joiner, communications director for the Texas Farm Bureau, who says the prevalent notion that farms are being rapidly taken over by big companies is a misconception.
"The fear that corporate agriculture has taken over our food production is really not the case," he says.
"Over 95-percent of Texas farms and ranches are actually family owned, family run."
It may get confusing because you'll hear of corporations owning Texas farms, but that's usually because a family will incorporate for tax and permit reasons, but in most cases families remain in charge of the corporations.
What is true is that fewer children of farming families are choosing to continue the family business when they grow up, a tide that's been rising for a long time.
But that growth is likely contributing to the most alarming trend in farming today -- other than the quickly-increasing costs of farming components such as machinery, feed and fertilizer -- the average age of Texas farmers has been rising for years, and it's now just under 60 years old.
"The average age of a Texas farmer, based on our most recent ag census, is about 59 and a-half, so that is older than the national population," Joiner says, and the actual number of farms is slowly slipping.
"Only about one-and-a-half percent of America is producing food and fiber, and demographics show they're an older group."
The Farm Bureau has working groups that concentrate on the future of Texas farming, and they're striving to identify trends, loan and startup opportunities to help identify and then meet the needs of future farmers, Joiner added.