ABSTRACT
The family farm is an important part of American folklore extending back to the eighteenth century. The ideal of the family farm, however, has been turned into the myth of the family farm. According to the myth, family farms dominate agricultural production in almost all sections of the country. The conventional account of contemporary US agriculture is widely accepted because it is based on the national ideal of the family farm derived from the Jeffersonian concept of agrarian democracy and from a small amount of truth. The myth that family farms predominate in US agriculture has been used to disguise the real trends of large-scale farming and agribusiness. Competition among family farmers is viewed as necessary and indeed beneficial for achieving upward mobility and moving up the agricultural ladder from tenant to part-owner to full-owner status by reinvesting "profits" in land and equipment.
