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This book is about cotton, a crop that seemed destined to a marginal role in America's economy until technology and politics combined to make it one of the driving forces behind the nation's bloodiest war. Against an historical backdrop, Helferich traces the life of a modern cotton farmer, exploring the traditions of growing cotton that have endured since ancient times--and the current forces that threaten to drive small farmers from the land.

Americans decry the decline of family farming but stand by helplessly as industrial agribusiness takes over. The prevailing sentiment is that family farms should survive for important social, ethical, and economic reasons. But will they? This timely book exposes the biases in American farm policies that irrationally encourage expansion, biases evident in federal commodity programs, income tax provisions, and subsidized credit services."Family Farming" also exposes internal conflicts, particularly the conflict between the private interests of individual farmers and the public interest in family farming as a whole. It challenges the assumption that bigger is better, critiques the technological basis of modern agriculture, and calls for farming practices that are ethical, economical, and ecologically sound. The alternative policies discussed in this book could yet save the family farm, and the ways and means of saving it are argued here with special urgency. This Bison Books edition includes a new introduction by the author, providing a more national perspective, underscoring the repetitive cycles of American agriculture over the decade, and assessing the major policy issues that have dominated agriculture in recent years.

This book answers the questions: what is happening to American agriculture, and why? Steven C. Blank uses portfolio theory to analyze both macro- and microeconomic data that paints a clear picture of the trends in agriculture, and explains why these trends are consistent with market evolution and global economic development. He clarifies agriculture's specific role in economic development with a focus on the current and future globalizing commodity markets. The book features empirical research that demonstrates the link between farm-level investment decisions and regional and national economic trends. It shows how the dynamic environment of industrialization and globalization of agriculture is part of a continuing development that is driven by technological innovation. This all points to a future with a very different agricultural production sector and some extremely important policy choices that will face the entire country.