The Rise of Agribusiness

• Mechanization and consolidation have given rise to massive corporate farms.Jupiterimages/Comstock/Getty Images
  
  In the last half of the 20th century, the rise of large scale agribusiness made it increasingly difficult for smaller family farms to survive in the marketplace. Just as large supermarket chains can buy items in bulk and centralize their administrative operations, major agricultural corporations can invest in state-of-the art equipment and large quantities of supplies that are unaffordable for individual farmers.
  
  

The Rise of Suburbs

• Suburban contemporaries remain a fashionable housing choice.Jupiterimages/liquidlibrary/Getty Images
  
  When American soldiers returned from World War II, many of them eager to start families, the GI bill provided them with low cost home loans. Developers and builders eager to accommodate this lucrative market bought large tracts of undeveloped or agricultural land and built thousands of housing units. Local authorities created zoning codes that specified that only residential uses were allowed and created minimum lot sizes of one or two acres. These developments required roads, infrastructure and schools. Business and industrial districts flourished nearby, absorbing even more land.
  
  

Demographics

• The trade-off: Good living in suburbia, 10 hours a week in traffic.Thinkstock/Comstock/Getty Images
  
  The U.S. population has grown steadily as a result of both fertility and immigration, from just over 200 million in 1970 to just under 300 million in 2010. For many of these years, upward economic mobility meant that many people could afford to relocate from inner cities, deemed less desirable by many, to the suburban developments being built on former farmland.
  
  

Slowing Sprawl

• The demand for local produce and free range meat is helping to preserve farms in some areas.Jupiterimages/BananaStock/Getty Images
  
  In recent years, communities have begun to question the wisdom of allowing farmland to continue vanishing under the rising tide of sprawl, which renders people dependent upon their automobiles for every need and upon faraway, unseen sources for the food they eat. Some of the innovations that are gaining ground include community supported agriculture (CSA) farms, in which people invest in shares of a small farmer's harvest ahead of time and receive fresh local produce, and open space preservation measures such as the transfer of development rights, in which farmers are paid for land that they may then continue to occupy and farm but may not sell to developers. Another anti-sprawl tactic is mixed-use zoning, the creation of neighborhoods where residences and businesses co-exist and people can live, work and play without lengthy drives.