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I've been getting a lot of commentary from farmers/rural Americans about Tuesday's column about the problem of declining regions. Almost all of it was (surprise!) reasoned and illuminating 1/ nytimes.com/2019/03/18/opi…
But I do want to emphasize the limits to most proposed solutions. Yes, we can stop favoring agribusiness over family farms, improve rural infrastructure (broadband! yes!), ensure that health care is accessible, and much more. But ... 2/
The fundamental fact is that we no longer need many farmers. Here's a rough estimate of the growth in farm productivity over the past 70 years. The average farmer produces 24x times as much as in 1948 3/ 
Now, US population has doubled since then, we eat more meat and other foods that require more agricultural production, and we export a lot. But food tends to take a declining share of income as income rises, and we just can't find work for many farmers these days 4/
In principle, rural areas could sustain themselves other ways -- and some do. But on average, businesses and, in many cases, people themselves are going to prefer metro areas with bigger markets, broader economic bases, and more amenities 5/
That's really hard economic logic to fight, and there are few if any successful role models 6/
