摘要：Good afternoon. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and to be part of this panel. I only have 20 minutes, so I will not be able to fully outline all of the thoughts and ideas presented in this talk. However, I will be happy to provide the background for material I present. I was asked to participate because of testimony that I presented to the Small Farms Commission when it met in Sioux Falls. I have copies of that testimony for anyone who is interested. Much of my talk today will be drawn from the testimony that I gave there. Before beginning I would like to present briefly the general ideas that I bring to my analysis of how small farms compete. I come from the Midwest so my examples and frame of reference will be from that part of the country. I was trained as an agricultural economist in the land grant tradition. I believe that everything is interconnected and that every choice we make involves trade-offs. I also believe that change is inevitable but that we can influence the direction of change. We are masters of our own destiny.
