User talk:69.40.58.149

The article sounds like it was written by a small farms activist who has never looked at either farm numbers data or farm income data.
In just a single year, from 1972 to 1973 when Butz was sec of ag, net far income increased from 65 billion to 90 billion $

See the actual data here. https://data.ers.usda.gov/reports.aspx?ID=17831

There is no data that would support the idea that farm numbers somehow declined more rapidly when Butz was secretary of Ag than they did before.

The farm numbers data are in chart form. The big declines in farm numbers occurred before Butz took office--in the 1950s and 60s and seem to have nothing to do with the party of the secretary of agriculture To argue that farm numbers fell because of farm policies advocated by Butz is simply not supported by the data itself https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=58268

I have a doctorate in agricultural economics from Purdue with an area of specialization in agricultural production economics and spent a 40 year career teaching and doing research on issues related to agricultural production and farm numbers. I have refereed journal articles that through data strongly dispute the conclusions reached in the Imhoff references on which this article seems to be based (Google "David Debertin").

The Imhoff book represents a political viewpoint about farm numbers and corporate agriculture that simply put is wrong. Farms are not being somehow becoming giant corporations because of things Butz did. Even today, few farms are organized as corporations and for those that are, the incentive usually is to ease transfer of assets intergenerationally as part of an estate planning problem, not to somehow kill off family farms. It is possible for a farm to be family owned yet still be organized as a corporation so that all family members can own a share of the farm even the members who are not active farmers.

This entire article needs work to remove references to books that are at best misleading and at worst, simply totally wrong. I get angry when I read an article in Wikipedia like this because it is simply wrong on a host of different issues and statements. And there are USDA data that confirm the errors.

Butz was popular on the speaking circuit with farmers well after the jail term, in large measure because so many farmers did very well financially and have fond memories of the times when he was Secretary of Agriculture.