> This saving the family farm thing...

Notice what most of the policies are in place to help with this? 

...things like beginning farmer loan programs, where 70% (my guesstimate) of the loan $$$ go to kids of the guy farming 5,000 acres. (Notice that I didn't say 70% of the loans, but rather 70% of the dollars.) The result is often that the $$$ really went to lower the operating costs of growing an already-large operation. (The sons and daughters eventually rent their land to the LLC; all becoming part of the same farm business.) 

Oh, and don't get me started on Fed. Crop Insurance.  The bigger you are, the more the government "helps" you....which is part of the unfair competition Fed. Crop Ins. foists on smaller, family farm operations by encouraging growth in farm size beyond what would result from a free market. Many people have called for limiting Fed. Crop Ins. subsidies to, say, 1,000 rowcrop acres, and other reforms. But it won't happen; again, because the rowcrop lobby has historically (especially during & after the FDR Administration) been good at squeezing $$$ from the Fed. government--often with the bogus threat of "unless you 'help' farmers we might run out of food".

(Don't get me started on ethanol subsidies either.)

If anyone thinks these comments are off topic, remember that they relate directly to land resources being shifted away from forage production and thus make cow herd expansion difficult.