[Aliantha]

With regard to the 'family owned' question, I'm not sure what it's like in the US or anywhere else, but I can say a bit about Australia.

Most of the stations or farms that i know of personally are owned by either the farmer or maybe perhaps be owned by a family trust for taxation purposes. But, at the same time, many of the small crop farmers have contracts with large retailers such as woolworths or coles for example, so it might seem like they're 'owned' by a large corporation, when in actual fact it's only the yield that's owned by the corporation, but the actual farm and land etc is owned by the farmer or family trust. Additionally, some regional groups of farmers may incorporate a co-op whereby they pool their product in order to expidite sales etc. Again, the farms are still individually owned, but the produce is supplied to another entity.

It may be different in the US, but over here, farms are still mostly a family business.