PHILADELPHIA -- In the 1940s, farmers and their families numbered about 35 million people, or about one-fourth of the U.S. population. Today, that number has plummeted to under 5 million, or less than 2 percent of the population.

In a plenary address June 7 at the Keep America Growing Conference at the Adam's Mark Hotel, Charles C. Geisler, a Cornell University professor of rural sociology, will outline the crisis of disappearing small farms in a talk, "Working Lands and Working People: Coupling Smart Growth with Smart Ownership." The conference is sponsored by the American Farmland Trust.

Over the past five decades, the number of farmers has declined markedly, according to Geisler, at the same time the population has soared. By the year 2050 there will be 390 million people in the United States occupying 2.3 billion acres of land compared with 152 million people in 1950, according to U.S. Census figures quoted by Geisler.

But America's farmland, which constitutes half of the U.S. land area, if Alaska is excluded, is almost vacant and poorly shielded from sprawl, says Geisler. This invaluable asset rests in the hands of 2 percent of the population. And for the first time in the history of the agriculture census, one-half of farmers do not report farming as their principle occupation. "Farmers are few and footloose like never before," he says.

Moreover, according to Geisler, half of America's farmland is now owned by people who don't farm and whose commitment to keeping land in farming is uncertain. Added to this, he says, is the concentration factor: Five percent of the country's largest farmland owners, whether they farm or not, own over half of all U.S. farmland. With so few farmers and literally a handful of owners deciding the fate of the farm sector, Geisler poses the question: Are we surprised that sprawl dominates the news?

"We've got to direct more attention to the receiving end of sprawl, our farmland, which is rapidly becoming an empty quarter," says Geisler.

In focusing on the ownership aspects of sprawl in rural places, Geisler urges that smart ownership be part of smart-growth policies. "We have to diversify ownership niches for American farmers, do a better job of equalizing access to and the distribution of our farmland and provide ownership security that endures farm crises and commodity price swings. And these are just the first steps in smart ownership," he says.