More than 80 percent of farmland in the United States is managed by farmers whose operations fall between small-scale direct markets and large, consolidated farms. These farmers increasingly are left out of the food system, and if current trends continue, the fear is that these farms will disappear in the next decade or two.

On Jan. 28 the Community, Food and Agriculture Program (CFAP) and the Small Farms Program, both at Cornell University, will host a public seminar with Fred Kirschenmann, director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Iowa State University, and leader of a new national initiative, Agriculture of the Middle. The initiative is designed to renew America's disappearing sector of midscale farms and related agricultural and food enterprises that are too small to compete in the globalized, bulk agricultural commodities markets and too big to rely on direct marketing to consumers.

The public is invited to participate in the seminar, which will take place from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in Room 401, Warren Hall on the Cornell campus. There is no charge.

Kirschenmann, who also is president of Kirschenmann Family Farms in Windsor, N.D., will describe the background, components and current status of the Agriculture of the Middle project, which is funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program. He will be joined by Thomas Lyson, director of the CFAP and a collaborator on the Agriculture of the Middle project.