"Lost" Farmland

I was just looking for a map of agricultural land in the United States and found maps of "Lost" farmland to development. I've heard this story many times over recent years and I've seen what that phenomenon is supposed to be about. Family farms often get parceled up and developed into residential properties here where I live.

Is that "land" really lost? Obviously it's still there in much the same condition it was previously when it was a family farm. All that land could easily be cultivated again. It might require a different form of agriculture than industrial agriculture with huge machines, but still, it'd be no big deal at all to do.

There's a guy who just built a house about a quarter of a mile from mine who dedicated most of his property to agricultural uses. It's really pretty interesting, because it's a very typical suburban home and smallish property, but is extremely well used and planned. He's got chickens, a garden, maybe some bees. It's a work in progress, but in a few years if he sticks with that approach his property will be a novel, really interesting approach to making food on your property.

Most people who have a big lot with grass could easily convert it to food production. I've come to see a family really needs two acres of land to produce 100% of their food with really intensive and careful management. With more land it's easier, and the approaches can be more flexible.

The suburban lifestyle of maintaining a huge acreage of lawn is pretty crazy and deserves criticism, but it wouldn't take much at all for people to modify their approach to either put more land into agricultural use, or let more land go to a meadow or forest to help out bees, birds, and other critters.