We even sing songs about American agriculture: "where the corn is as high as an elephant's eye..." But the romanticism about small family farms is countered by the general bigness of today's agriculture.
Plenty of people out there buck the trends, including the people who decided years ago to start growing lentils in Montana. Yes, lentils: high in protein, low in farm maintenance, and with a number of advantages to both producer and consumer.
Liz Carlisle tells the story of these farmers in her book Lentil Underground. Carlisle, a lecturer at Cal and Stanford, visits with details of her story.