Alva Review-Courier -

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — They're not making any more farmland.

That's what Ruth Rabinowitz's father used to tell her. He'd grown up poor in the Great Depression and, after putting himself through medical school, saved enough money to buy a few small broccoli farms near his Phoenix, Arizona, home.

But her dad didn't farm those acres himself. In fact, he never farmed anywhere, or even lived in a rural community. For him, farmland was an investment.

"What he noticed was every time he sold a farm, he made money," Rabinowitz told the Columbia Missourian .

He read about globalization, about how man...