In the 1980s, the Bennett farm in Slaughter Neck was named a Century Farm, an honor given to working farms that have been in the same family for 100 years or more. Beginning in the 1960s, the Bennetts began raising broilers and soybeans after years of raising dairy cattle. Farmers have always known how to adapt, to change their their techniques or their crops in order to make a profit and to survive from season to season.

A friend of Fred Bennett's argued that farming was a gamble because it was so risky. Bennett took offense. "Now you wait a minute," he said. "Before you tell me I'm gambling farming…Did you get out of bed this morning? He said, 'Yeah.' I said, 'Are you going back to bed tonight?' He looked right down at the blacktop. He stood there and he was speechless. He said, 'No, I don't know.' Well I said, 'My farming is no more gambling than you getting out of bed or me getting out of bed. We don't know if we're going back to bed tonight or not.'

Over the last 25 years, more and more farmers have faced the question of whether they can afford to continue their way of life. Fred expresses his hopes

Family farms need children and grandchildren who are willing to carry on the business of farming, but some are unwilling to demand that kind of sacrifice. Others, like Fred Bennett II, understand the love of farming as a way of life and hope that somehow it will survive.