Trends

One of the magazines I've enjoyed for lots of years is Successful Farming. I mostly take it for the pictures and I'm serious about that.
There is some interesting information in it and a recent article by Loren Kruse is one of those articles that speaks of some interesting trends.
You can read the whole article by clicking on the title of this entry. Here's a quick list of trends that he writes of:
1) Deep freezers are hot sellers - it had the strongest growth in its segment last year.
2) Home cookin' is cookin' - the trend of women entering the workforce is now flat.
3) Gardening is growing - garden seed sales boomed last year.
4) More consumers want info on their food.
5) Babies are back - births in 2007 was near the high of the 1950's.

Now a question, what do the trends mean? Does it reflect a tightening economy? Has the writing of Rod Dreher, author of Crunchy Cons, and contributor to the Dallas Morning News being put into action? Are we seeking to become more self-sufficient? What about trends #2 and #5 - what do they say about our culture?