You can't just move to the midwest and become a farmer. Particularly if you don't have incredible financial mobility in the first place. The cost of land alone is immense and that isn't factoring in equipment.

Having come from such a town, I would not describe it as safe. Things are cheap and most of the people who are there are stuck there because they have no economic mobility. Yes, there are plenty who choose to and enjoy it but that isn't the bulk of the population.