Families were provided with 20 hectares of land, a six-room house and seed money to fund buying livestock, farm equipment and a barn.

After a period of growth in the 1950s the population began to decline in the 1970s, with residents moving from farming to construction and other types of work.

Most farms had failed because of problems getting food produced to viable markets, compounded by high costs of feed, fertilizer and transportation.

In 1979, the Department of Rural, Agricultural and Northern Development built and equipped a centralized vegetable processing building at Cormack in an effort to combat potato dumping by mainland producers.

The current government of Newfoundland runs a 243 hectare community pasture [3] at Cormack, the largest of 30 throughout Newfoundland, providing cheap grazing for the cattle and sheep of the Cormack farmers and allowing the farmers' own land to be sown for winter feed.