THE PROBLEMS WITH BIG FARMS: industrial commodity farming and the decline of small farms

The problems with big farms and the ever-increasing scale of industrial agriculture are beyond a simple black and white solution. It's important to differentiate between the agricultural system itself and the farmers who work within that system. Given the choice of a world of small farms vs big farms, which would we choose? In this video I give my farmer opinion on the state of industrial commodity farming and the decline of small farms. It's been a long time since farmers determined farm economics and their own destinies. Instead, farms' success or failure are dictated by three main groups:

1. The large agribusiness corporations, including Cargill, Dow Dupont, Archer Daniels Midland, Bayer (Monsanto), John Deere, and Case New Holland
2. The banking industry
3. The government and agriculture subsidies, starting in 1971 with Earl Butz and the US Department of Agriculture

These large forces have combined to reshape commodity farming, and have pushed farms to be ever larger, increase efficiency, and decrease the price of commodities. Large farms' effects have cascaded across America, causing a growing disconnect of the population from their food supply, changing the rural landscape once dominated by small farms and small towns, reducing species diversity, creating a more fragile food system, and hurting food quality.

However, we should not blame large farms for the effects they have caused, and under no circumstances should we fault the farmers that are working within this system. Instead, we should be pointing the finger at the forces that have shaped modern farming. We should realize that a world of "get big or get out" is not necessarily better, and that economics is not the sole determinant of what is best.

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Видео THE PROBLEMS WITH BIG FARMS: industrial commodity farming and the decline of small farms канала Just a Few Acres Farm