Farming Today

[DominicJ]

Riff Raff
Thank you for that post, missed it first time. Gives me some stuff to go research

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Riff Raff
Thank you for that post, missed it first time. Gives me some stuff to go research

The pleasure is mine. I would be interested to hear what you think.

[ina]

Why not large scale mixed farming? Instead of small scale mixed farming? Again, I'm trying to argue a farm should grow 10,000 acres of corn every year for ever, thats utterly wrong. But, a 2500 acres farm dplit into 5 500 acre fields is going to be more productive than a 250 acre farm split into 5 50 acre fields.

I am not personaly a farmer, but I'm a managment accountant and I work for a company that owns several hundred farms, and, wih a few exceptions, the bigger the farm, the more profitable it is.

Yes, more profitable they may be - with the input prices as they currently are. However: small farms make more sense for a number of reasons: they employ a lot more people (if you factor in unemployment benefits in the running of large "industrial" farms, the calculation might look different); not only the number of staff on farm is reduced on larger units, all the secondary industries and businesses are reduced, too; a farmer who works a smaller farm knows every square meter (or yard!) of the farm intimately, and can work it accordingly to the best of its potential; on small farms a lot of food gets produced informally - as example, my friend, who has a very small farm, has a dozen hens and some cockerels running about; they are not "kept", they are not fed, or housed, they just live there, and produce enough eggs for herself, her family and occasionally for me; a large farm, say, of 100 times the size of hers, would never have 1200 hens running about, producing eggs for 100 families... Large farms usually have much larger fields, too; however, smaller fields have natural barriers to pests and diseases, when there are different crops growing next to them (large farms have so far made up for this by using more pesticides).

Profitable is not the same as productive, and secure. With rising input prices, I think we'll see a change in how profitability is judged. Already, I read somewhere, in the States there are more and more smaller farms around.

[DominicJ]

Ina
"However: small farms make more sense for a number of reasons: they employ a lot more people"

Although oft repeated, its the stupidest argument ever.
Shops employed more people when the guy behind the counter collected each item from shelves behind the and bagged it for you. Farms employed more people before the advent of the tractor or the ox tether or the iron plough. Shipping employed more people before the advent of the supercarrier(as in bulk transport, not american power projector), docks employed more people before the advent of rolling stock and cranes.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article4157.html
Paragraph titled "Bethlehem Steel innovation at work"
Essentialy, "protecting jobs" "destroys industries"

But thats not really what I meant.
Riff Raff can produce 30% more food per acre, why cant he own 10x the acres and simply employ trained staff?
Or could be a proffessional potato farmer and be rotated around 10 fields every 10 years, with 9 other proffessionals, each growing a specific crop. Rather than growing 5 different crops.

[contadino]

The counter argument is even more stupid. "Grow food in an unsustainable way so we can have cheap food today - we'll worry about tomorrow, tomorrow"

I live in a part of the world where my local shops collect things from the shelves and bag them up for me. The produce in the markets is grown on small farms (>5ha) using minimal chemicals, and plenty of effort. Draft horses are making a comeback. As a region, we're far better setup for the future.

When rust hit the grain growers in the north this spring, our prices didn't go up. Our grain comes from small farms dotted around my region. Several different strains are grown so the impact was lessened. In the north prices shot up.

What's more, living like this is much better. You never buy the wrong screws for a job because the fella in the hardware shop asks you what you're doing and ensures you get the right ones. If you go into the market and ask for 20 kilos of tomatoes, they'll ask whether you're making sauce and sell you the right type of tomatoes. You go into the mill and ask for some flour, they'll ask you whether it's for bread or pasta. It is undeniable that buying from an expert is preferable to buying from someone who knows nothing about 'their' products, and cares little about 'their' customers.

[ina]

Ina
"However: small farms make more sense for a number of reasons: they employ a lot more people"

Although oft repeated, its the stupidest argument ever.

You are still thinking of unlimited input availability - wait a few years, and the only unlimited input you'll have available is people! Unfortunately, there will be very few people left who know how to farm - that problem is beginning to get obvious even now: due to the high specialisation, and redundancy of most farmers, it's difficult to get knowledgeable staff. And none of your 10 farmers who each plant only one crop will be able to really know each bit of that huge farm on which he's supposed to be doing his growing - so they won't be able to do it the most efficient way.

Really, everything you say just shows that you know very little about farming as such. Go and work on a variety of farms, in a variety of ways. Do it with very little energy input (as we'll all have to do it in the not so far future), as well as the "conventional" way, i.e. high energy input. OK, that'll take a few years - but I often find that those who've never really worked and lived in farming can't understand what goes on. (And in case you are wondering - I have worked on a variety of farms, from small to medium sized, organic and conventional, in four different countries, and I have visited large farms, partly to interview farmers.)