Small farms are economic engines for the countryside. Large corporate farms are generally extractive industries. The latter are employers of labor, such as machine drivers. They provide fewer jobs both on the farm, and in supporting small towns than the more numerous small farms they replace.
I’m undoubtedly biased, having seen the changes where my mom grew up in Wisconsin. It was on a small farm, on a county road lined by many small farms. All of the former parcels of land along the county road has been converted into one gigantic soybean field. There are two employees who live in town, and who commute to the machine shed each day they’re needed. They drive giant automated tractors all day long, and then go home. There is no farm there.
Soybean field
The land is owned by, and the tractor drivers are employed by, some corporation that may not even pay income taxes in the state, since their corporate HQ is elsewhere. As a result of this kind of agricultural consolidation, small Wisconsin towns, near my mom grew up on the farm, as well as the small town father grew up in, are now almost ghost towns. They used to be busy with stores, churches, bars and schools providing for the now absent hundreds of small farms around them.
This isn’t simple pining for a life style that’s changed, or a time that’s gone. I’ve never lived on a farm or in the country. Instead, I believe there are significant benefits to society, the environment, the economy and the security of the nation in having numerous small farms, supporting numerous small towns, much like American of the early 20th century.
Family farm circa 1950
These changes were not necessarily inevitable, but were instead the result of government policies and unfettered capitalistic profit over everything behavior. But it only works that way in the short term. Long term, society suffers and then the economy suffers.
In addition to being economic engines, small farms – especially family-owned small farms – provide numerous other benefits. When you know you will likely pass your farm onto your children, you’re inclined to take better care of the soil, preventing erosion and depletion and contamination. When there are numerous prosperous small towns, there are more small business economic opportunities.
Those same towns also make community – the knowing and supporting the people around you – generally easier to achieve. It’s not impossible in large cities, but it’s a lot easier to become a lost and isolated. Not everyone is cut out for living in a big city, just as not everyone is cut out for living in a remote area. More farms and more small towns provide a much larger variety of opportunities to fit the varying dispositions and habits of the humans making up society.
The extractive, end-stage capitalism of huge industrialized agriculture produces mostly negatives for society. We should encourage a return to the more human-scale, more resilient, more anti-fragile benefits of small farms.
