In article ,
"Ted Mittelstaedt" wrote:

"Billy" wrote in message
...
There are other arguments against "industrial" agriculture but this is
the first I came up with.

They do not want to go out and separately negotiate
orders of corn of this magnitude from 100 separate small
farmers who can each only supply a ton of corn.

This is why the big agribusinesses thrive, it is the
presence of a market.

If you want to get rid of large farms and go back to
a lot of small farms, you need to figure out an efficient
marketing and distribution system.

Small farms in the US have had cooperative distribution systems since
the mid-1700s. I think I recall reading that even the Sumerians (or was
it the Babyonians?) had cooperative distribution systems for their
agriculture. Lack of distribution systems is clearly not the cause of
factory farming but it certainly was an idea worth exploring.

Isabella
--
"I will show you fear in a handful of dust"
-T.S. Eliot