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In fact, small farms are the most productive on earth.A four-acre farm in the United States nets, on average, $1,400 per acre; a 1,364-acre farm nets $39 an acr

by hugh 18y ago

In fact, small farms are the most productive on earth.A four-acre farm in the United States nets, on average, $1,400 per acre; a 1,364-acre farm nets $39 an acre. Who writes this stuff? Doesn't anybody think about it before it gets printed in the New York Times? Four-acre farms tend to grow high-value (and probably labour-intensive) crops. There's no point owning a four-acre farm if you're going to use it to grow, say, wheat (40 bushels per acre per year, $9 a bushel, so that's $1440 a year gross). I'm not sure what you can grow which might yield you $1400 an acre. Maybe tulips, or battery hens? Whatever it is, it's probably something you can't sensibly scale up to 1364 acres. (And where did the number 1364 come from? And let's not get started on the fact that 1364 acres isn't really what you'd call a "large" farm. ) Anyway, I'm not just nitpicking on journalistic innumeracy. I really suspect that the whole conclusion (that small farms are more productive than big farms) is completely wrong.

osipov 18y ago
interesting argument -- where did you get these statistics?
mynameishere 18y ago
I'm not sure what you can grow which might yield you $1400 an acre. When 20 acres costs 3 million dollars, some land has to put out a lot more than that. http://www.bergmanvineyards.com/pf_dm.html http://www.bergmanvineyards.com/pf_dm.html Also note: http://countrystudies.us/russia/60.htm http://countrystudies.us/russia/60.htm Private plots also played a role in the Soviet agricultural system. The government allotted small plots to individual farming households to produce food for their own use and for sale as an income supplement. Throughout the Soviet period, the productivity rates of private plots far exceeded their size. With only 3 percent of total sown area in the 1980s, they produced over a quarter of agricultural output.
- hugh 18y ago
  Yes, I'm sure wine grapes would have to be among the >$1400/acre net crops. As for the Soviet example, don't you think that's more likely to be telling us something about private vs collectivized farms, rather than something about large vs small farms? I'm sure there must be data out there somewhere on the efficiency of large vs small farms. Hell, I'm sure there are people who spend their lives studying that kind of thing. Presumably there's some kind of complex productivity vs size curve which varies depending on what crop you're raising (as well as a bunch of other variables) and I'm sure if I went to hang out in the agricultural economics department for a while I could find out far more than I ever wanted to know about it.
Alex3917 18y ago
"I'm not sure what you can grow which might yield you $1400 an acre." Any number of organic non-commodity fruits. Heirloom tomatoes come to mind.
Xichekolas 18y ago
> I really suspect that the whole conclusion (that small farms are more productive than big farms) is completely wrong. Sounds like the usual "big corporate things are bad and small family things are good" dig. Surely there is a better way to measure agricultural productivity than dollars per acre of output. Maybe use calories per acre, or, like you pointed out, find a small farm that raises corn and compare it to a large farm that raises corn and see what differences there are. If large farming operations were so much less efficient than small farms, then how come the Green Revolution nearly tripled our food output right as large farms became the norm?

by hugh 18y ago

osipov 18y ago

interesting argument -- where did you get these statistics?

mynameishere 18y ago

I'm not sure what you can grow which might yield you $1400 an acre. When 20 acres costs 3 million dollars, some land has to put out a lot more than that. http://www.bergmanvineyards.com/pf_dm.html http://www.bergmanvineyards.com/pf_dm.html Also note: http://countrystudies.us/russia/60.htm http://countrystudies.us/russia/60.htm Private plots also played a role in the Soviet agricultural system. The government allotted small plots to individual farming households to produce food for their own use and for sale as an income supplement. Throughout the Soviet period, the productivity rates of private plots far exceeded their size. With only 3 percent of total sown area in the 1980s, they produced over a quarter of agricultural output.

hugh 18y ago
Yes, I'm sure wine grapes would have to be among the >$1400/acre net crops. As for the Soviet example, don't you think that's more likely to be telling us something about private vs collectivized farms, rather than something about large vs small farms? I'm sure there must be data out there somewhere on the efficiency of large vs small farms. Hell, I'm sure there are people who spend their lives studying that kind of thing. Presumably there's some kind of complex productivity vs size curve which varies depending on what crop you're raising (as well as a bunch of other variables) and I'm sure if I went to hang out in the agricultural economics department for a while I could find out far more than I ever wanted to know about it.

Alex3917 18y ago

"I'm not sure what you can grow which might yield you $1400 an acre." Any number of organic non-commodity fruits. Heirloom tomatoes come to mind.

Xichekolas 18y ago

> I really suspect that the whole conclusion (that small farms are more productive than big farms) is completely wrong. Sounds like the usual "big corporate things are bad and small family things are good" dig. Surely there is a better way to measure agricultural productivity than dollars per acre of output. Maybe use calories per acre, or, like you pointed out, find a small farm that raises corn and compare it to a large farm that raises corn and see what differences there are. If large farming operations were so much less efficient than small farms, then how come the Green Revolution nearly tripled our food output right as large farms became the norm?