It’s confusing because you have so many dimensions of scale - labor input, land use, water consumption, etc - that you can point out advantages to almost any ap

It’s confusing because you have so many dimensions of scale - labor input, land use, water consumption, etc - that you can point out advantages to almost any approach. The last century has seen massive farms using high tech kit, in part because they can lobby for grants and subsidies more effectively. They are not water efficient as a rule, and they tend to suffer inefficiencies because the people managing the land have no skin in the game, but they are profitable because they can move large volumes of produce and get their machinery paid for by the government.