4 ms·

Tangentially related, but isn't small scale farming, especially in poorer countries, something that's on its way out? Like if you are a farmer, you work hard an

Tangentially related, but isn't small scale farming, especially in poorer countries, something that's on its way out? Like if you are a farmer, you work hard and send your kids to school. Your kids will probably then move to the city or at least a more populous area and take up a job other than farming. As this happens more and more, doesn't the population of small scale farmers decrease to the point where we have to rely more on large scale farms? While I don't have enough knowledge on the subject to comment directly on article, I want to ask, based on the above, does it make sense to invest in small-scale farms?

akiselev 6y ago
> Tangentially related, but isn't small scale farming, especially in poorer countries, something that's on its way out? Like if you are a farmer, you work hard and send your kids to school. Your kids will probably then move to the city or at least a more populous area and take up a job other than farming. As this happens more and more, doesn't the population of small scale farmers decrease to the point where we have to rely more on large scale farms? That assumes some combination of extreme social mobility and a steady state population. We have a growing population and the benefits of much of our industrial production to go a fraction of that population, so it doesn't work out. According to the UN, there were about 2 billion people living in ~475 million rural small farm households in 2015, which by definition are "poor and food insecure and have limited access to markets and services" [1] so they wouldn't reap the benefits of industrialized agriculture. Most estimates have the global human population breaking 2 billion circa 1927 so we have more subsistence farmers alive today than there were human beings alive a hundred years ago (!!!) The birth rate inversion in developed countries is a well known phenomenon [2] so many of the subsistence agriculture dependent populations are organically growing in contrast to most of the developed world which is only growing through immigration. Throw in all the market distortions like water pricing and oncoming climate change... where this goes, nobody knows. [1] http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5251e.pdf http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5251e.pdf [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility

akiselev 6y ago

> Tangentially related, but isn't small scale farming, especially in poorer countries, something that's on its way out? Like if you are a farmer, you work hard and send your kids to school. Your kids will probably then move to the city or at least a more populous area and take up a job other than farming. As this happens more and more, doesn't the population of small scale farmers decrease to the point where we have to rely more on large scale farms? That assumes some combination of extreme social mobility and a steady state population. We have a growing population and the benefits of much of our industrial production to go a fraction of that population, so it doesn't work out. According to the UN, there were about 2 billion people living in ~475 million rural small farm households in 2015, which by definition are "poor and food insecure and have limited access to markets and services" [1] so they wouldn't reap the benefits of industrialized agriculture. Most estimates have the global human population breaking 2 billion circa 1927 so we have more subsistence farmers alive today than there were human beings alive a hundred years ago (!!!) The birth rate inversion in developed countries is a well known phenomenon [2] so many of the subsistence agriculture dependent populations are organically growing in contrast to most of the developed world which is only growing through immigration. Throw in all the market distortions like water pricing and oncoming climate change... where this goes, nobody knows. [1] http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5251e.pdf http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5251e.pdf [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility