the following excerpt I found doing some reading and helps to somewhat explain what has happened with agriculture in the last few years, though for many was already known long ago:
"Family farms, hutterite colonies included can be large, which is the norm in rich countries, where they are getting bigger; or small, which is the norm in poorer countries, where they are getting smaller. Why the opposite trajectories? It all comes down to the number of people who want to farm.
In places where it’s hard to make money and few jobs available, people tend to stay on the farm and work smaller pieces of land more intensively. It’s almost always possible to coax more food from a piece of land if you have enough labor, though each increase in production takes a lot more work. When there are many people, and few other opportunities, you get farms that are labor-intensive and land-saving. Every generation, farms split up between children and get smaller.
In places where there are good jobs off the farm, fewer people end up working bigger pieces of land with labor-saving devices like machinery and chemicals. If farmers can earn more money working a job in the city, it only makes sense for them to leave the land. The farmers who stay are the ones who can figure out how to work enough land so that their incomes rise."
It is easy to see if the trend in North America continues with increasing amounts of wealth generated off the farm that farms will no doubt get larger and hutterite colonies with birth rates dropping will also continue to expand unless the voting public intervenes to slow this process.
"Family farms, hutterite colonies included can be large, which is the norm in rich countries, where they are getting bigger; or small, which is the norm in poorer countries, where they are getting smaller. Why the opposite trajectories? It all comes down to the number of people who want to farm.
In places where it’s hard to make money and few jobs available, people tend to stay on the farm and work smaller pieces of land more intensively. It’s almost always possible to coax more food from a piece of land if you have enough labor, though each increase in production takes a lot more work. When there are many people, and few other opportunities, you get farms that are labor-intensive and land-saving. Every generation, farms split up between children and get smaller.
In places where there are good jobs off the farm, fewer people end up working bigger pieces of land with labor-saving devices like machinery and chemicals. If farmers can earn more money working a job in the city, it only makes sense for them to leave the land. The farmers who stay are the ones who can figure out how to work enough land so that their incomes rise."
It is easy to see if the trend in North America continues with increasing amounts of wealth generated off the farm that farms will no doubt get larger and hutterite colonies with birth rates dropping will also continue to expand unless the voting public intervenes to slow this process.
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