I wonder what would happen?

[cowman]

a fact oflife is that usually what someone chooses to do on their own property will affect someone else. EG: the right of an individual to run a business or confined feeding operation on their own farm will likely result in questions and concerns from neighbours.
First parcel out is usually a given, however, the municipality must take into consideration how that first parcel out will affect the rest of the neighbourhood.
A scenario in my own community had the operator himself subdivide a first parcel out of a quarter of land, then build a cattle feeding operation on the rest....when he attempted to obtain a county permit ( before the Agricultural Operations Practices Act became legislation and the NRCB became responsible for approving these operations ) the residence on the acreage that he had subdivided was within the minimum distance separation from the feedlot and he could not obtain a permit. Lucky for him that the for sale sign was still up at the acreage so he made the decision to keep it, rent the house out and amalagamate the acreage back into the quarter of land.
Expensive lesson, but it does show how the first parcel out can sometimes impact another agricultural operation.
Multi parcel subdivisions are another matter. The developer must have a hydrogeological study done if more than 6 parcels are involved, to ensure adequate water for exising use.
Locating these multi-lot subdivisions near hamlets where they can tie into municipal water and sewer makes the most sense, then there is no concern for sewage disposal, and numerous water wells drilled into one aquifer.

[dsinclair]

To add to this, you are responsible for everything that leaves your property. For example, should you spray and the spray drift onto your neighbor's alfalfa, you are liable. Or if you spread manure and the runoff gets into your neighbor's dugout, again, you are liable. So you may do with your property what you will, but you have to take the surrounding land and any effect your actions might have on your neighbor into consideration.

[tojo]

I have been in this game for a long time & have noticed that most subsidies etc are lobbied for by farmers and farm organizations to try and put our farmers on an equal footing with those highly susbidizied farmers in the USA and EUROPE. I do agree that things do get out of hand with gov't employees setting up the pyramid effect to create paperwork to justify their jobs and those they created for their departments to justify their existance. I also have seen free entreprisers who scramble to get off on their own .... these tend to be the ones who come crawling back for gov't assistance when things go bad for them....usually in front of the protest line. In the perfect 'utopia' what you say makes sense ...... we are far from the perfect world and like you say things are badly screwed up. We, in Canada, are the best and most efficient farmers in the world - producing quality products for our consumers. Most of the problems we encountered in the recent past have to do with crises that are beyond our control at the farm gate ... weather abnormalities, closed borders to our products ... whether it be beef (BSE), potatoes (plant viruses), dairy (export restrictions via NAFTA), hogs, grain & the list goes on.....

[tower]

I don't think that the presence of a beaurocracy is an indication of a political leaning one way or the other. Some of the biggest pyramids in the world right now are corporations with their fingers in every pie from farm to restaurant, from copper mine to electricity retailer, and each of the employees and employers is busy trying to get the plum in each pie.

Maybe that wouldn't be bad, or even onerous, but like everyone they are trying to get as much as possible for as little effort as possible, and protect their positions at the same time. Time for a look at what it means not to have another continent to exploit.