
America’s food giants swallowed the family farms - jelliclesfarm
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/09/american-food-giants-swallow-the-family-farms-iowa
======
jelliclesfarm
I wonder what would be the optimal size for a (mostly)self sufficient
‘village’..with enough for themselves and then to trade? Can we go back to the
times when we can have free markets AND a limited amount of protectionism AND
self sufficiency? Or is that contradictory.

If 1 square mile is 640 acres. Let’s say it can support 600 individuals or
150-200 families...can we stop expanding at that point and rather than have
dense cities, simply add another square mile to form another self sufficient
town ..all interconnected and clustered..with local governance and self
sufficiency. (I am speaking generally and not particularly about CAFOs) I am
not romanticizing going back to feudal farming economy..but just borrowing
their structure and applying it to our modern times to not stress resources
and not create pockets of dense urban towns and then urban sprawl and then
rural boondocks.

I could be wrong but at least with soil Ag, economies of scale don’t seem to
matter with full automation as we rely on less labour costs. The supply chain
is a problem and it is likely people will a little more for food. But we
already way too little for food and commodity Ag is subsidized. We can’t be
worse off by automating farms and making them smaller and doing away with
economies of scale.

~~~
eesmith
When did we have free markets? Because I can't think of any time.

No, we can't 'go back'. Cities are more efficient than what you propose.
Apartment buildings need less heat. Water treatment and district heating are
cheaper than individual systems. There's also more things to do in cities. In
theory cities can be built on land which is not good for farming, but the
sprawl of Chicago shows that people will pay more for city land than farming
land.

The number I've heard for land area is about 5 acres per person. See
[https://www.primalsurvivor.net/much-land-need-self-
sufficien...](https://www.primalsurvivor.net/much-land-need-self-sufficient/)
. And that's if you have good land, water, and growing season. I've only heard
1 acre for land with some of the very intensive methods like hydroponics and
vertical growing. These require more equipment (made elsewhere) and labor.
Most people don't want to be subsistence farmers.

As your user id is 'jelliclesfarm', I assume you are a farmer. My g'father was
farmer in Michigan, but that's because he was poor and land was cheap. The
farm work fed the family while the cash money came from his also working as a
machinist.

I don't see how more automation would help achieve the goals you want. Quite
the contrary. Factory farming is successful because of automating farms.

As an example from the article: "In these industrial farming units, pigs, cows
and chickens are crammed by the thousand into rows of barns. Many units are
semi-automated, with feeding run by computer and the animals watched by video,
with periodic visits by workers who drive between several operations."

For another example: Investors buy the land, and they have tractors and
combines that you can run by computer,” she said. “They’ll hire somebody to
sit in a little office somewhere and run that stuff off the computer and farm
the land that way.

That is, we could easily be worse off (if your goal is a low-density/village-
centered society) by pushing more farm automation.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
I come from a very populous country and I am not impressed by the arguments
made by high density proponents. In my lived experience, it degrades quality
of life.

As a small acreage farmer, I see that the market forces don’t work for me due
to economies of scale. Or lack thereof.

Having said that..the water and soil are really abused in rural areas. Ag must
be distributed and especially in sub optimal land rather than prime fertile
land. Good land should be returned back to nature as we reforest and bring
ecological balance.

Now we have soilless Ag and indoor Ag and CEA. If every urban center is food
self sufficient, we can remove ‘farm regions’ and help restore habitat and
bring ecological balance. We need grasslands more than trees and forests to
sequester carbon.

If people didn’t farm and food production is automated, they can do more
productive work. Humans can be trained to do higher skill jobs. And fulfilling
work that doesn’t crush them. Every ‘industry’ is detrimental. It consumes
more than it contributes.

With farming(crops, not cafos in the original article) as an example, it’s not
just the carbon released due to tilling but also the loss of habitat and
erosion and chemicals and water. Add to it the distribution of food from farm
gate to food hubs and the entire supply chain. And then the transportation and
the refrigeration of perishables. Even the workers who need to drive to work
and all the energy they expend. The math just doesn’t work out. How much are
you spending in terms of calories and $ for a head of lettuce? The cost is too
much for what we get back in return. It makes no sense.

~~~
eesmith
You did not say when we had the free markets you want to return to.

You switched from "can we go" back to "in my lived experience."

These are two different things. I observe that most people disagree with your
experience. But that's okay - we aren't all the same. But in order to reach
your goals you're going to need to do a lot of convincing.

You wrote about "soilless Ag and indoor Ag and CEA". My points haven't changed
concerning the need for expensive equipment and higher labor. I'll note that
you originally wrote "self sufficiency" but now say "food self sufficient".
Who makes the plastic and the light sources? Where does the power for the
lights come from?

In essence, how do you get the costs down such that it best the natural
advantages of (say) growing food in California and shipping it by rail to the
rest of the US?

You write: "If every urban center is food self sufficient"

Population of NYC = 8,622,698. Size = 784 km2. That's 0.02 acres per person.

People love living in New York. People move (from farms even!) to New York.
What do you think would convince most New Yorkers to move somewhere else for
food self sufficiency?

"they can do more productive work" .. Certainly. That's what every factory
farm system always says. That's been the mantra of automation for the last few
centuries. Funnily enough, all those profits go to the capital owners, and in
doing so has lead to critiques of the free market, including by Marx.

Who gets to say what "fulfilling work" means? The stage environment around
Broadway, or the tango culture of Buenos Aires, could not exist if we all
lived in small towns like you propose. Isn't that also fulfilling? There are
all sorts of things which big cities have that smaller ones simply cannot.

I am mostly only concerned with replying to your 'self sufficient ‘village’'
question. My critique does not mean that there isn't a huge negative
environmental and cultural impact of current agricultural practices, nor does
it excuse the dependency of modern ag on cheap oil, which appears to be what
your last paragraph is about.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
Enumerating points:

1\. Free market economy exists in Asia. Singapore, for example..is run like a
corporation. I want to say it’s a free market economy but it’s only partly
free markets. Because of its resource limitations, there is some govt
interventions. It is not self sufficient and yet it functions smoothly. So
that would be the model closest to what’s in my mind of a free market economy.

2\. We are ‘going back’ on a timeline of self sufficiency. A hunter gatherer
didn’t have markets. There was no supply chain or cold chain or
transportation. They ate when they hunted and foraged the rest of the time
leaving a lot of free time. Of course, I am not saying that we ought to go
back to being hunter gatherers ..I am just saying that the world has not
become smaller physically but the resources have shrunk. It’s the physical
dimensions of resources, water, energy etc that must be localized and where we
ought to be self sufficient.

My ‘lived experience’ is high density highly populous urban experience.

3\. There is no doubt that current Ag practices have to change. Most of it has
to go indoors.

4\. I also feel that high density living has its advantages as long as the
resources needed for the tightly packed people are also accessible.

You mention NYC. It has a good transport network and parks and ingress/egress
and homes and offices and shopping. So even though it’s high density, it’s
liveable.

I live in a Silicon Valley suburb that is transforming into high density and
just high density housing. And it’s awful. Because we have traffic issues and
no public transport. The city isn’t walkable and there is no shopping or
entertainment and people who work here travel from far off and those who live
here work elsewhere. It’s an unformed high density failed city with no
ecosystem.

There is a troubling trend (here in California and in urban hearts) where
housing is being concentrated with high density goals without providing
infrastructure or an eco system. It’s crippling. The local economy
suffers..local businesses suffer...infrastructure degrades faster and schools
become over crowded. To me..it’s a bad example of high density ..nyc is a
workable model of high density.

Mobility and roads will be the key to how successful a city can be..and for
that we rely on fossil fuel. But think 100 years down the timeline or a time
when fossil fuels becomes less available ..cities may become isolated and they
would need to be self sufficient modules that are networked to other city
clusters and yet even operating independently, they don’t collapse.

5\. I dont worry too much about the cost of technology or labour to create
technology. As far as I am concerned, money is something we can print. We will
never run out of it. The detail is in the macro and micro economic word
wrangling.

Resources ..on the other hand..are finite. Fossil fuel is finite..water, top
soil ..the space around us. Regardless of how high density can be packaged as
‘sustainable’, we still need resources to maintain every warm body. A lettuce
grown in your hydroponic or soil kitchen garden takes less resources than one
that is grown 3000 miles away and is transported and refrigerated and sold in
a store and then people are paid to sell it to you and you have to bring it
back home. And by this time, the lettuce is likely 10 days from the time it
was harvested.

It’s a ridiculous amount of energy spent on lettuce you can grow from seed and
pick whenever you want. So why don’t we do this? Why can’t we grow at least
half of our food at home? We have a laundry machine and dishwasher and fridge
all built in to the house. Why not a hydroponic cupboard that is part of the
home construction? Why not a roof top garden or a attached temperature
controlled greenhouse like it’s another bedroom or a bathroom. The marginal
cost isn’t a lot but energy savings is enormous.

6\. Further..think at a larger scale. If a city can grow all it’s herbs and
nightshades and greens but only needs to buy grains and nuts and fruits from
outside markets, it’s all the more self sufficient. Every city can do what it
does best and relies on outside clusters for what it lacks.

7\. I have a farm. There is no justification to make a human being work under
the merciless sun..bending and picking fruit or lettuce for eight hours a day
for minimum wage. We are not doing anyone any favors. Its borderline
disgusting to me and highly illogical and unnecessary.

~~~
eesmith
If the mixed capitalism and socialism model of Singapore -
[http://www.rollingalpha.com/2015/03/23/singapore-a-
success-s...](http://www.rollingalpha.com/2015/03/23/singapore-a-success-
story-not-a-free-market-one/) \- is a free market then the US now is also a
free market.

You now write "going back’ on a timeline of self sufficiency .. A hunter
gatherer didn’t have markets". However, earlier you wrote "back to the times
when we can have free markets AND a limited amount of protectionism AND self
sufficiency", so you clearly weren't talking about hunter gatherers then.

FWIW, I think your view of hunter gatherers is idealistic rather than being
based on (for example) archeological evidence. You write that they had "no
supply chain or cold chain or transportation". Quoting
[http://www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9/1-CompleteSet/MES-10-Tra...](http://www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9/1-CompleteSet/MES-10-TradeEncyc.pdf)
"Trade was widely practiced in all parts of the ancient New World, among
societies of all levels of social complexity, from the earliest hunter-
gatherers to late prehistoric empires like the Aztec and Inca." Quoting
[http://members.peak.org/~obsidian/pdf/connolly_etal_2015.pdf](http://members.peak.org/~obsidian/pdf/connolly_etal_2015.pdf)
"This contrast suggests that obsidian toolstone procurement in the caldera
during middle Holocene and later times was not simply an activity embedded
into a complex of hunter-gatherer routines, but a targeted activity on a scale
that suggests a commercial enterprise."

Quite clearly hunter gatherers _had_ supply chains and transportation.

You write "Most of it has to go indoors." I quote the Wikipedia entry for CEA:
"The economics of indoor farming has been challenging, particularly the price
of electricity, and several startups shut down as a result." As the source
reference for that quote points out, at [https://finance-
commerce.com/2018/05/people-power-costs-keep...](https://finance-
commerce.com/2018/05/people-power-costs-keep-indoor-farming-down-to-earth/) ,
"It’s tough to compete with plants grown in dirt with free sunlight, after
all."

Moreover, if we switch to a solar power economy, then your proposal turns
sunlight into electricity (energy loss), into LED lighting (energy loss) into
plant growth. That is, current indoor farming uses power which mostly comes
from relatively cheap but non-sustainable non-renewables (70% of the power in
the US comes from coal, natural gas, or petroleum.)

You write "I also feel that high density living has its advantages". This
seems to contradict your earlier statement "I am not impressed by the
arguments made by high density proponents. In my lived experience, it degrades
quality of life."

Now you clarify that your experience is that of a post-war American city
designed around cars. However, 'the arguments made by high density proponents'
are specifically saying that car travel and designs like what you mention must
be avoided. (Eg, in [http://www.hcd.ca.gov/community-development/community-
accept...](http://www.hcd.ca.gov/community-development/community-
acceptance/index/docs/mythsnfacts.pdf) \- "With high-density housing, stores
serving neighborhood residents move in, allowing residents to walk to buy
groceries or to the dry cleaner instead of driving.") So you _do_ agree with
them.

I mentioned NYC to show that your view of what society should be is not
reasonable, in the senses that 1) it requires much more land area, with more
duplicated resources (eg, water treatment facilities cannot be shared), 2) it
reduces the diversity of experiences that people can have, and 3) the fact
that millions of people live in NYC means that your views are far from
commonplace.

You write "A lettuce grown in your hydroponic or soil kitchen garden takes
less resources than one that is grown 3000 miles away and is transported and
refrigerated and sold in a store and then people are paid to sell it to you
and you have to bring it back home."

The failure of many hydroponic farms shows that your statement is not
trivially true.

You know there are disadvantages to your model, right? It means that everyone
currently living in an apartment now needs more space in order to grow those
crops. That space is _expensive_ , both because city land is more expensive
than rural land, but also because the costs are not shared with anyone else.
How much more expensive are the construction costs for everyone to have an
extra hydro room? It looks like about $150/sq. ft. for the US and you're
talking, what, 100 sq. ft. so $15000? Price of organic lettuce at a farmer's
market is about $2, says [https://thenaturalfarmer.org/article/price-
comparison-of-far...](https://thenaturalfarmer.org/article/price-comparison-
of-farmers-markets-grocery-stores-and-co-ops-on-organic-and-conventional-
food/) , so that's 7,000 heads of lettuce. Now add in the price for the
hydroponics equipment and power.

In addition, my time isn't free. These aren't turn-key operations you're
talking about and it takes time to learn how to farm. Many of the people doing
home hydroponics do so as a hobby so value the farming experience. Also, if I
go on a trip for a month, what happens to my home farm? Sure, there can be
farm sitters, just like there are dog/cat sitters, but that's also not cheap.

Finally on this point, I've lived in apartments with shared laundry machines,
and houses with no laundry machines - we used laundromats. This suggests that
your views on what are reasonable seem based on being rich - you have a _farm_
in _Silicon Valley_ \- and living in suburban houses.

You write "If a city can grow". And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Again, the experience so far shows that it's not economical to do as you
propose. It appears to be more economical to have farm areas with
(sustainable) ag practices and ship the food to living areas/cities, even with
the extra transport costs.

Is there justification for paying people a living wage to work on a farm? What
about $20/hour plus access to good quality nationalized health care?

FWIW, there's also no justification to make a human work under a merciless
boss. That is, your statement, which uses the word "make", implies a lack of
job mobility and lack of social safety systems for the jobless more than
something intrinsic to the job itself.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
The problem with your post is that the Dollar is central to how you
think...but ‘currency’, as we know it... is entirely arbitrary.

Systems thinking uproots most of your objections.

On a related note: I do enjoy these kind of exchanges but I feel like you want
to ‘take me down’ ..and that’s ok. I feel like any statement I make is a
challenge to you. For that reason and because my time is limited, I am
stepping back from this discussion.

Thanks for the engagement.

~~~
eesmith
Why the ad hominem and hand waving, instead of pointing out how my objections
are wrong? You need only point out one or two, not the whole array - an array
which, btw, increased as you continued to bring up new points.

I mean, I could simply respond with "Systems thinking shows that your views
are wrong" and we would both be none the wiser.

I want to point out where you are inconsistent, especially when it results in
what appears to be you making misinterpretations of what I wrote.

I want to point out places where I think your personal experiences result in
what I think is an incorrect bias; in which case I try give concrete counter-
examples (eg, non-universal presence of laundry machines, time costs involved
in hydroponic farms)

And I want to point out places where your statements appear to be outright
wrong (eg, regarding the lack of long-distance trade among hunter-gathers).

If that's a "take me down" attitude then _shrug_. How should I have responded
to point of yours which I think are wrong or unsubstantiated? I guess I'll
never know.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
Ok. Take care. I have nothing more to contribute.

